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On Song of the Great Lakes I thought I saw where he said the conical sander could also act as a jointer. I may be incorrect but could that be true?

The conical sanding disk make an nice looking edge. Since I keep a SHORTY set up with the conical sanding disk, I move the main table from 0 degrees to 4 degrees. I check with a engineer's square for 90 degrees. I am normally sanding plywood edges or wood strips.

putttn wrote:On Song of the Great Lakes I thought I saw where he said the conical sander could also act as a jointer. I may be incorrect but could that be true?

By doing your sanding does that suffice for the jointer?

putttn wrote:By doing your sanding does that suffice for the jointer?

The conical disk sander in recommended set up position will sand one side parallel to the opposite. If the opposite side is flat, so will be the sanded side. If the opposite side is concave and the fence is long enough so a corner of the fenced side does not fall off of the fence - then with many repeated passes, the other side (probably convex) can be straightened. This method would not be at all a reasonable practice for face straightening.

This seems like a lot of trouble to me. Sanding really should be reserved for finishing rather than shaping. To use any mechanical sander efficiently, a thickness only as deep as the grit should be removed in any one pass.

A jointer would be used to first joint a concave side of a board. Once flattened other faces can be made square to the first.

Not all by itself. The conical sander will not put a true edge on a board unless that board already has at least one true edge with which to guide the board past the sander. You can affix a reliable metal straightedge to the board with carpet tape and use that to guide the board -- I've used that trick on occassion to true heavily-figured wood that I didn't want to joint. But it's a time-consuming process compared to using a jointer.

With all good wishes,