Video: How To Get the Most From Your Thickness Planer

Video Transcription

Benchtop planers are so useful in the modern woodshop. Today, I'm going to offer up some quick tips that will help you get the most from your benchtop planer. I hope you find them useful. Of course, the main job of a thickness planer, a benchtop planer, is to smooth and thickness lumber. You don't make it flat with a planer, you use a jointer to do that. Primarily, it's to deal with rough-cut lumber like this.

First off, check the edge of your lumber to see which way the grain is flowing. There will be less tear out if you plane with the grain, rather than against it. Next, as you approach the desired thickness for your stock, start making very shallow cuts in an effort to avoid snipe. I always use a roll-off support of some kind as well. With quality pointers like this new jet, you should be able to almost eliminate snipe.

The last trick is one I learned in my family's cabinet shop. We primarily made face frame cabinetry. What we would do is surface our face frame material to thickness, and then cut it to width on the table saw. The last step before cutting the strips to various links was to put it through the planer one last time, but this time on edge. This ensured the face frame stock was exactly the same width and had one super-smooth edge. I hope these simple tips have been interesting and useful to you.