Modified jointer

No, not a tool for aging hippies with arthritis... A simple modification to an ordinary woodworkers jointer that puts grooves in boards. Lots of grooves. Lots of grooves fast! Lots of toenail gripping grooves! ...Toenail?

Rough sawn poplar with 17 grooves.

Western red cedar with 17 grooves. Cedar 1 X 8's from the local 'big box' building supply are quite expen$ive! Oddly, only available rough on one side, planned smooth on the other. I need rough on both sides which is a big part of what forced me to this phase of an ever growing boondoggle. The rough sawn poplar, while considerably less expensive than cedar, is way too thick and will end up planned on at least one side as well. Sigh...

Have not tried any oak yet, but based on this pine knot it should handle hard woods as well.
Now that we have seen what it can do lets see how to bork up a brand new set of jointer knives.

Two for one deal! I can bork up grinder rocks too. Warning! Due to the dangers involved I do not suggest trying this with a modern high speed bench grinder. Mine is old and slow and the belt should slip long before it eats a second finger if I do something stupid.

First try on grinding the knives. Since they would not cut deep enough without hitting I went back and ground them slightly deeper and added a radius on the edge that hit first. Also re-dressed the rock on the bench grinder to try for sharper corners in the notches.

second try

Partially succeeded... Also obvious why all the boards above have exactly 17 grooves.

zoom zoom

Zoomed view of same.

Knife installed in the cutter head and a view of the belt slot to the gravity tension motor. BTW, unlike normal jointing where the in feed table is set lower that the out feed table by the intended depth of cut, and the knife tips are virtually flush with the out feed table. I have both sides of the table flush and the cutter tips set above them by my intended depth of cut.

Jointer on a shelf. Since it did not come with a stand I decided to mount it to a wall to save valuable floor space.

One more test, grooved PVC. Expanded PVC to be specific, the kind that is like a stiff foam in the middle with a hard glossy layer on both sides. A bit pricey, but slightly less so if you have connections with a local supplier. Chipped a bit as you can see, but this was mainly due to my sample being old.

If your wondering just what the heck this loon is doing putting grooves in lumber (and now plastic) that looked perfectly fine with out the grooves? Bat Houses! The baffles inside need grooves when your not using rough sawn lumber.

Currently have five active bat houses on the back of our house and our colony of bats has grown from 7 in 2010 to over 200 the last time I counted them in 2017.

A few years back had hopes and dreams of starting a business selling bat houses. Those plans are on indefinite hold...

William Bagwell