During most classes I teach, someone asks me how to plane a glued-up rail-and-stile joint so it’s flush.
My answer: Don’t do it.
Yes, it can be done. There have been barrels of ink spent to write about this topic. How to arrange the grain in the stiles and rails. How to skew the tool as you approach the joint. How to make the turn with poise and aplomb.
I never do this trick unless I’ve made some sort of mistake and have no choice. Instead, I get all my joints flush before assembly. That’s easier than it sounds. Check out the video above where I’m planing the joints for a fairly sizable table.
By planing these joints while they are dry-assembled I gain a lot of advantages.
1. I can run my finger across the joint and know when I’m getting close. No measuring.
2. I can use the curved iron in my plane to sneak up on the seam. By shifting the plane left or right I can control how much material I take off at the seam.
3. If I mess up and nick the intersecting piece with my plane, it’s an easy thing to disassemble the joint and fix the cross-grain boo-boo.
In the video I’m using a jointer plane. You can use any plane – from a jack to a block to a smooth. I needed to remove about 1/32” of material on this table so I chose a tool that had an aggressive curve to its iron.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The background music can be downloaded for free from the Free Music Archive.
I’ve got a furniture piece a relative made, gave as a gift, and he didn’t get the joints flush. Now I know how to fix them.
Slightly off topic, but involving handplanes. I just did two work-a-day (not fine furniture work, but necessary projects) projects that involved planing that came out quite well. Before I bought nice planes and learned to use them via Chris and others, these two projects that involved long, straight edges with constant width between the edges would have been much harder. Harder, even if I’d used a power planer, given the materials and the precision I needed. Thanks Chris and all who’ve commented or offered tips.
Excuse my noobieness, why do you plane parallel to the joint line instead of perpendicular?
Carlos,
I hope I understand the question. If my answer doesn’t make sense, we’ll try again. When you plane a right-angle joint like that, you have to avoid traversing the grain because it will blow out and get furry.
Yes?