Page History: Pre History of Jointers
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Page Revision: 2008/04/01 22:54
A
jointer produces a flat face on a board. (The modern jointer can also produce a flat edge that is square to the face, but most it its predecessors only produced a flat face.)
As covered in
Early History of Jointers, the modern jointer was patented by Climer and Riley in 1866. Before that, many attempts were made to produce an effective machine to flatten the faces of boards.
The earliest woodworking machines were sawmills that reduced a log to rough-sawn boards. The sawmill drastically reduced the amount of labor required to build a house. The next most labor-intensive process in producing finished lumber was surface planing, which produces boards that are reasonably smooth and of consistent thickness.
The first surface planers were mainly used to produce flooring and clapboards, because these products could be produced directly from rough-sawn lumber with no need to flatten them because these thin softwood products are nailed into place, which holds them flat. Still, it was desirable to mechanize the process of producing surfaced hardwood and thicker lumber, where flattening a face is mandatory.
The first successful machine for flattening the face of a board was the Daniels planer.
Patented in 1834 by Thomas E. Daniels of Worcester, MA, this machine had a footprint more than twice as long as the longest board it could flatten. The board to be planed was placed on the carriage, and then shimmed so that it could not rock or flex. The carriage then moved under the horizontally-spinning cutter, which produced a flat upper surface. The Daniels planer was very successful, and was produced by several different makers: