# Resawing rails/stiles on tablesaw?



## skatefriday (May 5, 2014)

I've been making some shaker panel doors, or rather
making firewood while I teach myself how to make shaker
panel doors, and as I was spending a bunch of time running
rails through my bench planer and dealing with tearout and
snipe I thought there has to be a better way.

My rails/stiles are a finished width of 1 3/4" and I'm starting 
with 4/4 maple and planing down to 3/4", and I thought resawing
would be a lot faster.

I raised the blade on my saw resawed a very small portion off of
one side of each rail, then set my final width and resawed the 
rest off of the other side.

It worked pretty well, there are saw marks, but they appear as
though they'll sand out easily.

Having that much blade exposed is kind of scary, but the rails are
completely supported by the fence on one side and a magnetic
featherboard on the other.

Is there any reason, safety or otherwise that I shouldn't be doing
this and I should back to standing in front of my planer for a half
hour incrementally taking off thickness?

Thanks in advance.


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## intelligen (Dec 28, 2009)

I'd probably use a tablesaw jointing jig instead. If I understand correctly what you're doing right now, it would be the same, only the blade would be buried in the fence to the right of your workpiece (assuming your fence is to the right of the blade), rather than having the blade to the left of your workpiece. This would feel safer to me.

I know you said you're resawing, but the way you're doing it right now, there's little to no cutoff, correct? If so, using the jointing jig would still take about the same number of passes that you're currently taking if you're using a standard kerf blade.


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## skatefriday (May 5, 2014)

> I d probably use a tablesaw jointing jig instead. If I understand correctly what you re doing right now, it would be the same, only the blade would be buried in the fence to the right of your workpiece (assuming your fence is to the right of the blade), rather than having the blade to the left of your workpiece. This would feel safer to me.
> 
> I know you said you re resawing, but the way you re doing it right now, there s little to no cutoff, correct? If so, using the jointing jig would still take about the same number of passes that you re currently taking if you re using a standard kerf blade.
> 
> - Rob


Correct, most of the cuts are less than kerf width with the wood and fence
to the right of the blade. Occasionally it will take off a veneer, but mostly it
just makes an excessive amount of dust.

I'm familiar with edge jointing jigs but haven't seen any yet that enable
face jointing.


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## skatefriday (May 5, 2014)

This is the result. Second cabinet. The first one with doors.


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## TheWoodenOyster (Feb 6, 2013)

I've done stuff like that quite a bit. I don't really like doing it, but I confess that I do it. That is the sort of cut that I wouldn't advise a beginner to make, but I still do it in my shop. If you have a decent setup with a featherboard and such, you should be ok. Just don't come to me when you get kickback. I'm sure there are jigs to make this a little safer. The taller and skinnier the piece gets, the hairier the cut. You might consider doing it on a bandsaw to cut off a lot of the waste then go to the planer, but that sounds like it may negate what you are trying to accomplish.

All in all, it isn't a "supersafe" cut, but it can be done in my opinion. Just be careful. I have made some cuts that are way stupider than this and I'm still ok.


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## skatefriday (May 5, 2014)

I use a magswitch magnetic featherboard, my saw has a riving knife,
I stand to the left, and use the push stick that came with the grizzly.

I don't have a bandsaw and probably won't acquire one anytime soon
as I don't have the space. I do need to see if I can figure out what Rob
was referring to with respect to a face jointing jig.


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## changeoffocus (Dec 21, 2013)

However you are getting it done the finish product looks great.


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## intelligen (Dec 28, 2009)

> Correct, most of the cuts are less than kerf width with the wood and fence
> to the right of the blade. Occasionally it will take off a veneer, but mostly it
> just makes an excessive amount of dust.
> 
> ...


I also had trouble finding a video at first, until I realized I was using the wrong term…technically the "jig" I was suggesting is a fixture. Basically it involves removing your riving knife, installing a sacrificial fence, and raising the blade into the fence so there's a cutout of the blade in the fence, about flush with the blade. Then you add a thin strip of material behind the blade and adjust the fence so that rear (shimmed) part of the sacrificial fence is flush with the blade. 




In the video he demonstrates using it for edge jointing but I'm almost certain I've also seen the technique used for face jointing. That said, the one shown in the video isn't easily adjustable to remove varying thicknesses. I can think of a couple possible improvements to the technique:

1. Split the sacrificial fence right in the middle (at the highest point of the blade or very slightly past it), so the front or back half can be easily shimmed or adjusted, allowing for varying thicknesses to be removed. You may also be able to use a different attachment method (spray adhesive or turner's tape?) to easily attach and remove different shims on the back side of the sacrificial fence, instead of making a split fence.

OR

2. A drawback to using the fence alone is that you can't joint short pieces because at some point there wouldn't be enough contact with the fence. A sled that holds your workpiece and either rides in the left miter slot or slides against the sacrificial fence above the blade would solve this problem. Since the blade is always at least slightly buried in the fence, there is no cutoff.

I suppose you could also use #2 above without the sacrificial fence or you could rig up a similar type of workpiece holder that rides on top of your fence instead of in the miter slot. But if I was doing a lot of pieces like this, I might go with the sacrificial fence and tweak #2 above.


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