planer vs jointer
Sophia Vance
Updated on June 13, 2026
In my opinion, you should purchase the planer first. You’ll be able to accomplish more with it on its own than you can with a jointer. The jointer excels at making one flat face and one square/flat edge and that’s about it.
Can you use a planer without a jointer?
Board going through jointer. Traditionally, a jointer flattens boards and a planer brings them to thickness (see Parallel universe, below). But if you don’t own a jointer, or you need to flatten a board wider than your jointer beds, your planer or router can do the flattening when you follow these steps.
Can you use a planner as a jointer?
A planer can be used as a jointer by following a few woodworking tricks. Woodworking jointers and planers are used to mill wood so they can be used to build furniture and other projects to correct dimensions.
Is a jointer really necessary?
Simply purchase your lumber already milled in S3S or S4S form (surfaced on three sides or surfaced on 4 sides). If you’re at a point in your woodworking where you’re starting to use rough sawn lumber, say from a lumber mill or your local sawyer, then a jointer is absolutely essential to your shop workflow.
Will a planer fix warped boards?
In order to flatten a warped, twisted, or cupped board, a common approach is to first use a jointer to create one perfectly flat face. Then you run the board through a thickness planer with the flat face downward, and the planer makes the top face parallel to the bottom.
Can I use a table saw as a jointer?
Although the table saw can be used as a jointer to make the faces of a wood piece flat, it can also be used to square an edge to have perfectly perpendicular faces. You can use the same jig to do this. For adjacent faces to be perpendicular, the table saw blade must be square with the tabletop.
Do you joint or plane first?
That’s why it’s important to joint one face first: Without a flat face to ride against the planer tables, the feed rollers simply press the board flat against the tables while the knives plane the top face. Any cup, bow, or twist springs back once the board exits the planer.
Can you plane a 2×4 on edge?
If the edges are not square to the faces, planing will not correct that. I use 2x’s to make prototypes – just like any other piece of wood, joint one face and one edge, then plane – end up with flat and straight pieces 1.25 thick.
Does Dewalt make a jointer?
DEWALT®’s portable or stationary cordless routers, joiners, and planers meet your professional woodworking demands. Shop online or locally today.
Are planers worth it?
If you really want to get into woodworking, a thickness planer is worth the cost. Once you have it, you’ll never regret the expenditure, because you’ll be in control of your stock thickness like never before.
Can you plane wood on its side?
Yes – you can “edge joint” w/the planer and a jig – but, at the cost of your planer now being able to put a nice smooth even face on something.
Can you put plywood through a planer?
And planing across the grain of a ply creates long stringy fibers rather than tiny chips, which can clog the planer’s dust port. In the future, should you need plywood with two good faces, we suggest laminating pieces of thinner plywood or applying veneer over the “bad” face.
When would you use a planer?
A planer is used to shave wood from the surface of boards. Imagine scraping a knife across the top of a block of butter. That’s pretty much the action with a planer – though you might need a bit more muscle power! They’re used to make a rough surface flat and smooth, or to reduce its thickness.
How do you straighten wood without a jointer?
Cut a pair of straight runners the length of the workpiece and glue them to both edges, as shown. After the glue dries, remove the clamps and run the assembly through the planer — crowned face up. Continue machining until the planer flattens the entire top face of the board.
Can you use a jointer on both sides?
No, you cannot. This will make the board square, but it will NOT ensure it doesn’t taper. With the jointer you can only make each corner square. You can’t make the opposing faces parallel with each other.
Can a planer flatten a cupped board?
It is difficult to flatten a cupped board with a thickness planer because the downward pressure of the feed rolls will press out much of the cup, thereby not allowing the planer knives to flatten the board. As it emerges from the planer, it simply springs back to its original cup.
How do you flatten a board without a planer?
Lesser Alternatives In The Absence Of A Planer
The same can be said for simple hand-sanding. Time-consuming and strenuous, a sandpaper block will nonetheless do the job if you have both the time and the patience. A jack plane and hand-sanding combined effort will cut down on some of the time and give you a good result.
What to do if you dont have a planer?
There are basically four ways to work around not having a planer in your shop.
You can build a sled.Mill the boards by hand.Use the hand plane approach, but with a belt sander or hand power planer.Or use a wide form sander with a jointer sled/a>.