Buying pre-surfaced lumber from the home improvement store is convenient but expensive. Rough-sawn lumber from a sawmill or lumber yard costs 30 to 50 percent less but arrives with uneven surfaces and inconsistent thickness. A thickness planer and jointer let you mill that rough lumber into smooth, dimensioned boards for your woodworking projects. These tools also let you work with reclaimed wood and salvaged lumber.

Planer and Jointer Guide: Milling Rough Lumber at Home

What Each Tool Does

Thickness Planer

A planer makes a board a consistent thickness. The board passes under a spinning cutterhead on a flat bed, and the cutterhead shaves the top surface parallel to the bottom surface. If you feed in a board that is 1-1/8 inch thick, the planer produces a board that is exactly the thickness you set — say, 3/4 inch — with a smooth top surface.

A planer does not make a board flat. It makes the top parallel to the bottom. If the bottom is cupped or twisted, the planer simply reproduces that shape at a reduced thickness.

Jointer

A jointer creates one flat face and one straight edge. The board passes over a cutterhead set between two tables. The infeed table sits slightly lower than the outfeed table, and the cutterhead removes the difference, leaving a flat surface.

A jointer makes boards flat and edges straight. It is the first step in the milling process.

The Correct Milling Sequence

Joint one face flat on the jointer
Plane to thickness with the jointed face riding on the planer bed
Joint one edge straight on the jointer
Rip to width on the table saw with the jointed edge against the fence

This four-step process produces a board that is flat, a consistent thickness, and has perfectly straight, parallel edges.

Choosing a Planer

Benchtop planers (12 to 13 inches wide) are the standard for home workshops. They handle boards up to 12 or 13 inches wide and 6 inches thick, which covers most project lumber. Key features to consider:

Cutterhead type: Helical (spiral) cutterheads produce a smoother surface with less noise and less tearout than straight-knife cutterheads. They cost more but are worth it for hardwood work.
Depth stop: Allows you to set a target thickness and stop automatically.
Snipe reduction: Snipe is a shallow gouge at the beginning and end of the board caused by the cutterhead lifting or lowering as the board enters and exits. Better planers have lock mechanisms or extra support rollers that minimize snipe.

Popular choices: DeWalt DW735 (helical option available), Makita 2012NB, WEN 6552T.

Choosing a Jointer

Benchtop jointers with 6-inch capacity handle boards up to 6 inches wide. This covers most project needs. Wider jointers (8-inch) handle wider boards but cost significantly more and take up more shop space.

For many home workshops, a hand plane or a planer sled (a flat board that carries the workpiece through the planer) can substitute for a jointer. The planer sled method works as follows: adhere the rough board to a flat piece of MDF with shims and double-sided tape, pass it through the planer to flatten one face, then remove the sled and plane normally.

Taking Light Passes

With both tools, remove small amounts of material per pass:

Jointer: 1/32 to 1/16 inch per pass
Planer: 1/32 inch per pass for finish quality, up to 1/16 inch for rough dimensioning

Heavy cuts cause tearout, put excessive stress on the motor, and produce a rougher surface. Multiple light passes give a better result in about the same total time.

Dealing with Tearout

Tearout happens when the cutterhead lifts wood fibers instead of shearing them cleanly. It is more common with figured and interlocked grain.

Reduce tearout by:

Taking very light passes (1/64 inch at a time for figured wood)
Feeding the board so the grain angles downward into the cutterhead (not upward)
Wetting the surface slightly before planing to soften the fibers
Upgrading to a helical cutterhead

Dust and Chip Collection

Planers and jointers produce enormous volumes of wood chips. A shop vacuum handles a jointer reasonably well, but a planer overwhelms most shop vacuums. A dedicated dust collector (even a small, single-stage unit) is the practical solution for a planer.

Connect the planer’s 4-inch dust port to the collector with flexible hose. Without dust collection, you will spend more time cleaning up chips than you spend actually planing.

Safety

Never place your hands near the cutterhead on either tool
Use push blocks on the jointer, especially for face-jointing thin boards
Stand to the side of the planer outfeed — boards can eject backward on rare occasions
Never plane boards shorter than the minimum length specified by the manufacturer (usually 10 to 12 inches)
Inspect boards for nails, staples, and embedded debris before planing — especially reclaimed lumber

A planer alone costs $300 to $500. Adding a jointer or using the planer sled method gives you complete milling capability that opens up a world of affordable rough lumber for every project in your workshop.