Reply To: Finger jointer

Johan, as I understand it, finger joints are a purely machine made joint to make long boards out of shorter ones. I doubt many would try to make that sort of joint by hand. Instead, hand woodworkers use various kinds of scarf joints. to joint wood end to end. Some scarf joints are very simple and some are very complex. But even that is not all that common in furniture making. After all, we rarely use really long pieces of wood and therefore rarely have need to make long boards out of short ones! However, if I were making a large piece, I can imagine not having boards long enough, I suppose. In which case I would use a scarf joint I guess.

As I understand it, both finger and scarf joints are way more common in architectural stuff. I have seen finger joints in things like baseboards and various kinds of trim carpentry. Scarf joints can be used there as well but also in work that requires a lot of strength, including constructions out of large timbers. (The Japanese are famous for that sort of use.)

I am curious as to what you want to use these joints for.