John do you anyone who has this paticular jointer. I just bought it just a week ago. It’s a Factory Reconditioned machine. It wasn’t set up per the owners manual and the knives were all messed up.the person who set this machine up had tightned the locking bar screws so tight that the knives came apart where they were laminated. Delta sent me some new knives, locking bars, and screws but the knives are longer than the cutterhead by 1/4″ . Everything points that these are the correct knives here are some pictures and the manual .you can see how far the knife sticks out inro the rabbit slot. Certainly you wouldn’t have to cut down brand new knives for this machine. On the fence side I left enough clearance so that the knife cannot hit the pillow block . Im really at a lose here and would appreciate it very much If someone could shed some light on this most difficult problem. Thank you Christopher Mitchell
Replies
You are OK
Christopher,
You appear to be set up correctly, the knives can stick out slightly beyond the ends of the head, they don't have to line up with the edges of the tables, in fact they should stick out a bit beyond the edge of the outfeed table if you will be trying to rabbet. If you intend to actually rabbet on the machine you should make all of the knives line up at the operators side of the head by using a small wood block clamped to the table as a stop when you install the knives. If you are really serious about rabbeting, you should sharpen the ends of the knives like the long cutting edges.
Delta DJ30 jointer
Hey John Thanks for the advise It turnned out that I have a much larger problem than the knives sticking out. Those knives that delta sales have to be beveled on the ends If you plan on Rabbiting at all. The do make a loud howling noise sticking out so far though . Since then I relpace them with some other knives that are beveled. The big problem is that The owners Manual directions on how to set the knives in the cutterhead is wrong and i cant find the correct answer. I need to find someone who has this Jointer so I can ask them how to set this Jointer up. The Owners Manual says to set the outfeed table .015" above the cutterhead body and then set the knives according to that. when I did that the cut was just terrible. I called the tech center at Delta and they told me to set the outfeed table at .030" instead of .015" above the cutterhead . when i did this the cut was better but it was so loud that anyone could tell that something wasn't right. also my brand new knives went dull before I could even clean up three boards.And to top it all off If I try to join anything over five inches wide It tapers front to back,side to side, and it turns a concave board into a convex board. I've never seen that happen in the whole, "Let see" six years that i've been doing woodworking. That was a joke. On Delta/Portercables web site under FAQ in the service/technical service section I found a file on how to set the tables coplaner. It's a great article It says to set the outfeed table at .010" above the cutterhead boby, check tables for flatness with a straight edge, which I have two. A 48" Starrett and a 50" Veratis. The tables are dead flat I could'nt get a .00010 filler gauge under the straight edge anywhere on both tables and the make sure that you have .010" above the cutterhead with the straight edge on the fence side of the table and the the operator side of the table the cross check the table again making sure that you have .010" gap above the cutterhead body. The File has a note with an * stating that .010" is critical. after that you extend the straight edge over the infeed table and set it at .010" below the straightedge. Just standard 101 parallelogram table allignment procudures. But when I called the tech center they told me to drop the infeed table down to .020" and then coplane the table at that setting. This is why I need to find someone who has this jointer so i can ask them what the real deal is.I emailed the company I purchased this machine from and told them that I wanted a machine that worked correctly or to give me my money back so I can buy something else. Can you please try to help me with this problem , Not the return of the machine I can do that ha ha, but to try and find out what is the correct allignment procedures are for this machine. You can email me at [email protected] I would be very thankful. I saw an articial in Fine Woodworking one time and one of the well known woodworkers had this machine. I cant remember which issue it was but ill try and find it. Thanks Christopher Mitchell
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