I recently took delivery on a 6” Yorkcraft Jointer by Wilke Machinery. This has got to be the Best Value machine on the market. I got it to the house for just over $400. It took me just over two hours to assemble, fifteen minutes to wipe the oil off the machined surfaces and another hour to fine tune it. Everything fit like a glove, the machined surfaces looked great. It has got a compact rack and pinion fence adjuster and a post mounted On/Off switch. It even came with two push pads.
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I have only one issue, and it may well be my own ignorance. The jointer hums’ beautifully when the machine is turned on, but makes a cracking sound when jointing a 5” wide piece of poplar. It almost sounds like maybe the cutters are not as sharp as they should be. If I slow the feed way down, it’s not as bad.
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Is my machine OK or do these factory knives typically need to be honed?
Replies
Make sure the knives are all tight and the cutting edges are all aligned. Some jointers come with jack screws and springs and if you ask the company, they are both installed so the owner has a choice but the retaining screws all need to be checked.
I found that it's a lot easier using the jack screws to adjust the knives.
Are you feeding the wood in the correct direction?
Life is what happens to you when you're making other plans .
I've been maintaining and rebuilding jointers for 25 years and not sure about the cracking noise you describe. Typically dull knives get louder and hammer the wood as they get dull. You can feel the resistance of the cutting. Honing them isn't going to do much. As soon as wood hits the edge of the knife it starts to dull. Typically factory knives are never as good as good after market knives. Get your next set of knives from Charles Schmidtt or Wisconsin Knife Works.
If everything is set up correctly, you may be going too fast or cutting against the grain. Going the wrong way usually gives a snap-crackle sound.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
You could be going against the grain, feeding too fast, or taking a cut too deep. You may even have a shake (internal split) within the board. Cast iron generally doesn't make such a sound but wood can. I have bought several jointers over the years. All came with sharp knives including my own Yorkcraft 8-incher. Check the edge with a fingernail. Or, just for your own satisfaction, run a fine stone down the blades to remove any burr you may have.
Cadiddlehopper
Ron, the knives need to be honed if they are blunt....Are they blunt? Check them for sharpness as suggested by others.I assume they are correctly set.
What sort of surface are you getting on that poplar? Have you tried running the piece in either direction?
I have found that on jointers with knife geometry set up for soft woods the sound you describe is common with soft woods like pine etc. Who cares, as long as the surface is smooth....
Thank you all for your input and feed back.
Based on responses, I concluding that perhaps I may have an issue with lack of experience. At the same time, I believe the quality of the cutters may be an issue as well. A machine priced in this range has got to recap cost somewhere. I tried flipping the board feed and got the same results.
Ron,
This may or may not be the problem, but whenever I mis-set my jointer knives this same sound occurs. It's usually the case that one of the knives is set slightly higher than the others. Therefore, it's the only one doing the work. The sound of that one knife hitting the wood produces a "clicking" type noise. Plus, the edge of the lumber is not smooth - it has visible ridges across it.
Here's what you can do to dope out if this is the problem. Unplug the machine. Retract (lower) the infeed table slightly so that it won't interfere with what you'd going to test on the outfeed table.
Balance a straightedge on its edge on the outfeed table (I use the twelve inch blade from a combination square, removed from the square's body) so that about 9 inches of it is on the outfeed table and 3 inches hangs over the cutter. Line up one of the inch markings with the leading edge of the outfeed table.
Slowly rotate the jointer's cutting head by hand, observing what happens when the knives reach the straightedge. On my jointer, if each knife coming around to the top engages and then causes the blade to move forward 1/8 inch, the jointer is set properly. If the straightedge moves forward further than that, the blade is set too high. If the straightedge doesn't move at all, the blade is too low.
After you check one side of the cutting head, check the other (side to side I mean). The jointer's blades can be easily adjusted up and down for proper alignment, though it might take a little while to get the knack of it at first. You'll get better at it as time goes on.
Write back and let us know what you find... Zolton
Ron,
This may or may not be the problem, but whenever I mis-set my jointer knives this same sound occurs. It's usually the case that one of the knives is set slightly higher than the others. Therefore, it's the only one doing the work. The sound of that one knife hitting the wood produces a "clicking" type noise. Plus, the edge of the lumber is not smooth - it has visible ridges across it.
Sure enough, I got into my jointer last night and using the approach you suggested to check for cutter height, I found one cutter setting lower than the other two and of the two, one was mis-set front to back.
It took me about fifteen minutes to reset all three. The chopping sound went away and I now have a glass smooth finish. I was amazed how much of a difference it made just turning the allen wrench a smidgen.
I thank you kindly for your help. It will be the set-up procedure I will use from this point on.
RonT
Ron,
That's great news. I'm happy it helped - and that the solution was relatively simple... Zolton
Ron,
Be sure your not feeding the wood through the jointer against the grain. Look at the edge that your jointing,you'll be able to tell because the fibers of the wood looks as if they've been torn away leaving small spaces where the wood once was. I know exactly the noise your talking about because when I run the wood against the grain in my Delta "6 I hear the same noise. To rectify the situation try flipping the stock being jointed end for end also try another species of wood to see if it still makes the noise when you joint soft wood. Good luck,
Sincerely,Jim at Clark Customs
Thanks to all for your input. Many of you have suggested maybe the board was being fed against the grain; that is not the case.
Zolton had a very good suggestion that I have not had a chance to investigate; that's my next step. If my knives are out of elevation just a hair relative to each other, his solution makes a lot of sense.
Will keep you posted.
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