Replies

1. 
   rslatm | May 01, 2003 03:39pm | #1

   Dull knives!
2. 
   forestgirl | May 01, 2003 06:10pm | #2

   Dulls knives and excessive cut depth are a good bet.  The jointer should get a complete tune-up before use -- knives sharp, at the appropriate height (and all at the same height), fence 90*, all that stuff.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)

1. 
   Dalewood | May 02, 2003 03:34pm | #3

   Thanks for the help. I just ordered a set of Freud jointer knives from Amazon and they should be here in around 5-6 days.  I am sure the new knives will have to improve the performance.

1. 
   pauld | May 02, 2003 07:25pm | #4

   Dalewood,

   Have you considered also purchasing a dial indicator? It will help you ensure your new knives are properly installed in your jointer before you power it up. There are many other ways to align jointer knives, including jigs and straight-edges, that are also worth considering. FWIW, you might want to research the subject a little for best results.

   Good luck,Paul

1. 
   Dalewood | May 02, 2003 07:40pm | #5

   Paul,  Thanks for the advice.  I have access to a dial indicator that I can use and a friend of mine told me he has a tool with a magnetic base that is just for aligning knives.  I am not real sure though when they design these jointers why  they cannot be self aligning, in other words when you seat the knives until they bottom out they are aligned automatically. Oh well I am sure there is a reason, maybe it is the table being true or not.  Thanks again.  

1. 
   Tac4 | May 02, 2003 08:11pm | #6

   The height adjustment allows the knives to be sharpened. Otherwise your knives would grow too short to be useful.  But honey, I can make money if I had just one more tool. Really.

2. 
   pauld | May 02, 2003 08:17pm | #7

   Dalewood,

   "I am not real sure though when they design these jointers why they cannot be self aligning, in other words when you seat the knives until they bottom out they are aligned automatically. Oh well I am sure there is a reason, maybe it is the table being true or not."

   As long as all of the jointer knives have identical dimensions, and the cutterhead is perfectly machined and installed, all of the knives would "automatically" have the same height above the cutterhead: The knives and outfeed table would still have to be adjusted until tangent to one another, even with perfectly flat and true infeed and outfeed tables.

   In the real world, perfect alignment of knives, cutterheads, and tables is difficult to achieve. A dial indicator is useful when measuring, and adjusting, the extent to which the position of the knives (at top dead center) are in line with the outfeed table.

   Good luck,Paul

3. 
   AlanTurner | May 02, 2003 10:19pm | #8

   In fact there is such an animal.  Called the Esta system.  See it here.  http://www.estausa.com/  This co. sells you an insert, and then disposable blades, 2 sided, sort of like the disposable Delta 12.5" planer knives.  It si a pin register system.  Not too spendy.  I hate setting jointer knives (about 4 hours for me), and am between this, and a helical spiral carbide-insert cutterhead, which for my older beast will have to be specially milled.  Sharp knives right now, so no decision yet made.  I must say that if I don't do the spiral, I will do the Esta, but am leaning towards the spiral.  Once and done, and wonderful cuts, some say.  Armi showed his General 12" with one of these, and he just raved about the ability to do figured woods, without even looking at grain direction, which is  a bit hard to believe, but I sure would like to.  There are many times when it would be more convenient to run an edge or face against the grain.  If you do neither, it is not a bad idea to have a 2d set of knives for when the dull ones are being sharpened.

2. 
   JohnWW | May 03, 2003 01:48am | #9

   A jointer is one of the trickier machines to set up properly, they aren't quite as simple as they look.  The recommendations to get a dial indicator or magnetic jig are both reasonable but first you really need to get a good article or book on the subject.  Tuning up a jointer involves more than just throwing in a new set of knives.  Don't bother trying to track down a manual for the machine, most of them are worthless. 

   It shouldn't take more than a half hour to replace a set of knives on any machine if the the jibs and jib screws haven't been beaten up.  After trying several methods, I've found that a shop made magnetic jig is the fastest and easiest way to set up knives.

   Manufacturers could easily make jointers that use disposable quick change replacement knives, that nobody does is an indication of how traditional and lacking in imagination the industry is.   You can get larger machines with disposable knives and almost all of the handheld power planes now have disposable knives, with carbide blades no less.  The only jointers that don't have them are 6 inch home shop machines.  The first maker to come out with a small disposable knife jointer will sell a lot of machines and will turn a good buck selling replacement knives ever after.  I can't believe that someone hasn't done it already.

   Good luck, John 

   Edited 5/2/2003 6:49:01 PM ET by JohnW