I’ve just about given up on my new jointer. It worked fine for awhile, now its bowing, tapering or just not doing a perfect job. May as well just use my thicknesser for everything, even though you can’t but still a lot less headache than trying to get this jointer perfect. I’ve tried shims, feeler gauges, watched all the videos. Maybe its the blades? Haven’t touched them? Both beds seem to be coplanar? I’ve shimmed them up and down, though just end up with another problem. How accurate does everything have to be? within a 10th of a mil?
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Replies
The answer is 'close enough' - not satisfying, but to be honest, I usually adjust to within the thickness of a sheet of paper - say 3/1000" more or less then test with 5-6 passes. If it's planing the wood flat then I call it done. If there's a tiny cup, creating a very slight spring joint then I'll also accept it, but if there's a bow it's back to the adjustments.
I only accept the spring because it's so painful adjusting more!
I find that the key to adjustment is to get a decent straight edge - doesn't need to be perfect, just a good one - I use a cheap box section from the DIY store - just check it against the next one in the tub - if they are flat against each other, chances are both are good enough.
Make sure you adjust the outfeed relative to the cutters first, then adjust the infeed to be as coplanar as you can. I had a deWalt which would take a minimum of 2 hours to get right after changing blades unless I was very lucky.
thank you for your reply, I'm trying to plane pellet timber so it is quite flexible. After reading alittle im now thinking that my technique could be off also. Trying to take to much off at once and also applying to much down pressure on the outfeed side?? don't know will keep fine tuning the jointer and technique 👍
I purchased a 60's era Poitras jointer that needed serious realignment.
I own John Whites book 'Care and Repair of Shop Machines: A Complete Guide to Setup, Troubleshooting, and Maintenance". He used to be the FWW machine guru. What he details in his book is covered in this article, https://www.finewoodworking.com/2000/06/01/jointer-tune-up
He has several other articles in FWW on jointers as well.
I highly recommend building the poor man's straight edge, i.e. the shop made test bar. It's persnickety business to get them perfect but necessary.
I bought a 12" straight edge from Lee Valley as well as building the magnet gizmo to set the knives. It works. My jointer works perfectly.