Hello. Thank you for everyone’s time and consideration. I’m a very very novice woodworker (if I can even call myself that, LOL.) I think I may have messed up my jointer insets on my Rikon bench top jointer. I was trying to be cheap and I glued two scrap pieces of poplar together to make one. I used Elmer’s wood Glue Max. Not sure if that’s what I should be using? After drying for a few days, I ran the glued pieces faced down across my jointer. After about three passes, I noticed a considerable difference in the performance of the jointer. I ditched my “cheap” attempt at making a single board, and used an unglued full piece of poplar and the jointer now leaves several lines throughout the board and it also sounds and feels like there’s a lot more vibration as I run boards across the jointer. My question, is there any type of glue that’s safer for running over jointer inserts (I believe my jointer has HSS inserts)? Also, is there any links to videos where I could learn to sharpen those HSS jointer inserts? Thanks so much for any advice. I’m learning that woodworking is a very difficult hobby to learn the ends and outs, and we all tend to make mistakes early on. I just don’t want to be buying jointer inserts every few months. Thanks again!
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Replies
Disconnect the plug and take a close look at your knives, they are either chipped or clogged. Glue does not chip jointer knives normally and unless you have the grinding equipment, knives are sent to the sharpening service in your area.
Glue shouldn't damage carbide inserts, but a lot of glue dries harder than wood. If you were trying to take a shortcut and didn't scrape off excess squeeze out drops, you may have nicked an insert or two. So here are a couple of options.
#1 Don't do anything yet. Call it a learning experience about how to deal with squeeze out. It sounds like the lines in the poplar are easily sanded out. Consider it your penance for trying to take a short cut.
#2 Most inserts are sharp on 4 sides and are rotated to a sharp side instead of sharpening. For most hobbyists, that is a once every few years kind of task. You might need to rotate and move on.
#3 Go have a close look at the glued wood. Was it really the glue? Is there something else in the wood? A screw or nail? If so, see above.
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