jointer rebuild questions (longish)

[Jerry Ingraham]

Good Morning Everyone,
In an effort to save myself some cash right now, I'm re-hab'ing my 13 year old Grizzly 6" jointer. I have so far replaced the bearings on the cutterhead shaft, ordered machined pulleys/link belt, and now need to flatten the infeed and outfeed tables. I went to a machine shop and they had no way to do it. I went to two different automotive machine shops and they couldn't either (no way to hold them in their surface grinders). I know this can be done, am I looking in the wrong places or is their some way I can accomplish this myself? The out feed table isn't bad maybe .002 - .004 low in spots, but the infeed table has a spot about 10" long, 6" back from the cutterhead which is about .010 - .012 low. Is there a home remedy for this?
Secondly, how do you compensate for table sag in the dovetail ways? I do not know but I suspect that the outfeed may sag. Do you simply shim it with shim stock? Since the outfeed table isn't moved very much I would think the shim stock would be fine.
Lastly, as it relates to coplaner alignment, do you align the infeed table to the cutterhead and then the out feed to the infeed? Can that be done with winding sticks or is a dial indicator a must?
There, that's it for now, though I'm sure there will be more questions to come and I really appreciate your help.

Jerry

[Mac McAtee]

There is ways to hold these tables on a surface grinder. There may have not been a way on the surface grinder they have. Another concern that they may have had and didn't express could be the problem of getting the top of the tables in the proper relationship to the ways.

If you referenced the top of the table to get it parallel to the grind stone and then ground the surface you may find that the new surface is not at the correct angle to the ways. Even worse would be correct to one of the ways but off from the other one. That would put a twist in the two tables when back on the base.

Think about getting course valve grinding compound coating one table and rubbing the other one on it. Or by a larger piece of plate glass from a glass house and rub on it. It may take a while but it could be done. If you try the two table method, don't just rub one on the other. Switch positions ever so often, change which one is stationary, so you don't rub a curve or bow into both tables.

People that build reflector telescopes rub the lens with valve grinding compound or equal, between two pieces of glass. With the proper technique you can make a curved lens and you do not want that effect.