Another jointer setup question.

[Dan Johnson]

I bought A GO656p about a year ago. As I have been in the process of moving my shop from my house basement to a dedicated shop, I have not had a lot of time to use the jointer. I just checked the beds on the machine and was wondering if it is close enough, or should I be concerned.

The first thing I did was check for bed flatness, something I haven't done yet. The out-feed table has a dip in the middle. It is about .002 at the fence and about .004 on the operators side. The in-feed table is just the opposite. It has a dip of .004 at the fence and .001 on the operators side. This concerns me a little. As far as the beds being co planer, the out-feed table was .013 higher than the in-feed table on both the fence side and the operator side at the cutter-head. On the other end of the bed it is .08 higher on the fence side and .06 higher on the operator side.

I only have a 3 ft. straight edge so the dip in the beds can be messing up the measurements some.

[Bob Wingard]

Does it yield a flat, straight board ??? If so, don't worry about the numbers ... jointer tables are notoriously difficult to get perfectly aligned ... at some point, you've got to say "CLOSE ENOUGH" unless you have a lot of $$$$ to throw at it or if you have access to a large Blanchard or surface grinder. Oftentimes, you can adapt to your tool by modifying your approach ... if you know where the high/low spots are, you can avoid putting much downward pressure at the lows, thus allowing your stock to bridge across them without conforming to them. I know, in today's world of hi-tech digital everything, that's not what you want to hear, but it's likely the most practical approach, and, it's FREE.

[Dan Johnson]

[QUOTE=Bob Wingard;1751081]Does it yield a flat, straight board ???QUOTE]

That is why I checked the jointer. Whent I run a board through on edge, the board is ight in the middle than the ends. I think it was mostly my technique, but wanted to make sure. I would try to adjust the in-feed table, but I see no way to do it on this model.

[glenn bradley]

I would probably have argued those tolerances when I first got the machine. Is it just under (still in warranty) or just over a year? Maybe a call to Griz for advice(?). I would do a lot of things before I started down the road of trying to adjust a dovetail way machine. There is a method and it can be done but, I've BTDT and didn't enjoy it :o. If you mostly edge joint I would make test cuts at various location on the tables (move the fence out and in) and see if I found a sweet spot that I could live with. For face jointing this will spoil your planer sork as your reference surface will be non-flat to some degree. The degree you can tolerate will come from experience. Don't get too hung up on the numbers; although they are important for comparison. What I mean is, don't drive yourself nuts trying to correct something that doesn't really bother you just because of a number.