Assembly question on Shop Fox W1741 (Grizzly G0490)

[Dick Holt]

I am putting my new jointer together and have a question about the pulleys. How do you align them? There isn't enough room to get a straight edge in there, so do you just eye ball it?

Dick

[Matt Winterowd]

I just eyeballed mine. With a belt on, you can usually see if they are misaligned enough to be a problem. I guess I'm not too fussy about pulley alignment and I've never had any problems with wear or slipping or anything else.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

You could also use a piece of string with a nut on the end as a plumbob and check the alignment that way.

[Tim Morton]

I am at that point tonight on my G0656p...and i have about an 1 and a quarter clearance..and a 2" straight edge.....so ripped a piece of MDF 1.125" and it slides in nicely. I don't think you can eyeball it.

PS. The blades are REALLY sharp...I found that out the hard way while cleaning the cosmolene off.

[glenn bradley]

I used the plumb bob method. No problems.

[Trent Shirley]

Plumb bob method sounds great, wish I had thought of it when setting up mine.
I have a shop fox also and also cut myself on the blades cleaning off the cosmoline.

Dick, is your motor as poorly mounted as mine? Not that you know mine but it's more a suggestion that the mount sucks. I may have to eventually make myself a better mount. Even the hardware was cheap, the washers were too soft a metal and undersized so they were starting to bend and pull through the slots the bolts come through.

My only other complaints would be that even a good sized shop vac doe not have quite enough power to keep shavings from clogging up way inside the jointer and then it is hard to clear. A good blast of compressed air down past the blades into the body seems to help clear it up. I have to reposition the jointer so I can properly hook it up to my DC.
Also after a year of ownership my fence has gone out of true developing a slight top out twist from one end to the other. I do not know if this is common with the iron fences or not but every other jointer I used in the past seemed to be similarly out of whack and I was pleased when mine was nice and flat out of the box.

I do love the jointer otherwise.

[Dick Holt]

Thanks for the replies. I used a plumbob and it worked fine. Trent, I didn't have any trouble with the mounting brackets. I did have trouble initially when following the instructions to mount the motor. The instructions said to turn the base upside down and unbolt the motor from the shipping position and then mount it on the brackets. Sure. Try holding up a 3 HP motor with one hand while trying to install four bolts through the brackets and put a nut on them. After trying for about a half hour I got the brainstorm to turn the base on its side (right side if I recall) and put the motor on top of the brackets. No more holding it ! Then put the bolts through the bracket. Worked great! The manual calls for a minimun of 400 CFM at the jointer for dust collection. That may be where your problem is Trent. I believe most jointers and planers require a dust collector. One thing you might try (I haven't done this yet) is to close off the top of the dust collection chute. If you take a look, you will see that it is open. In other words, the chute is only closed in on 3 sides.
Dick