Newbie needing some help with a bench top jointer issue.

[Sean Walker]

Hello,

I recently purchased a Dewalt 734 planer and a porter cable PC160JT jointer. I love the planer, but am having some issues with the jointer. I first joint a face, then one side of the board. The face comes out flat, but I cant get the sides to come out perfect. When i joint two boards up and put them side by side, there is a gap in the center of the board. It seems like the jointer is not doing it's job of making the surface flat, and instead leave the ends a tad higher than the rest of the board. I have attached a picture to show what i'm talking about. Would a fence issue be causing this? The fence is 90 degrees from the table (i think i said that right?). The outfeed is higher than the infeed table. The knives are even with the top of the outfeed table. I never take more than a 32nd off at a time. I even took off less thinking it was that, but no luck. The wood in the picture is cherry. Could this be an issue with the wood? I planed them to the exact same thickness, but one piece of wood is a little bit longer.

219047

Thanks again for your help!

[Stephen Cherry]

Outfeed table a little high?

[Sean Walker]

I'm not sure. The outfeed table and the knives are level, the infeed table is adjusted by a knob telling me how deep the cut is going to be. I set it on 1/32 and even less and this issue remains.

Thanks!

[Troy Turner]

Draw a pencil line or chalk line down the side you trying to plane. Then run the board and see if the lines disappear. Make sure that when your feeding it, you're not tilting up the ends as you push it through. How long is the board? May need to get some infeed/outfeed support.

[keith micinski]

Do a search for tuning up your jointer on here. There are a lot of good threads about it

[Myk Rian]

Put down pressure on the outfeed side.

[Stephen Cherry]

maybe try lowering the outfeed just a little-- it's very sensitive

[Brian Weick]

You need to have the jointer field tables in co-plane. One of your tables, either the in feed or out feed tables are slightly pitched negatively to co-plane , in other words, it is sagging either in the front of the in feed table or the back of the out feed table.
My American 16" buzz jointer has a cam built into the out feed table wedge and when I pull forward on the cam lever handle it lowers the rear end of the outfield table by just a few degrees depending on how far I want to go with the depth of the spring. This method of jointing boards is called a spring board glue joint and one reason for this was to allow the woodworker to assemble several planks using fewer clamps near the center to draw the boards together, and the other was to accomplish very good adhesion between the joints. A spring joint helps taking advantage of wood’s natural movements,also a spring joint is useful when gluing board edges together to allow for the expansion and contraction of wood and will help in prevent cracking and separating of the boards. A spring joint is achieved by planing a curved cut into the middle edge, you can do this with a hand plane as well. As far as jointers, the option for a spring cam is usually built into high-end industrial or commercial grade jointers.


To adjust your jointer for co-plane you have to get a good flat steel straight edge or a good level and rest it on over both beds and adjust the rise in the beds on the rear of the out feed or the front of the in feed tables ( adjustments vary by manufacturer) until there is no rocking on the flat edge or daylight-Both the in feed and out feed tables are perfectly flat to the straight edge,ie - co-planed. This should solve your center gap in the boards your trying to plane flat.

Hope this helps.....


B,

[david brum]

Sean

First, a little bit of spring in a joint isn't all bad. It's much better than the opposite, where you've got a gap at the ends.

Second, if this is your first jointer, are you applying a lot of pressure in the middle of the cut? You shouldn't be applying much more than the weight of the board. Oh, are you tightening the bed lock after you adjust you infeed table height?

Third, assuming that you bought this new, is this a good time to return it for a properly adjusted one? I ask that because you'll need some time and patience to correct the problem...

Fouth, your tables may not be parallel to one another (not coplanar). To correct that, you'll need a really good straight edge and a set of feeler gauges. There are plenty of instructions on how to do it. The difference is that your outfeed table doesn't have adjustable height. What you'll do is to unbolt the outfeed table (easy on yours) and carefully adjust the height of the leveling set screws until you hit pay dirt. It takes some time, but you should be able to achieve perfection on that jointer.

[glenn bradley]

I used to have the Delta version of that machine. I spent some time to track down the thread where I tuned it up (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?49170-Benchtop-Jointer-Tune-up-Happy-Guy&highlight=happy) only to find that it was woefully shy of specifics. In a nutshell the table are pretty flexible so anything over a couple of feet long requires enough pressure to control the stock that table deviation results. One cure for this is external stock support which seems silly for such small pieces of material but, will yield a better result. There are no real table leveling features to speak of so, patience, diligence and a reliable shimming stock (metal foil, brass sheet stock or cut up aluminum cans) are the trophies of the day. I found that aligning the outfeed and cutterhead first and using that as a reference for the infeed was quickest. Use a good straight edge to determine the tables co-planer relationship and jot this down.

I marked the four corners of the infeed with numbers so my notes looked something like; 1 - .011" low, 2 - .021" low, 3 - .022" low, 4 - .022" low. I then removed the table, added shims of that approximate thickness, re-attached and torqued the table and re-checked. It really only took me 3 or 4 times through the process to get dead flat but, your success will be directly effected by your quality of measuring and note taking ;-) Once you have the tables aligned the infeed elevation should remain consistent. You will still have to deal with the flex of the tables, there is no escaping that. Having an aligned machine makes dealing with the flex yield a better result and removes the guesswork of where the problem is coming from.

[Bill Huber]

I have that same little planer and I had to spend half a day working with it, shimming the out feed and the end feed to get the right. It is a pain, you have to take the bolts out, shim it a little bit, put the bolts back in and tighten then up and check it again.

I started with the out feed table, get it flat and at the same height as the blades. Then go to the in feed table and get it flat and square with the out feed.

I have a steel Lee Valley straight edge and that does make it easier.

I also had to sand the top, there was milling marks on it and it made it somewhat hard to push the wood though. I use a flat block of wood with emery paper on it and sanded for about an hour and then waxed it.

It now works very well for a little bench top planner.

[Don Jarvie]

Try to face joint, then plane with the planer hitting both sides of the board and then edge joint the board.

Reason is the goal of face jointing is to get the face flat so it can go though the planer. Sometimes the face joint isn't quite flat but will flatten out with a few passes in the planer. I'm talking 98% flat. Then you have the 2 faces nice and flat then you can edge joint and rip.

Only time I edge joint before the planer would be if the piece is too long and I need to get the side flat to cross cut on the RAS. I still them follow the process above.

[Brian Weick]

I am sorry about the spelling.....I keep working on that,,,,,LOL

http://www.mathopenref.com/coplanar.html


B

[Tom Coster]

All the advice here is excellent. Dialing in a jointer is a pain in the you know what. But don’t give up. Oh, the feeling of success when you run the first perfect joint!

[Sean Walker]

Thanks for all the great input everyone! I had to order a few parts to get the jointer up to snuff. I purchased a straight edge from Lee Valley and a set of feeler gauges. I also purchased a sheet of brass shim stock. I will let you guys know how it works out!

Thanks!