Larry Gipson
08-24-2012, 3:12 PM
I received my new 490x jointer a couple of days ago and have assembled it. I've never owned a jointer, so this is new ground. How does one determine if the tables are aligned?
I took a straight piece of oak that had been cut on my unisaw and ran it through the jointer as a sort of test. I basically wanted to see if I could do this and still have all my fingers :)
I was pretty happy at first. With all pressure on the board on the infeed side, the thing cut like butter. Really nice. Then I switched pressure to the outfeed side as I got to the center of the board. The board rocked and no longer touched the cutter (which was set at 1/8"). I thought I was using the tool correctly. What did I do wrong? Right now I think I have a really heavy wood teeter-totter.
Where can I buy a cheap 6 ft straight edge?
I have a few pictures of the machine as I assembled it if anyone is interested. At 556lbs, it's a heavy machine, shipped in 2 boxes. I was able to assemble it alone without incident.
Observations: The sheet metal on the bottom cabinet is thin and easy to dent (no, I didn't dent it, but someone did in a few places). The motor mount is a weak point in the design and could be improved easily. The castings are rough, but the machined surfaces seem really well done. The welds inside the cabinet look like they were done by a 6 year old. There was grease everywhere on the machine, including painted surfaces - done by a 5 year old? No rust anywhere though. The cut is superb when the cutter reaches the wood :) . I love the helical cutter. This latest version of the machine has a wide, ribbed belt that replaces the v-belt of the earlier models. Parallel alignment of the pulleys seems more critical with this belt. This turned out to be much harder to do than it should be. Having to twist the stop button to turn the machine on is just weird . . :)
Regards,
Larry
- having fun
I took a straight piece of oak that had been cut on my unisaw and ran it through the jointer as a sort of test. I basically wanted to see if I could do this and still have all my fingers :)
I was pretty happy at first. With all pressure on the board on the infeed side, the thing cut like butter. Really nice. Then I switched pressure to the outfeed side as I got to the center of the board. The board rocked and no longer touched the cutter (which was set at 1/8"). I thought I was using the tool correctly. What did I do wrong? Right now I think I have a really heavy wood teeter-totter.
Where can I buy a cheap 6 ft straight edge?
I have a few pictures of the machine as I assembled it if anyone is interested. At 556lbs, it's a heavy machine, shipped in 2 boxes. I was able to assemble it alone without incident.
Observations: The sheet metal on the bottom cabinet is thin and easy to dent (no, I didn't dent it, but someone did in a few places). The motor mount is a weak point in the design and could be improved easily. The castings are rough, but the machined surfaces seem really well done. The welds inside the cabinet look like they were done by a 6 year old. There was grease everywhere on the machine, including painted surfaces - done by a 5 year old? No rust anywhere though. The cut is superb when the cutter reaches the wood :) . I love the helical cutter. This latest version of the machine has a wide, ribbed belt that replaces the v-belt of the earlier models. Parallel alignment of the pulleys seems more critical with this belt. This turned out to be much harder to do than it should be. Having to twist the stop button to turn the machine on is just weird . . :)
Regards,
Larry
- having fun