Shop Fox W1741 / Grizzly G0490 infeed bed adjustment

[Matt Day]

All,

I've been struggling with adjusting my W1741 (same as G0490) for the past few hours. I got the Outfeed table parallel with the cutterhead, and 3 out of 4 corners of the Infeed table aligned. But one corner is just being totally stubborn. It's the one in the front where the depth of cut gauge is attached (the one furthest away from the cutterhead). I made sure the set screws were both removed and I need to use a hammer and punch to make the adjuster move, and I need to hit it harder than I'd like to make it move.

The other three corners of the infeed table around around 0.010, and the corner that is being a pain is touching the straight edge (0.000). When I move the adjuster it doesn't make any change to the table height.

Is there anything I'm missing? Maybe the cam isn't moving?

Thanks,
Matt

[Matt Day]

I suppose I can try to leave the stuck corner alone and align the other three to the stuck one, right?

Any other thoughts?

[david brum]

I have the same jointer. i adjusted the outfeed table last year. I found it much easier to use the large flats on the black cams, rather than the little spanner holes. I used the old bike mechanic's trick of using two adjustable wrenches. One wrench attaches to the flats on the cam, held straight out from the jointer. The other wrench attaches to the handle of the first wrench and acts as a long handle. My cams were a little stiff, but turned pretty easily with the bigger wrench as leverage. Please PM me if I can help more.

[Cary Falk]

Grizzly has a video on adjusting the beds on their website.

[glenn bradley]

Let's remember that cast iron is malleable. If you've ever drilled it or seen an abused tool surface it is easy to see that it really is softer than your think. If the adjuster is making no difference I would suspect that it is not touching the table. Lean on that corner and see if it goes down under weight. No sense trying to adjust something if the adjuster isn't in contact. I set a dumbbell (besides me) on the table to assure it is contacting all the cams. It goes without saying that the base should be level (or at least solid) with mother earth.

The good news is that the outfeed is usually the challenge. Now that he's aligned you simply make the infeed coplaner to the outfeed. The eccentrics are sleeves which are cam-like. Any movement of a few degrees should show up if things are functioning as designed. I'm with dabiv on a pair of crescents beating a punch and hammer:

251433

[Matt Day]

You know I didn't even notice that there were flats on the adjuster - you would think an ex-bike mechanic would have seen that!

Since these are eccentrics/cams, if I were to turn it 360 degrees I'd be back at the same exact point i was before right? I ask just to make sure I'm understanding how the adjustment works completely. I think on a couple I needed to raise/lower it a bit, but I was already as hi/low as I could go (kind of like a maxed out barrel adjuster for any bike mechanics out there) so I need to move the infeed table up/down slightly. I'm using a straightedge across the outfeed table and feeler gauges by the way.

I'll try again tomorrow morning.

[Mike Goetzke]

Sorry if you heard this before from me but I'm convinced you should align the in/out feed tables first and then shim the cutter head. This would save a lot of us a lot of time.

Mike

[Jason Hanko]

Since these are eccentrics/cams, if I were to turn it 360 degrees I'd be back at the same exact point i was before right? I ask just to make sure I'm understanding how the adjustment works completely. I think on a couple I needed to raise/lower it a bit, but I was already as hi/low as I could go (kind of like a maxed out barrel adjuster for any bike mechanics out there) so I need to move the infeed table up/down slightly.

Yes - you have it right. I ran into this problem when trying to re-adjust mine after installing my Byrd head. I couldnt get one of the corners into alignment because it needed to be raised up further than the high-point for that cam. I ended up having to adjust the other three cams on that side down to it, and then lower the outfeed to match the "new" plane of reference.

[Mike Goetzke]

Yes - you have it right. I ran into this problem when trying to re-adjust mine after installing my Byrd head. I couldnt get one of the corners into alignment because it needed to be raised up further than the high-point for that cam. I ended up having to adjust the other three cams on that side down to it, and then lower the outfeed to match the "new" plane of reference.


Mine was so bad I ran out of adjustment on the eccentrics (I also used a dial indicator to find their high/low points). Ended up there was 0.007" too much shim under one of the bearing blocks. This is why I suggest it would be much simpler to set up the tables and then shim the head.

Mike

[Matt Day]

Hmmm... No flats on my adjusters :-( And I'm really starting to goober them up. I don't know why they are so hard to move - and I've made sure the double set screws are removed - I've checked about 15 times actually!

Attached are the measurements I took for you guys to look at. As you can see, one corner is far off from the other, and I can't for the life of me get it to align with the others. I tried just getting the two cams that are furthest from the cutterhead (.022 and .006) to the same height and I can't do that either - there just doesn't seem to be enough adjustment in both of them.

I'm wondering if it's the outfeed table that needs adjustment? If so, that will mean I'll need to shim the cutterhead possibly.

I'm going to call Shop Fox when the open, which is in a half hour or so and see what they say.

[Mike Goetzke]

Please read my post - looking at your measurements you may have the bearing block shim problem I did.

Mike

[Matt Day]

Mike,
Do you have a detailed description on how to shim the cutter head? I guess I'm worried that this will introduce another set of variables and before I know it I'd be completely lost.
Also, I understand that I could somehow shim the cutter head to be parallel with the end of the bed, but I'd also have to get the cams close to the cutter head parallel too.
I don't know where to start. If I shim the cutter head, what do i shim it to?

Edit: Just talked to Shop Fox and they suggested the same thing - shim the cutterhead. They suggested using aluminum from a soda can, so I'll give that a shot along with some aluminum foil.

[Matt Day]

Before I shimmed the cutterhead, I decided to work the alignment method backwards. So I made the Infeed table parallel to the cutterhead, raised the infeed table a smidge above the cutterhead, and began to adjust the outfeed table to be coplaner with the infeed table. I managed to get them to be coplaner to less than 0.003 which I think is acceptable, and I'm not going to fool with shimming the cutterhead. I think the problem was with that far end of the infeed table was maxed out of adjustment, so I had to adjust the far end of the outfeed table instead.

Now finally on to installing the knives, which is what the whole point was to begin with! :) Gotta have patience to be in this hobby.

[glenn bradley]

Excellent news Matt. Sorry I went quiet on this one for awhile I was sidetracked with something away from home. You did just as I might have. When I get the extreme point of adjustment and need more, I have to go back and establish a new starting point and then march through the steps again. For obvious reasons I always set aside a large period of time for any alignment task. That way if I'm done early I celebrate and if I take too long I don't run out of time and feel rushed. Slow and steady wins the race on tool alignment in my book.

[Jason Hanko]

Yeah - I had to add some soda-can shims to the cutterhead the first time I aligned the tables after purchasing the jointer. Then after I bought and installed the Byrd head I had to take those shims back out... :rolleyes:

Im pretty sure I have about 12 total hours of adjusting my jointer beds under my belt - its probably one of the most frustrating things Ive ever done. The second time around was definitely worse since the Byrd head isn't a smooth cylinder. It's got spiraling flats that wrap around, so there's no continuous surface to register off on both sides. The paint around my adjustment "knobs" is pretty chewed up since I did most of it with a pair of channel locks...wish Id have known about that bicycle mechanic's trick earlier!

[david brum]

Matt, i see that they changed the design on the cams. My 1741 jointer is around 5 yrs old, so maybe your newer style adjusters are an improvement?

I have to agree that adjusting jointers and planers is the least productive use of shop time imaginable. It's right up there with trying to give a tune up to a Huffy. After owning a 6" traditional jointer, I was excited to get a parallelogram style because it seemed so much easier to adjust. It is easier for sure, but still frustrating.

[Matt Day]

David,
My w1741 is actually a bit older than 5 years, probably more like 8 by now. I should have checked the beds after my most recent move from Utah to Ohio, but for whatever reason did not.

[david brum]

Ah, that makes sense. Hopefully you won't have to do that adjustment again (soon).

[Matt Day]

Just to follow up on this:
I setup my knives this morning. I was going to use a dial indicator (I don't have a Oneway), but I found it was easier and more accurate to use the drag method. I used a used knife (that I'll be sharpening when the Makita arrives today!) standing up with the point facing the sky, and set the knives so that they made noise upon contact and just barely moved. That went well and probably only took 20 minutes at most.

After that I did a test cut on a piece of 8/4 maple that's 7"x30". I'm happy to say the test went great, and I couldn't slip even a .001 feeler gauge under the straightedge. I could get a .003 at the very end 1" or so, but that was likely from me pushing a bit to hard on the end of the board as it was cutting. The test board has almost no detectable scalloping, twist, or climb cut.

Just an FYI, but the last measurements I took of the outfeed table being coplanar to the infeed were .012, .012, .012, and .010, with the .010 being the back outboard end of the table. Those are all probably +/- .001 simply because at that range my feeler gauges go in .002 increments. (FYI I think a statistician could call that error really more like .004, but heck, that's still 1/256".)

I'm a happy camper! It was a good reminder how much the jointer really is a necessary piece of equipment, as I couldn't start on my next project until this was done. Thanks for all the advice!

[Mike Goetzke]

Mike,
Do you have a detailed description on how to shim the cutter head? I guess I'm worried that this will introduce another set of variables and before I know it I'd be completely lost.
Also, I understand that I could somehow shim the cutter head to be parallel with the end of the bed, but I'd also have to get the cams close to the cutter head parallel too.
I don't know where to start. If I shim the cutter head, what do i shim it to?

Edit: Just talked to Shop Fox and they suggested the same thing - shim the cutterhead. They suggested using aluminum from a soda can, so I'll give that a shot along with some aluminum foil.

Sorry I'm so late but just read this post. I see you got it set up, but, in my case there were several shims under the bearing block I need to lower so it was easy.

Mike