Wixey For Jointer/Planer...

[Derek Arita]

Does anyone have a Wixey gauge on their jointer/planer? I have a Minimax FS30 jointer/planer and would love to be able to use one of these gauges on it. I'd like to know how it would mount and how well it works?

[mreza Salav]

I have a MM FS-350 and put a 12" igaging digital (similar to wixey). It works fine although I don't use it as much as I thought I would. In general I don't care if the final thickness is 7/8" or 1/64" more or less or if it is an exact thickness. The only time these come handy for me is when I need to make another board the exact thickness of a bunch of others but to avoid this I usually I try to plane all my boards and some extra in one batch. YMMV

[John Lifer]

I also put a Igauge digital (off ebay) on my PM100. Haven't planed much since install, but it should help make things repetitive.

[Roy Harding]

I'm with mreza Salav on this one. I have a gauge installed - and it works fine - but I really didn't reference it all that much. In fact, when I needed the battery for another tool that I DO use a lot, I never bothered to replace it.

Like mreza said - I don't care if a board is +/- 1/64" as long as ALL the boards for the project are the same.

When that rare occasion arises when I do care about absolute accuracy - then measuring with calipers works just fine.

[Alan Lightstone]

I installed one on my Laguna 12" jointer/planer. Works fine. I can find some pictures if you need some. I think I made a post about it a while ago. Try searching my name and Wixey and I bet it will come up.

[Curt Harms]

The time they're useful is if you're not wise like Mreza and make one extra. With a stand alone planer you might be able to leave it set up so if you need an extra piece, you just run it. With a combo the likelihood of needing to lower the planer bed to use the jointer is there. With the DRO it's pretty easy to plane some boards, lower the planer bed to joint and return the planer bed to a previous depth within .001"-.002" consistently. I too installed the iGaging 12" device.
264786
The part that required some thought was calibrating. The wooden piece under the two bolt heads is a sandpaper lined clamping mechanism. I moved the table all the way up which is a little less than 1/8" then marked and cut the metal strap about 1/16" above the wooden clamping mechanism, zeroed the readout and moved the metal strap down til the DRO read a little less than 1/8" and tightened the bolts. I then planed a piece of scrap and measured it with a digital caliper. Loosen the bolt heads and move the strap in the clamping mechanism until the machine's readout is the same as the caliper reading and tighten the bolt heads. I found there was a tiny bit of movement when the bolts got tight but was able to compensate for the movement. A nice thing of the iGaging unit is battery life. I haven't replaced the two CR2032 batteries since I got it and it's probably been two years. When I replace the batteries I'll have to go through the calibration procedure again.

Matt Meiser did something similar but mounted most of the mechanism on the back of the planer table and just has the readout in the front. Made for a neater installation. You might be able to search on his name and find his posts on the subject.

[Erik Loza]

The Wixey DRO seems to be a pretty popular add-on among my FS30 owners. You might look at Accurate Technologies as well.

Best,

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[J. Greg Jones]

Matt Meiser did something similar but mounted most of the mechanism on the back of the planer table and just has the readout in the front. Made for a neater installation. You might be able to search on his name and find his posts on the subject.
Not sure how Matt mounted his, but here is what I did with mine. I've had the Wixey on my J/P for about 6-7 months now and am very happy with it.

[Matt Meiser]

Like he said, mine is much like Curts, except I mounted the sensor on the out feed end which keeps it out of the way. I found some ivory wire duct at a big box to route the wire in. I just used a simple flat sheet metal bracket and drilled and tapped two holes in the table. It is compact and well protected from accidental bumps.

I've found the iGaging readout to be very reliable--not my experience with three different Wixey installs (planers and a TS) all of which would frequently lose calibration in 0.2" increments.

[Jim Becker]

I have a similar unit on my FS350. Works great.