Hammer A3 Calibration Tools

[Darrin Johnson]

All,

Ordered a JP from Hammer A3 last week. Curious what tools I need to assure it's dialed in before I start making dust.

thx!

[David Hawxhurst]

they'll tell you that it come calibrated and you don't have to do anything. but to check the calibration you'll need a long straight edge, feeler gauges, dial indicator and mount like a oneway gauge (lamb tool works makes something similar), and various metric wrenches should you need to make any adjustments.

[Chris Parks]

Why bother, run some wood through it and see what it comes out like.

[Jamie Buxton]

Why bother, run some wood through it and see what it comes out like.

That's certainly the first test. If the machine works to your satisfaction, there's no point in tweaking the adjustments. But if there's an issue, tools come in handy. For instance, if you need to make the infeed table coplanar with the outfeed table, the straightedge is very useful. If you don't have a straightedge, you'd have to make two joints, check for precision, tweak the adjusters, make two joints, check for precision, tweak the adjusters, and so on, until you achieve coplanarity. But with the straightedge, you can watch the table move as you tweak the adjusters. You can generally achieve coplanarity with one pass, not a whole bunch of passes.

[David Kumm]

You might get lucky but I've worked on lots of sliders and most need adjustment. Some are just set too high from the factory, and often the fixed table isn't flat from end to end and corner to corner. That is the toughest to deal with and the only way to get the slider a consistent height ( .002 ) in my world over it's effective travel is to deal first with the fixed side. I use a master machinist level and take readings on all four sides, looking for consistency or lack of same. Put shims under the level to get an idea of what each corner needs. you might not need to do any of that but if you can't get the slider to travel at a fairly set level ( ends are sometimes high or low but that isn't too big a deal ) it might be the fixed that needs the work. Dave

[Chris Merriam]

I ended up ordering a 50in aluminum straightedge from Lee Valley, but even that is a few inches short, the beds on my Minimax are 59in I think. Not sure about leveling your tables, but for mine on the fixed side I needed to get some brass shim stock. I found that at a local hobby store. I also used a dial indicator on a magnetic base, but wouldn't mind having the Oneway gauge.