Jointer knife setting

[Martin Wasner]

I picked up a used SAC FS305 jointer built in 1999 yesterday. I spent some time cleaning up 17 years of gunk on it, lubing some squeaky pivot points, and apparently nobody who's owned this jointer believed in dust collection or blowing it out because it was PACKED full of chips. Then decided to pull the knives out so the carbide guy can sharpen them up and so I could get the size and order another set.

My current jointer is a generic Grizzlymatic 6", that has the bolts for the gibs, but then a jack screw in the head for adjusting the height of the knives. The SAC has the same bolts in the gib for holding the knife, but there is a spring that pushes the knife up. I am unfamiliar with this configuration.

Anything special I should know about this setup or setting the knives? I'm assuming it's just getting the right tension on the gib bolts to hold the knife just enough to slide it around to set the height, then locking them down? Seems simple enough, but I don't want to do anything stoooopid. Is this a case where a piece of glass or something else flat could be laid against the outfeed table and just allow the springs to push the knife up against it and torque down the gibs? The head would have to be indexed in the same spot for each knife, but that seems simple enough.



The gibs are stamped with a position number, as is the head. One of the previous owners wrote a position number with a sharpie on the head and gibs that doesn't match the manufacture's, but I think I'm going to use the manufacture's placement instead. I can't see a reason not to.




It cleaned up real nice. Other than missing the guard, it's pretty mint. I'm going to just buy a porkchop guard from the Northfield Foundry and make it work.


http://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15780779_10209942478229802_990175638751345835_n.jp g?oh=c1bc907de17ca116753f4bba80ca5806&oe=58E5285E



http://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15825987_10209942478389806_2399830406480019819_n.j pg?oh=8b5817c666e69b6af5be4d97edfa3ddf&oe=58E99A66

[Darcy Warner]

It has spring loaded knife lifters?
I setting gauge would be ideal, probably had one from the factory. I did find a place with a few manuals for these SAC's.

I set the knives on my 30" jointer with a stick and two pencil marks.

I can check for the manuals an elaborate on the stick later.

It takes me 20 minutes to swap knives in my 30" jointer using a stick and two pencil marks.

[glenn bradley]

I like the spring setup. I set a piece of plate glass on the outfeed with just enough hanging over the mouth for the knife to make decent contact. Snug the screws and your done. I have also added three rare earth magnets on top of the glass along the knife edge to hold the knife snug when the springs are weak.

[J.R. Rutter]

Nice find! I believe that those heads are meant to be used with a knife setting jig that you push down on the knife while tightening the gib bolts. This would have been an accessory that shipped with the machine. The glass plate on the outfeed would work as well, if the outfeed hasn't been adjusted up too high for the knife projection to get unsafe.

[Warren Lake]

most of my machines are older so have no spring or adjuster below to raise the knife up. On the general many years back I changed out the spring for an allen screw adjuster they made. On the SCM stuff I just put a screwdriver below the knife when I need to raise it and a wood block on top if I need to tap it down. I measure my knives towards the outside on each side. On the general stuff in the past the grinder sometimes gave me knives that were not straight so I would straighten them on set up taping stuff up and down but no issues with the SCM stuff have thicker heavier knives and they give them back straight.

The spring thing should not be an issue its there to help you to support keep the knives up as you lightly snug the gib. Im used to setting up without any help from the bottom and it works fine. I set my head parallel to the outfeed table then set my knife to extend up over the head by .050 thats my number and always used it and it works well for me on all my machines.

Thats going to be night and day jointer wise compared to what you were working on. Even going from my General stuff to the SCM was huge. The old guy said the General stuff is Mickey Mouse, when i bought his SCM he said its no Mercedes. I know there are more solid machines but I still appreciate the SCM over the General stuff every time I turn it on.

one thing about setting up and loosening that an old guy in the trade and tool and die told me was dont reef all your nuts tight at once, work around in at least two stages for final tightening, I got one of those knive gauge things with the magnets in with other stuff at an auction years ago, still never tried it. with a dial you can get your knives very accurate so ill have to try the gauge one day and see if it is as good.

[Dan Barr]

Magnet on glass is pretty slick! Wish i had thought of that 10 years ago when i had my jointer. I was fiddling with it by hand using a straightedge and micrometers.

[Martin Wasner]

It has spring loaded knife lifters?
I setting gauge would be ideal, probably had one from the factory. I did find a place with a few manuals for these SAC's.

I set the knives on my 30" jointer with a stick and two pencil marks.

I can check for the manuals an elaborate on the stick later.

It takes me 20 minutes to swap knives in my 30" jointer using a stick and two pencil marks.


I've actually got the manual. (weird right?) It's a little fuzzy on whether or not they supplied any kind of jig or not.

I've always used a piece of aluminum like your saying with a stick. Just measure where it picks up and sets down, then set them all the same. It's been plenty accurate of a way for me. Then adjust the outfeed up or down until it's either not dragging or leaving any snipe. It kinda looks in the manual it'd be more or less two setup blocks on the outside edges and you just find top dead center, then tighten the gibs. That seems pretty straight forward. I've always done it as Warren says, in stages as well. I've got a planer with a goofy curved head, and I usually go through that three times to get them torqued. Snug, tightened, then tight. I don't use a torque wrench, just a T handled allen wrench and I twist it to the same spot and feel. It's probably shockingly accurate.



I do need to see how flat things are sitting too and make adjustments. I'm hoping it's spot on, but I've never adjusted a jointer like this before, so there will inevitably be a learning curve. Especially if one of the tables has a twist to it. Now I have to check on that. It'll bug me to no end.

[Martin Wasner]

Since having some time to think on it, setting those knives will be a non-issue. I'm just going to grab a piece of glass. If I don't like that I'll have a couple of steal bars milled flat and use those. When I first looked at it, I thought it would have the jack screws, and they were just inaccessible without pulling the knife. That would be a pain in the rear. This seems a little smarter too me after kicking it around for a while.

Tables are flat. Or at least flat enough. The outfeed has a bit of a dip to it at the end, but it's next to nothing. The only thing I have for a straight edge is a 78" Stablila level. At the end of the outfeed you could see just a bit of daylight. I used a piece of paper from a carbon copy, the yellow page, and it was dragging. So it's not perfect, but it's real close. I don't know how thick that piece of paper is, but it isn't much.

Should be a solid jointer for me. I don't use them for much other than the occasional face joint or straightening, and edge jointing material for glue ups, but I've wanted a bigger better jointer for a long time. The thread about Northfield jointers kinda got me all fired up and I started looking again. I like SAC, and while this wasn't a killer deal it wasn't bad. Replacing it with a new SCM, Casadei, or comparable would be $8-9k I'd think. This one is in pretty dang good shape. Whoever set it up originally didn't know much though, or it just lacked any adjustment since new. Just a little bit of tinkering and I got everything working slick. The drive belt squealed on startup. Five minutes of adjusting and no more squeal. The fence was hanging up going from the bolted on table to the outfeed. Five minutes of adjusting, runs across smoothly. The shaft the fence rides on needed some cleaning and lubrication, smooth now. The infeed table squeaked going up/down, a bit of lubrication, smooth.

The brake needs some attention. It doesn't shut down as quickly as it is supposed to. I might not bother with that one though.

[Andrew Hughes]

I think it's a fine looking machine.I usually don't care for the square boxy looking euro jointers.
But yours nice a look maybe it's the color?
I know I'm weird.
I use Bob Vaughan method when I want a really close set on the knives.
Otherwise I use the stick drag method Darcy mentions its so quick.

[Darcy Warner]

Should be a timer for the brake in the control box.

[Warren Lake]

site not working right for me not sure where this will go off line and online two different things

logic says level the machine first however its dubious when two tables that move and have adjustments are level or not. I still set up all the rear stuff I said together and as far as the glass and wood blocks done the wood blocks but never measured to see how accurate that was that is with numbers I like to see numbers speedomter on my car digital spray gun etc you can use glass blocks all day you still dont know your knife projection from the head and the machine will perform different based on that, I dont remember numbers but my knives a bit higher they were noisier and didnt cut as well that is where i got my number from based on the machines performance being better. you can assume its all fine but what if the last guy was a simple person you know people of the land, Blazzing Saddles reference there. Anyway I dont trust what former owners have done and even factory there have been times ive seen some odd factory stuff mostly good though. sounds like your tables are pretty good, I would not trust a stabila even my new one was off a bit, its powder coated and all, did you flip it to see if its the same both sides. Im lucky friend bought me a precision straight edge years back from a tool and die maker and he had it custom made.

[Martin Wasner]

Should be a timer for the brake in the control box.

It's in the motor, and clearances need to be set as it's mechanical. It's not real important to me, but if I've got some spare time I'll dig into it I'll take a peek. I've spent enough time screwing around with it that I should've spent building stuff.

[Martin Wasner]

sounds like your tables are pretty good, I would not trust a stabila even my new one was off a bit, its powder coated and all, did you flip it to see if its the same both sides.

I flipped it all four ways and got a similar reading. I'm a little shocked it was that straight to be honest.

Getting it set in place is likely a wise move before getting carried away on adjusting anything.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have what looks to be the same jointer [Older} but with an SCM label. I use glass myself, but with a small twist. I put a drop of water under the glass so I can see it lift easier. No brake on mine, but it stops fast enough for me.

Nice find. I am really happy with mine. It does as good a job as my old Porter but takes up about a third of the real estate.

[David Kumm]

SAC uses the same mechanical motor brake on it's planer. They used pretty thick steel compared to most newer machines so the tables are well supported. Good find. Dave

[Martin Wasner]

SAC uses the same mechanical motor brake on it's planer. They used pretty thick steel compared to most newer machines so the tables are well supported. Good find. Dave


I got it in your backyard. It was in Eau Claire.

[Martin Wasner]

I have what looks to be the same jointer [Older} but with an SCM label. I use glass myself, but with a small twist. I put a drop of water under the glass so I can see it lift easier. No brake on mine, but it stops fast enough for me.

Nice find. I am really happy with mine. It does as good a job as my old Porter but takes up about a third of the real estate.


I'd freak out putting water on cast iron. I know I'd leave one drop, that would rust, and I'd lose it. You could use something like LPS3 though, and not ever worry about it, and it would show the same thing.

If you hit the power off button while holding the brake release, 34 seconds for it to wind down. That was without any knives or gibs in the head too. I'm curious how long it would take with a little more weight spinning around. I didn't measure it with the brake on. The manual states 10 seconds or less, I feel like it's a whole lot longer.




I had kind of a funny thought when I was driving home from picking this thing up. I have more money wrapped up in equipment that is either sitting in storage, or otherwise unused sitting in my shop, than what I actually started my shop with. Made me laugh. I need to get into my new building so I can get all this stuff put to work! It will be a relief just being able to get the stuff that is in storage or not in use just getting it into the new building, even while I'm still working in the current shop. It'll free up a bunch of space in the shop, and I can stop renting a storage unit, and stop taking up space in friend's and family's spaces.

[peter gagliardi]

Having set jointer and planer knives for quite a few years, I do not understand the need for, or use of glass in setting??
Like was said earlier, a dial gauge, or stick of wood is all i have used.
Seems strange.

[Darcy Warner]

Found link to manual.

http://www.allwoodinc.comcastbiz.net/Pages/SAC/SacPages/SacManuals.htm

[Andrew J. Coholic]

I thought these were fairly common from several sources...

http://dimar-canada.com/pdf/MagneticKnifeSetter1.pdf

not having straight knife jointer or planer now, I don't have one. But we had a similar, factory supplied jig to set the knives on our old sicar jointer and planet.

Just a question: you say you don't do much jointing. But you said you make a lot of wooden doors. How are you processing your frame and panel stock flat? Are you not buying rough material? Just curious. I couldn't survive without our heavy duty jointer as it's the first real step of processing any rough lumber after rough cutting to length.

[Martin Wasner]

Found link to manual.

http://www.allwoodinc.comcastbiz.net/Pages/SAC/SacPages/SacManuals.htm


Thanks Darcy, that's what I have as well, but I'm going to save that file anyways. It doesn't have the operating instructions, just he exploded views





Having set jointer and planer knives for quite a few years, I do not understand the need for, or use of glass in setting??
Like was said earlier, a dial gauge, or stick of wood is all i have used.
Seems strange.


I always thought it was a weird way to do it as well. I think using a dial gauge is strange too. I think the stick is the easiest when you can easily adjust the height of the knives. This one, if the gibs are loose, it will push the knife out. I think if you use a piece of glass, or setup blocks to hold the knife down you can just let the springs push up the to the glass or blocks then tighten the gibs. Glass is cheap, I'll give it a shot.

[Warren Lake]

Water on metal forget it. You want to pick up a piece of glass bevel the edges so you can grab it. Martin I get wanting to keep your surfaces clean, I had to let that go. Machines in too much humidity rusted. Odd time a beer was put down then remember why I was not supposed to do that, water leak above a table saw looked like it had been hit by buck shot. Had a recent leak so need to clean that up. Ill detail cars and paint and make them better than they came from the dealer. On the machines had to let that thought pattern go. as long as the top is rust free and waxed up well thats all the matters to me now. All of the steel on these machines is different, when i had high humidity some would be rusting, others nothing. Some would stain and it seems like they are almost porous and the stain just goes down deep. it will never come out. Ive used Jacks technique to bring some stuff back to life, better not to do the damage in the first place. now that you brought it up ill probably be looking at my surfaces again.

[Chris Fournier]

I'm with Peter on this one. No need for the glass at all in fact it really won't work the way that you think it will. But to see for yourself use the glass technique and then use a dial indicator to check your results. I have found that tightening up the gib screws causes the knife to rise or dive almost always. I have taken gib screws to my surface grinder to put a square and flat finish on them and this helps. As others have said place a line on the jointer table and two lines on a straight edge. I used a heavy aluminum rule. Set up the straight edge over the knife which is at say 11 0'clock with the first line over top the line drawn on the jointer table. Now rotate the cutter head by hand and the knife will drag the straight edge and by watching the lines you can see when the knife is at the same height across the outfeed table as the second line should land on the table line. I like my knives about .002 -.003" above the outfeed, the two lines on my straight edge reflect this amount of travel. I also fashioned up a small metal hook that I can use to pull the knife up at the ends if the gib screws are causing it to dive. Swap knives out like this a few times and it is a simple task and you'll have a great set up. Once again a dial indicator will really show you what's going on in a set up. Only really needed the first time. The glass technique gives you a false sense of a job well done.

Thankfully a Tersa head has made all of this redundant in my shop. Thank you Tersa!

[Martin Wasner]

I thought these were fairly common from several sources...

http://dimar-canada.com/pdf/MagneticKnifeSetter1.pdf

not having straight knife jointer or planer now, I don't have one. But we had a similar, factory supplied jig to set the knives on our old sicar jointer and planet.

Just a question: you say you don't do much jointing. But you said you make a lot of wooden doors. How are you processing your frame and panel stock flat? Are you not buying rough material? Just curious. I couldn't survive without our heavy duty jointer as it's the first real step of processing any rough lumber after rough cutting to length.


I get my material mostly at 13/16", and straightlined one edge.

Typically my rail and stile size for doors is 2-1/4". So are my paneled ends. My average job has about 70 cabinet doors, and maybe 60 drawer fronts of which probably 40 are paneled fronts. I also use that same 2-1/4" width for doing the stiles on my paneled ends. Figure about 500' of sticking.

This is assuming everything is the same specie in the job.

I just rip. If I get a board that is giving me a bunch of trouble, I might rip over sized, then joint it back in straight, but 90% of the time, I'm just ripping. I rip my parts at 2-3/8", then do the sticking cut. I use an outboard fence on the shaper, it has a little bit of straightening ability, not much though.

Once the sticking cut is made, the part should be 2-5/16" wide. I sort all of the sticking, maybe 60 rips of 8' material, by straightness. Five piles typically. Perfect, good, okay, not great, crap.

The next step for me is cutting the stiles for the paneled ends to length from the crap pile. I leave them oversize to allow for cutting a bevel on them to bevel into my face frames. So a panel that needs to finish at 24-1/8", is 24-1/4" before having the bevel cut. I run the wall side across the jointer taking off a 1/16", then cut another 1/16" off when I do the bevel. With a few exceptions, you can run some pretty banana'd material and get away with it since you can clamp and twist it into the box work, and it's not going anywhere once it's on there. The boxwork, face frame, and back will over power anything messed up with it.

The rest of the sticking left over gets sized in the shaper as well. Then I just cut my largest stiles and rails out of the straightest material. Paneled drawer fronts can come out of pretty twisted up material too since most of the lengths are pretty short, (at least with stiles), and I've got a dovetailed hardwood box to pull that front flat against.

If things go well, I've got a couple of "okay" sticks left over.





It's funny you bring this up, I had a guy recently quit because he felt he was going backwards with his skill set, and this was one of his points of contention. I agree that you will get a better product face jointing everything, but I can pitch a lot of material for the cost of adding that operation. The money just isn't there to pay for adding another 30-40hrs of lumber processing with what I have for equipment. Even if you cut that number in half. Call it 20 hours, at $25/hr an employee is costing me more like $35/hr. That's optimistically $700. Plus the cost of disposal, which is always a problem for any shop. Either manually emptying dust collectors, or paying to haul it away.

Face frames, don't really matter, they've got all of the boxwork and the sum of their parts to hold things straight. If it's lifted off of a box, throw another nail or clamp at it, and it's at worst a 10 second solution

This is the best work arounds I've come up with to avoid adding what is realistically at least another $2-3k of cost into an average house of cabinets, which is about $40k for me with no finishing or installation costs figured in. I'm expensive as heck anyways. I'm paying $.10 a board foot for surfacing, I can't joint and plane the 1000 bd/ft that goes into the average house between doors, drawer fronts, drawers, face frames for $100. There's some woods it's unavoidable. Some will twist up like crazy, and you just have to. I've gotten hosed by mahogany before. I just avoid trying to sell those species. lol 90% of what I do is inset, there's a stop at the top of the door, the bottom is just hanging in space, so it needs to be fairly straight or it will be a problem. On overlay something has to be really jacked up to be a problem. I don't think I've ever defected a door on an overlay job because of it being wonky. I run a 3/32" margin all around and I bet 1 out of 500 doors is such a problem child that it needs to be remade or pitched. Another trick is to crown your material, so if a door hooks, it always hooks in. The self closing hinges are always putting a little bit of pressure in towards the opening anyways, but if it hooks out, you're hosed. A messed up door can often times be held straight be using a shelf as a stop with a bumper towards the bottom or on the lowest shelf. I'd probably change my tune on that if I didn't use adjustable hinges though. It's almost futile here. In the winter, humidity will bottom out around 20%, and be close to 100% in the summer. Things will move and no amount of jointing will prevent that either if the house humidity and temperature aren't well controlled.


Too long? I thought that was too long.

[Larry Edgerton]

Interesting comparing processes Martin. I only use the jointer on cabinet boards that the planer will not take care of, but mostly I use it for other projects like entry doors. I have found I can get stock good enough by making a few passes through the planer at high speed, flipping every pass, then final pass on low speed. I figure I will lose some but they will make good drawer stock, so no real loss. I don't do many cabinets any more though, and if I did I would be looking to streamline, but for the one off stuff I have been doing speed is not my major concern. I do face joint all entry door stock,, rough plane oversize and let set a few days to see what it does, but not for cabinets.

I tried the dial indicator, pain in the butt as far as I am concerned. I had the glass pieces made thirty years ago, they are always flat, edges are ground, and in the top of my toolbox when I need them. I hold the end down with magnets, and just watch the water. I have a magnetic setting tool but it will not work on carbide. I gently tighten the gib screws, and the knives do lift as someone mentioned, but I just watch the water and tap them down with a block of wood till they are at the right height and tighten up the rest of the way. Works fine for me but if it doesn't work for someone else, well, thats just how the world works, to each his own. The water is a concession to my eyes getting old. I usually wipe down the machine and treat the top at the same time so it is not really a problem

[J.R. Rutter]

How do you clean up your door outside edges?

I used to invest way too much time into material prep. Even with power feeders on a pair of jointers, it would be close to a full day to face joint, plane, edge joint, and rip to width. Our 410 jointer is mostly used as a table to hold sets of staves before glue-up...

[Martin Wasner]

Interesting comparing processes Martin. I only use the jointer on cabinet boards that the planer will not take care of, but mostly I use it for other projects like entry doors. I have found I can get stock good enough by making a few passes through the planer at high speed, flipping every pass, then final pass on low speed. I figure I will lose some but they will make good drawer stock, so no real loss. I don't do many cabinets any more though, and if I did I would be looking to streamline, but for the one off stuff I have been doing speed is not my major concern. I do face joint all entry door stock,, rough plane oversize and let set a few days to see what it does, but not for cabinets.

I tried the dial indicator, pain in the butt as far as I am concerned. I had the glass pieces made thirty years ago, they are always flat, edges are ground, and in the top of my toolbox when I need them. I hold the end down with magnets, and just watch the water. I have a magnetic setting tool but it will not work on carbide. I gently tighten the gib screws, and the knives do lift as someone mentioned, but I just watch the water and tap them down with a block of wood till they are at the right height and tighten up the rest of the way. Works fine for me but if it doesn't work for someone else, well, thats just how the world works, to each his own. The water is a concession to my eyes getting old. I usually wipe down the machine and treat the top at the same time so it is not really a problem



Everybody does have their own way. The reality is that I build things to a price point. Virtually everybody does. I work in a decent market, most of the time they have budgets all the same as anyone else though. Rarely do I get something where there's a blank check, and the mandate to just make it happen. Maybe certain aspects, but never the entire job. My customers are happy, I'm happy with what I build from a pride and profitability standpoint and I feel that's a success for any business no matter what field or segment you work in. Some guys are content doing the starter homes, some won't touch anything other than the ultra high end. And that's fine. We all find our spot.

If I were making pass doors, I would certainly be face jointing everything. A small twist in a passage door can be a nightmare since there is so many constrictions to how a door can be placed in a framed opening and the overall size versus a regular cabinet door will make that flaw exponentially larger. Someday I might take that on, but I am ill equipped the way the shop is now. A couple here and there, sure. But on the regular it would be a nightmare for me.


I have wanted to try building pass door by basically glueing two cabinet doors together. I've kicked it around since you could have two different species or door styles on each face. Different specie might cause problems, but doing raise panel with a ogee sticking on one face, and shaker flat panel on the other. I'd probably use epoxy, and a crude press using red iron beams and a unit of MDF sitting on top to act as a press. It'd need some refinement if I wanted to move the idea to a production process though. Currently with all of my paneled ends I pocket screw the rails into the stiles. That could work well I'd think on pass doors as well instead of relying solely on cope and stick, adding dowels, or tenoning them together. Though it might not be as good. I don't know.

[Martin Wasner]

How do you clean up your door outside edges?

I used to invest way too much time into material prep. Even with power feeders on a pair of jointers, it would be close to a full day to face joint, plane, edge joint, and rip to width. Our 410 jointer is mostly used as a table to hold sets of staves before glue-up...


Shaper. I run the sticking to finished size with a four wing opposite shear, straight knife head. I run them a bit oversized. A 2-1/4" rail or stile comes off the shaper at 2.260" That makes my door a freckle oversized, then I edge sand them in.



On overlay I just run them to a size manually. One of the things I want to try when I finally get a cnc is to build the doors with the only the sticking cut being made on the rail and stile. So the sticking would be 2-5/16" when the door is assembled. I'd have to cut the stiles a 1/8" oversized in length. Assemble the door, throw them on the CNC to size them, sand the faces in the widebelt, then just sand the faces and edges with a DA. Might not pay doing it on an overlay job that has 1" margins, but doing full overlay with 1/8" margins I think it would be time well spent. Edge sanding a door to a size and square is a challenge for somebody who hasn't done it a zillion times, (as I'm sure you know). Cumlative errors when doing full overlay can be a nightmare, a CNC should make them flawlessly to size, and square and should negate that. One of the local cabinet door builders, like you, does it this way on everything and I thought it was pretty smart. It might take way too long too, I don't know until I do it. It probably depends how suction zones and the pins are laid out on the CNC. If you can off load and load while it's cutting a door on the other end of the machine, it might go pretty quickly.


On inset, I actually scribe them into the opening. I edge sand the hinge side, then typically sand the bottom edge so it fits in the corner perfectly, then I use a scriber to mark the outside top edges, and then mark the top and bottom edges of the side opposite of the hinge. For pairs I save the edge opposite of the hinge until everything else is done, then just sand those edges that come together to a number until the pair as a whole get me to what I want. I shoot for a 1/4" strong less than the overall opening. It goes quicker than you'd think. a 1/64" flaw spread out over three margins once adjusted is basically nothing and it's a whole lot less critical of a point to hit than when doing singles.

[Andrew J. Coholic]

I get my material mostly at 13/16", and straightlined one edge.


Thats what I figured. Wouldnt work up here. MAterial changes hands too many times, sits in various warehouses etc and nothing I have ever bought in pre-milled ever stayed flat or straight.

Youll like having a large jointer I think.

[Martin Wasner]

Thats what I figured. Wouldnt work up here. MAterial changes hands too many times, sits in various warehouses etc and nothing I have ever bought in pre-milled ever stayed flat or straight.

Youll like having a large jointer I think.

Here it's milled before it goes on the truck, I'd be surprised if more than a day passes between getting surfaced and showing up at my door.

[Darcy Warner]

I order 4/4 SKP to 15/16 if I am just running boards for exterior trim or blanks for a moulder.

Most everything else is all RS.

I don't build cabinets though.

[Larry Edgerton]

Everybody does have their own way. The reality is that I build things to a price point. Virtually everybody does. I work in a decent market, most of the time they have budgets all the same as anyone else though. Rarely do I get something where there's a blank check, and the mandate to just make it happen. Maybe certain aspects, but never the entire job. My customers are happy, I'm happy with what I build from a pride and profitability standpoint and I feel that's a success for any business no matter what field or segment you work in. Some guys are content doing the starter homes, some won't touch anything other than the ultra high end. And that's fine. We all find our spot.

If I were making pass doors, I would certainly be face jointing everything. A small twist in a passage door can be a nightmare since there is so many constrictions to how a door can be placed in a framed opening and the overall size versus a regular cabinet door will make that flaw exponentially larger. Someday I might take that on, but I am ill equipped the way the shop is now. A couple here and there, sure. But on the regular it would be a nightmare for me.


I have wanted to try building pass door by basically glueing two cabinet doors together. I've kicked it around since you could have two different species or door styles on each face. Different specie might cause problems, but doing raise panel with a ogee sticking on one face, and shaker flat panel on the other. I'd probably use epoxy, and a crude press using red iron beams and a unit of MDF sitting on top to act as a press. It'd need some refinement if I wanted to move the idea to a production process though. Currently with all of my paneled ends I pocket screw the rails into the stiles. That could work well I'd think on pass doors as well instead of relying solely on cope and stick, adding dowels, or tenoning them together. Though it might not be as good. I don't know.

I make most of my entry doors just as you have thought about. I use a plywood/insulation core. I have done doors with different faces as well, just need to watch that the two species are of similar expansion rates, and as you have surmised liberal use of West System, both in the lamination and the base coats of finish. I use a base coat of 207 until it is sealed perfectly and then topcoat with automotive clear over a layer of clear adhesion promoting primer used for urethane bumpers. Have had no failures using this method, but it is expensive for both time and material. But.... It makes an awesome door and allows you to break the rules a bit. A door such as this would be in the $10k and up range.

The stuff I do Martin is not all that profitable, its just a job, and the business could never be sold really, but for me it is nice to be working at home at a pace that fits my age. Last few years have made many of my misadventures come home to roost, no more fast cars, no more bikes, a sad state of affairs really. You still riding sport bikes? I miss that Adrenalin rush.....

[Martin Wasner]

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The stuff I do Martin is not all that profitable, its just a job, and the business could never be sold really,

Woodworking? Not all that profitable? Surely you jest.... I knew I'd never get rich doing this stuff, but I'd be nice to pull something out of the business. I keep just shoving it back in for equipment hoping to make it happen one day. By the time my building is done I'll have way more money invested than I care to for what I'm pulling out.



You still riding sport bikes? I miss that Adrenalin rush.....

Unfortunately no. I miss it as well. I started doing a fair amount of track days, started getting far better than I needed to be, and started getting a little big for my britches on the street. I had a few closer calls than I cared to have and just gave it up. I used to use my bike for probably better than half of my transportation in the warm months, but now days I almost always need at least a car or truck once during the day and just having two wheels doesn't cut it. There's also the fact that when your skills start to slip, you know when you're screwing up and they little stuff starts scaring you more than it should.

Basically I turned into a wimp.

[Larry Edgerton]

What got to me was the cell phone idiots. Had a couple of really close calls and it started taking the fun out of it. And, like you say your skills get a little bit on delay. My last road bike was a BMW 1200 GT, and I looked at my hard bags after a particularly fun trip and I had ground the bottom corners off of the bags. Was pushing a bit hard for a guy on the upper end of his fifties. Had to give up dirt bikes because my knees got so bad that they would not hold me up in the whoops, and I was not capable of just putzing around.

I tried to sell my business for a while with the commercial building, but no real offers. Could have sold it on a land contract basis but I just wanted out. Ended up just selling the building. So now that my shop is in the middle of nowhere at my house there is no chance of selling, but thats ok, I didn't really want to stop anyway, just slow down a bit. Miss the big shop though, holy cow do I miss it!

Bought a fishing boat two years ago to try something more appropriate for my age, but have not had it in the water yet.:rolleyes: Maybe next year......

[Ron Kellison]

That jointer is a good looking piece of kit! If it was mine I wouldn't consider putting a pork chop guard on it, I'd be looking around for a European guard. I think they're safer because you can move a piece through without your hand ever coming close to the blades while keeping constant control pressure on the wood. YMMV.

[Martin Wasner]

I'm not sure I'm sold on the euro style guards. The projection from the side of the machine would drive me nuts I think. I start material from the behind the cutter, but once there's enough to grab onto forward of the cutter, that's where I am. I step forward to keep pressure down on the out feed table. I feel I'd have to either walk around the guard, or stretch out to do that. I might be completely wrong on that too, I've never actually used one.

The only one that I'm interested in is the suvamatic one and the only price I could find was for £800, which is about $1100. I might call Martin and see if they'd sell one and what it'd cost, but I'm guessing the extra cost is more than I care to spend.

[Warren Lake]

if you joint like that and I get it then both guards are in your way more so with the european one. The porkchop you can push to the side to drop on. Really pulling the big fence over to board width a bit over is the same thing, only issue is you would be working the knives mostly in the same place. Saw a wood guard in hinged sections somewhere that seemed to cover the left side of the knives and allow you to work anywhere on the knives just nothing goes accross to cover the knives once the board is through but the pork chop is not there either at the end of the board as its held away just the same till the board passes it. Know someone who had a bad day and got caught when the pork chop was still held away by the board.

[Brian Deakin]

My approach
(1) Select a piece of glass ideally slightly larger than the width of the planer blade Knives ,clean the surfaces then spray one surface with a film of furniture polish to form a fine opaque layer Place the glass on the out feed table polish side down covering the planer blades
(2) Slowly raise the knives and rotate them by hand
(3) As the edge of the knives approach the film of polish the will begin to scrape the polish of the glass
(4) This will provide a visual indication when the knife edges are level with the outfeed table and shows if the blades are parallel to the outfeed table across their width indicated by the visual appearance of how the polish is scrapped of the glass

[Larry Edgerton]

My approach
(1) Select a piece of glass ideally slightly larger than the width of the planer blade Knives ,clean the surfaces then spray one surface with a film of furniture polish to form a fine opaque layer Place the glass on the out feed table polish side down covering the planer blades
(2) Slowly raise the knives and rotate them by hand
(3) As the edge of the knives approach the film of polish the will begin to scrape the polish of the glass
(4) This will provide a visual indication when the knife edges are level with the outfeed table and shows if the blades are parallel to the outfeed table across their width indicated by the visual appearance of how the polish is scrapped of the glass

I will try that. In my method I watch the water on the table but your method may be easier. Thanks

[Brian Deakin]

Thank you for your reply regards Brian