Help with General 480 Jointer Rebuild

[Aaron Mills]

I'm in the middle of a rebuild of a General 480 8" jointer and am encountering some problems with the table adjustments. Using handwheels, I should be able to lower and raise the tables, but this does not work. The jointer is dovetailed and uses gibs.

On both the infeed and outfeed tables, the table raising/lowering mechanism was disengaged by the previous owner. Having gone over the exploded parts diagram from General, as well as the parts list, there doesn't appear to be anything missing; however, I did notice a threaded hole on both tables that would seem to engage the table adjusting mechanism. Still waiting to hear back from General if there is indeed a missing part, or if I'm misunderstanding how the table adjustment mechanism should work.

I'm hoping someone out there either has experience with the General jointers or might be able to provide a little insight into the table raising mechanisms used on dovetailed jointers with handwheels.

Also, any suggestions on the removal of either glue or pitch build-up from the cast iron? I'm not sure which it is, I just not that it led to a lot of sawdust building up into hard blocks.

NOTE: Would try OWWM, but I haven't found a great response or as much help as on SMC with my previous posts, so I'm posting here.

[Dev Emch]

Aaron...

First of all, you have not been clear on where you are. Have you attempted to reassemble the unit and encountered issues or are you concerned over the placement of parts prior to their reassembly?

In this type of jointer, you will have a lead screw which rotates in the jointer base along with a moving full nut which bolts to the bottom side of the jointer table/wedge assembly. Its done this way so that when you reassemble, you can fine tune the position of this full nut and get the table close to top dead center with the lead screw in the correct position.

The lead screw can be attached to the base in a number of ways. One way is to include two locking collars on a smooth shaft which passes through a hole in the base. The collars keep the lead screw in a fixed position. The exact way this is done on the general is illustrated in your isometric drawings which you should have in the paper work.

I would take a wait and see until you get the fax of the isometric. Then take an inventory of all parts. Study the diagram. Then, you will be in a better position to determine what is present or not present.

One word of caution. The tables on the general jointer are very heavy. Once you undo the lead screw, these tables may come out in quite a hurry. Be careful here that you do not hurt yourself nor that the table fall and crack on the hard floor.

Let us know how things are going....