Jointer beds - how to make them co-planar?

[Mark Gibney]

One side of the in-feed table on my Oliver 8" wedge bed jointer is 0.008" below the other seven corners.

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How do I remedy this? The out-feed table is dialed in with the cutterhead, and I know I have to keep that as it is no matter what.
I can of course shim the side of the in-feed table but my concern is how moving the in-feed table will affect the shimming?
What's my next move?

[Bruce King]

Try exercising the infeed, up and down rapidly 5 times then measure again.
What method are you using with the calipers? I never trust a caliper reading without fussing with it a few times.

[Mark Gibney]

Bruce I'm using feeler gauges to measure.
I guess this is the main reason parallelogram tables are easier to deal with than this wedge design.

[Eric Arnsdorff]

I'm interested to see what advice there is for this as well.

I have a Grizzly 6" jointer and I've had it for 20 years. It appears to be made very similar if not exactly the way yours is made. I dialed it in when I first got it. What's left of my recollection of this is that it was quite the chore. I bought a pack of brass shim stock to align my infeed table. It required a good amount of trial and error. The shims are still in place and I never move my infeed table more than 1/32" or so. I only occasionally adjust the infeed height. I will keep the material removed per pass relatively small and make multiple passes if needed. I will typically use my table saw, band saw and/or planer to remove material from material that is badly out of square.

I checked it recently and the tables were still square enough for my visual inspection with a straight edge. I didn't use my feeler gages to determine an exact value. The resulting jointed wood provides good results.

My vertical fence needs adjusting on occasion but only for tilt angle. It also has dovetail slides that luckily works well and only the tilt stop needs dialing in on occasion.

I don't have great advice on adjusting it. The way I did it was not easy as you have to loosen things enough to get the shims in place and retighten for measurement. Then rinse and repeat. It's been a long time but it was painful enough I remember it and don't want to go through that again unless absolutely necessary. The best news I have is that my tables have remained parallel after all these years.

[Mark Gibney]

Thanks for that Eric, yes I'm imagining it could be like chasing a dandelion seed in a gusty wind.

[Mike Kees]

Mark I had a Delta 37-315 that was out at the cutterhead like yours. Mine was on the outfeed table though. I also had straight knives which helps to align the cutterhead. I would recommend that you get John White's book "Care and repair of shop machines". It is a great book overall with an excellent section on jointers. he goes into great detail on how to shim and adjust a dovetail way jointer. My jointer only required shims on one side of the outfeed table. You may end up having to shim your cutterhead under the bearing block on one side to align everything at the end, because of the helical head. Almost everything I know about this process I learned from the aforementioned book. One other possibility that I encountered with my first jointer is excess grease in the dovetail ways that hardens and throws otherwise good machining out of whack. The cure is to take it apart and clean the ways then reassemble and check for flatness and coplaner all over again.

[Brian Holcombe]

First, find out if the table itself is actually flat, if it is not, then you can either have it flattened or put two corners down .004".

[Mark Gibney]

Thanks Brian, I was thinking and fearing that it might come to this, and it's good to get the bottom line from an expert. There is a Blanchard grinding place close by that can do this, so I suppose that's the good news.

[Andrew Seemann]

Does anyone know what the tolerance the tables were made to? I seem to recall an article on Powermatic jointers a dozen or two years ago that said their tables were within 0.010 or something that was larger than you would expect. You can go down quite the rabbit hole if you start chasing the tolerance of your machine.

[Brian Tymchak]

First, find out if the table itself is actually flat, if it is not, then you can either have it flattened or put two corners down .004".

Not an expert, but I was thinking the same. Almost has to be out of flat if 7 of 8 corners align. At the very least, I would make sure the infeed at the cutter head is parallel to the outfeed.

[Mel Fulks]

I've always been picky about jointer set-ups. So much so that I have adjusted them on my own time. In commercial shops
it' not unusual for them to be off. You put new knives in a jointer ,then encounter a small piece of embedded grit that nicks
knives 2 thousandths .Now the machine is going to "climb". Some fellows will then want to tear the machine apart. Even
the guys who have worked there for years ; maybe "especially those guys". It's not hard to figure out that thousandths
matter. But "when this stuff has to go out tomorrow" ,anything can happen ....and does!! Yes , I stole that from Disneee
(I don't want to go to prison )

[Andrew Hughes]

I agree Mel I’m picky too. If some don’t understand what Mel’s pointing out I would like to try and explain. If you get a nick deep enough in your knifes or inserts there will be a small line of wood that’s not cut. Since that small line will be sticking down further then the rest of the board it will bump into the outfeed table lip and raise the board up and out of the cut.
One way to keep going is too lower the out feed a few thousands. Or move the knives to cancel out the nick.
My Oliver has table lips that are about 2 1/2 wide. Oliver ground them with a slight taper about a half a thousand toward the head it definitely helps when to knives start getting nicks.
I have no ideas how to fix Marks problem.
Good Luck

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks Andrew, Someone once wrote "nothing flys here ,without a second"
And if I ever have to be in a duel... I will ask you to me my second. I mean maybe my gun hand will have an injury from
cleaning a wood chipper while it was plugged in ....and running !

[Steve Demuth]

Not an expert, but I was thinking the same. Almost has to be out of flat if 7 of 8 corners align. At the very least, I would make sure the infeed at the cutter head is parallel to the outfeed.

No almost about it. Any three points in space that are not colinear define a plane. If you choose any three corners of the bed and the fourth is not co-planar with those three, the bed is warped. Only question is whether it's warped enough that you care to have it reground.

[Andrew Hughes]

No problem Mel. I've been told I'm a good wing man. I have fast hands and keep a sharp knife. :)

[Warren Lake]

Many jointers in use for time will have wear on leading and out feed portion of the tables, also lower in the middle of those areas as well. its not just the material run over them but so many people that dont have infeed and outfeed support so those areas have extra wear. Sometimes its apparent on the machines with the tables with the raised lines you see the wear in them. Seen It on shapers as well and in that case more wear cause of power feeds.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks!
I can still remember hearing my first instructions on jointers and the consequences of nicked knives. Lot of the Profs.
know the material ,but are too cheap to buy the "visual aids" , so while the boss is telling me that nicks mess up
the stock. I'm thinking ,what's the big deal ? Won't take long to sand that off!! Takes a while to understand that the tiny
thread ,stuck on the board bottom ,IS the Bottom of the board ....and it needs to be wider...and just a tich...
higher ....and parallel with the other edge. To be so simple it's really a surprisingly hard to understand concept.

[Andrew Hughes]

Many jointers in use for time will have wear on leading and out feed portion of the tables, also lower in the middle of those areas as well. its not just the material run over them but so many people that dont have infeed and outfeed support so those areas have extra wear. Sometimes its apparent on the machines with the tables with the raised lines you see the wear in them. Seen It on shapers as well and in that case more wear cause of power feeds.

On another note Warren how do you like the T1 hhs knives the ones you had a thread about earlier this year. Are they holding up to your liking.

[Warren Lake]

I havent run them yet. I had talked to Dimar and said they are not straight so we need to start there. I get a front wont be straight from either a sharpener service or wear on them. These ones I got at an auction 24" cut to 20" One of them was not as thick as the others and that ticked me off. Want stuff from the same bar but its minimal, where it came out is in balancing so ground others a bit shorter. On all my older machines I dont know what the steel is as tooling came with them. I have other machines I can joint on and too much life stuff came in the way of the shop but getting back to it.

I thought these were brand new but someone had them in for a bit then changed them out, There is very small bit of wear, feel sharp but see they were in somewhere. Extra set for a planer at the auction purchaser was asleep i guess.

I was looking at wear on my jointer knives the other day and taking some measures, Stuff Mel talks about. Those knives in way too long wanted to see what they had to say now. Its amazing on a dial indicator how fine you can see and easy. No issue to see a quarter of a thou on this dial. stuff in a long time was worn .0025 to .004 at the worst. They were all at .050 above the cutter head when I set this up within .0005, I never end up over not sure why just that .0005 here and there under.

Ive asked on here before if anyone has ever put a dial on the insert stuff. Forgot the name like Joe and others use not Terminus. Id like to show up at a few machine dealers at some point and check a new machine one carries Martin and think with that head in it. Mel said that steel with the 18 percent tungsten you are asking about is better and ive read enough of him to trust that it will be.

I still remember a guy with a molding company who ground some knives for me as a favour, i gave him some bar stock I had, he looked and said Oh this is good steel. I know he was pressured at the time but regret I didnt ask him some questions about his statement. Might try contacting him on that, sure his business will still be there. First thing is to measure the backs of these knives then go out to Dimar. They did respond to my email which was good, just have to measure it and make the time to go out there. Nice to have more than one machine, takes any pressure off at times.

[Mel Fulks]

I've used jointers that were pretty old. Old timers that I worked with always advised , Don't press down on the material
until it has its leading end on outfeed side . Then...hold down there . In-feed is for forward ...not down.

[Warren Lake]

clear you got more jointer instruction than we did, then add in an antique memory,

all the works done on the outfeed, infeed just presents it, press down comment, crown up or down?

[Mel Fulks]

Crown down. But if crown side has a wide sap edge I like to rip it off before putting it down....
Mel can be brutal with wood...
But it is for it's own good.

[Brian Holcombe]

I do the same as Mel, crown down.