New to the world of jointers

[rodney mitchell]

I just bought an 8" Woodtek used. How do you know if the knives are getting dull? It really doesn't seem to be cutting as smoothly as I thought it would. It is almost like a chatter sometimes rather than a smooth cut. Thanks.......

Rodney

[Hans Braul]

Hi Rodney.

A couple of things. If it seems to tear out where it should be cutting clean, even with thin passes, then you need to sharpen the blades. Also, if the blades are out of alignment then it could be that only one blade is doing all the work and then it won't feel as smooth as it should. This is my experience, which is limited...

If you decide to get your knives sharpened beware of the amateurs! I had mine sharpened several times by several different outfits and could not believe how badly they were done. They were ground far from straight, and when I finally found a good shop they had to remove a lot of material to correct the problems created by the previous hackers.

Regards,
Hans

[Art Mann]

If you haven't used a jointer before, you may be trying to make too deep a cut with each pass. I usually shave off 1/32" or less each time. I swap out knives when the finish on the board starts to look worse and has ridges in it from minor nicks. I haven't ever swapped out knives because of chatter or high feed effort required.

[Jim Becker]

In addition to Art's suggestions, go slow...the quicker your feed rate, the more chatter you may experience and the lesser quality of the milling. Slow means more "scallops" per inch...the more, the merrier.

[Kent Fitzgerald]

Rodney, unless the previous owner just installed fresh knives (unlikely), they're somewhere along the way to dull. You'll have to R&R them at some point, so rather than wait to see how much worse they can get, I'd suggest that you go ahead and order a new set. Freud always gets good reports, and they have sizes to fit about any machine.

When you have a few hours, swap in the new blades, get the whole machine thoroughly aligned, and send the originals out for sharpening. This way, you don't have any downtime, and the new knives will give you a benchmark for how the machine should perform.

[Mike Murray]

Where would one typically go to get jointer knives sharpened? I want to avoid the hackers.

[rodney mitchell]

Thanks for all the replies, guys. This site is a wealth of information. I will try the suggestions, but also go ahead and change the knives. It actually came with a spare (new) set.

Rodney

[Ted Miller]

I think one of the biggest mistakes when using jointers is speed, many guys I see use them move their stock way to fast, I have no problem making many slower just barely cutting the stock and this makes my blades stay sharper longer it seems, species makes the blades dull faster as well...