Biscuit cutter

[Lynn Sonier]

Hi guys. Have been enjoying reading your posts and looking at all your beautiful work.
My problem is my biscuit cutter seems to cut the slot a little too wide. Would it be possible to hone down the blade if I could get it out. Its a Ryobi which I like but have always noticed the biscuits were a little loose.

Lynn

[John Miliunas]

Hi guys. Have been enjoying reading your posts and looking at all your beautiful work.
My problem is my biscuit cutter seems to cut the slot a little too wide. Would it be possible to hone down the blade if I could get it out. Its a Ryobi which I like but have always noticed the biscuits were a little loose.

Lynn

Lynn, don't know about honing the blade down, though one would have to do it very precisely, so that you don't get it out of balance. One thing to remember about biscuits, though, is that when dry fit, they *will* be loose. They are meant to swell when hit with moisture (glue). Just take a biscuit and wet it down with some water. Now try to put it back into the slot you cut for it. Bet you won't be able to or it's going to be a *real* tight fit! :cool:

[Peter Stahl]

Lynn,

What John said plus all biscuits/ blades are different. I have a Dewalt biscuit jointer and use Porter Cable biscuit which are snug in the slots. They are tight enough not to fall out. You might want to tray a different brand of biscuits?

Pete

[Gene Collison]

Hi guys. Have been enjoying reading your posts and looking at all your beautiful work.
My problem is my biscuit cutter seems to cut the slot a little too wide. Would it be possible to hone down the blade if I could get it out. Its a Ryobi which I like but have always noticed the biscuits were a little loose.

Lynn

Hi Lynn,

Usually loose biscuits are caused by a loose bed on the joiner. What happens is any amount of vertical play in the bed causes the blade to move vertically when plunging, consequently the slot get loose. I have owned all of the popular plate joiners, brand M, PC, and D. They will all do the job well but the one that gives me the tightest slots and the best placement accuracy is the Makita 3901. I love the tight slots this tool gives. It uses a leader pin follower mechanism often used in tool and die making and is really free of play compared to the others. I actually sometimes use a small mallet to tap the biscuits in or a hard push with my finger. Sorry for the thread drift but you might want to buy another sometime and want to know what to look for.
I don't think I would try honing the blade to correct the problem, as the tool wears more the problem will reappear.

Gene

[Peter Stahl]

Forgot, you might want to check the blade for wobble too. Wouldn't take much to open the slot up too much. The first biscuit jointer I had was a plastic add-on to a angle grinder and it had so much play the biscuits would fall right out.

Pete

[Dale Thompson]

Lynn,
One other factor, biscuits, even from the same manufacturer, bag or jar will vary in thickness. I read a post or an article a while back where it was suggested that you cut a couple grooves with your machine and then "test fit" each biscuit and put them in separate containers. Some will be "loose". Those will be for joints where precision is not a big factor. "Medium" will be for joints where you may want a small option for alignment. "Tight" will be the "mallet tap" ones where you want a precise alignment.

If all of your biscuits come out in the "loose" category, that is an issue which you will have to address with your joiner. It's been covered previously.

Good luck. Incidentally, I have the DeWalt unit and am very happy with it.

Dale T.

[Craig Honeysett]

Hi guys. Have been enjoying reading your posts and looking at all your beautiful work.
My problem is my biscuit cutter seems to cut the slot a little too wide. Would it be possible to hone down the blade if I could get it out. Its a Ryobi which I like but have always noticed the biscuits were a little loose.

Lynn


Lynn, I also used to have one of the Ryobi biscuit cutters and had the same problem. it turns out that for some reason Ryobi uses a cutter that is .030 widder than everyone else. I checked into getting a narrower blade and found it wasn't cost effective. I now use the PC and realy like it.

[Steve Jenkins]

If you decide that making the cutter thinner is what you need to do just take it wherever you get your sawblades sharpened and tell them what you want the final kerf to be or tell them how much to take off and they can fix you right up. Shouldn't cost much of anything and if you have used it a bunch yoiu might get it sharpened at the same time. Steve