Hammer A331: Outfeed table adjustment

[Susumu Mori]

Hi A331 owners,

I need your guidance here.
I recently run many >5 feet boards through A331 and noticed that the surface and edge are convex.
In the Hammer term, it is "open joint".
The manual says I need to turn an eccentric after loosening a small screw, but the eccentric is so tight and it won't move at all.
I wonder if somebody can share your experience about how I can possibly move this thing, which way I should turn to lower the outfeed, and how this eccentric can move the table. It doesn't make sense that the heavy table is held only by the small screw to me....

Thanks,

Susumu

[John Lankers]

Susumu, I suspect the Hammer shares similarities with the Felder AD741.
If so, you need to pull the front cover off the outfeed side, there you'll find a small 6 mm (10 mm wrench) hex bolt which locks the "table adjustment mechanism", with this bolt loosened you should be able to make the necessary adjustments. The best way to check your progress is to edge joint a test piece, a small - no more than a few thou - concave shape is desired.
The way you feed a board over the jointer can alter the result also.

[Susumu Mori]

Thanks John.

I believe I found a kind of a bracket that I need to turn but my problem is that it resists to move and I don't want to force too much.
I attached a photo of the mechanism. Is it the right one to turn?
With this wrench, I may not have enough torque to turn it....

20160118_171357_s.jpg

[John Lankers]

Try to loosen the hex head bolt (the one with the fender washer) shown on the right side of your pic by 1 turn, that should release the mechanism. Don't forget to tighten it back up when you're done.

[Susumu Mori]

Hi John,

Yes, it's loose now.
I guess I just need some muscle...
How much should I move it?

[John Lankers]

Unplug the machine first!
Try making adjustments in tiny increments, the lever should move with little force. A good indicator is when you place a straightedge on the outfeed table over the cutterhead, then when you turn the cutterhead by hand your straightedge should move no more than 1/4" (I used the ruler out of my 12" combination square for this test). When you're getting close edge joint 2 boards and see how the edges line up, mark both boards to ensure you keep them in the same direction.

[Robert Strasser]

I have the ten-inch wide version of your machine and had the same problem. I wrote up my fix to this problem a couple of years ago and will paste it below. It is rather long, but I hope it helps.

I have owned a Hammer A3-26 Planer-Thicknesser (or jointer/planer) for over a year and I am very happy with it. I chose the smallest of the Hammer machines since it was small and light enough to get in my basement. I also found I rarely planed boards over 10 inches wide. Your uses may dictate the larger 12 or 16-inch machines.

I have had only one problem with this machine. It concerns adjusting the height of the planer knives relative to the out feed table. This machine did come with the quick-change, self-setting cutterblock system. This system is supposed to allow quick change-out of knives without any adjustments. Well, sometimes you still have to do minor adjustments. In the case of this machine, you do not adjust the knives, you adjust the height of the outfeed table. To adjust the height of the outfeed table, the manual simply says to loosen the clamping screw and turn the eccentric until the desired height is reached. Well... the first time I tried this I was met with frustration.

Please refer to my picture to see what I am talking about. I have given names to parts that may or may not be what Hammer calls them. But I had to name them something so I could talk about them.

First step is to loosen the Clamping Screw... no problem. But when I turn the Eccentric Linkage with a 17 mm wrench, the Eccentric Shafts did not turn. The Eccentric Shafts are smooth and round. They fit in round holes and are attached to the Eccentric Linkage with a pinch fitting. Obviously, the shafts were not being pinched tight enough, or the shafts were not willing to be turned. Turns out both cases were true.

When I took the Eccentric Linkage off the Eccentric Shafts I confirmed there were no keys, set screws or flat sides to the shafts. But there was plenty of grease on the shafts which was not helping matters. I cleaned things up as best I could and tried again. The shafts still did not turn. I then looked at the Eccentric Shaft Nuts. I loosened them and tried again with no luck. I then looked at the machine back and noticed two more Eccentric Shaft Nuts. I loosened them with a 16 mm wrench (the front nuts need a 19 mm wrench). Still no luck.

I then looked to see how the outfeed table moves, and relative to what surface. You can see in my picture that the outfeed table has a flat surface that is pressed against the casting that holds the Eccentric Shafts. These two surfaces slide relative to each other. But I had grease act like glue before, so I gave some well tempered, but firm taps to the surfaces to see if I could get things moving. I believe I also used a very stout putty knife. This worked. I could now get the Eccentric Shafts to turn and adjust the Outfeed Table height.

Before I did any more adjusting, I marked the location of the Eccentric Shafts to make sure they turned in unison. You can see my black marks on top of each shaft.

I made one small adjustment and measured the height of the knives. They were way off! I quickly figured out the Eccentric Shaft Nuts must be tightened before you can take a measurement. This became an iterative procedure of loosening the Eccentric Shaft Nuts, turning the Eccentric Shafts, tightening the nuts, and measuring. I got it dialed-in within a few minutes.
Hopefully I will not have to adjust this too many times. In four blade changes I had to do this adjustment twice. But at least I now know how to do it.

The weak link in the design is the pinch fitting that is supposed to hold the shafts. I thought about drilling a hole and inserting a pin, but I got it working now and I do not fix something that ain’t broke.

I hope this rambling helps someone.

[Susumu Mori]

Thanks John and Bob!

I should have found Bob's thread before I tried to adjust the table!

I finally found the problem, though.

Before I figured what I needed to turn, I mistakenly turned one of the 19mm shaft nuts and over tighten it.
Once I loosen the shaft nut, the eccentric linkage finally started to turn. The counter-clockwise motion of the crank lowered the table, which fixed the pronounced convex.
I was still puzzled that I couldn't achieve concave by lowering the outfeed table before I get a noticeable snipe at the tail.
I then raised the table until the snipe is gone. Now I can get almost straight surface/edge.

[Glenn de Souza]

Hi,
I need to perform this adjustment on my Hammer A3-31 also because I too am finding the joint too "open" for my liking. My question - are there also adjustment bolts on the back side of the machine that would need to be adjusted also in order to keep the outfeed table in the same plane?

Thanks

[Bill McNiel]

I have the ten-inch wide version of your machine and had the same problem. I wrote up my fix to this problem a couple of years ago and will paste it below. It is rather long, but I hope it helps.

I have owned a Hammer A3-26 Planer-Thicknesser (or jointer/planer) for over a year and I am very happy with it. I chose the smallest of the Hammer machines since it was small and light enough to get in my basement. I also found I rarely planed boards over 10 inches wide. Your uses may dictate the larger 12 or 16-inch machines.

I have had only one problem with this machine. It concerns adjusting the height of the planer knives relative to the out feed table. This machine did come with the quick-change, self-setting cutterblock system. This system is supposed to allow quick change-out of knives without any adjustments. Well, sometimes you still have to do minor adjustments. In the case of this machine, you do not adjust the knives, you adjust the height of the outfeed table. To adjust the height of the outfeed table, the manual simply says to loosen the clamping screw and turn the eccentric until the desired height is reached. Well... the first time I tried this I was met with frustration.

Please refer to my picture to see what I am talking about. I have given names to parts that may or may not be what Hammer calls them. But I had to name them something so I could talk about them.

First step is to loosen the Clamping Screw... no problem. But when I turn the Eccentric Linkage with a 17 mm wrench, the Eccentric Shafts did not turn. The Eccentric Shafts are smooth and round. They fit in round holes and are attached to the Eccentric Linkage with a pinch fitting. Obviously, the shafts were not being pinched tight enough, or the shafts were not willing to be turned. Turns out both cases were true.

When I took the Eccentric Linkage off the Eccentric Shafts I confirmed there were no keys, set screws or flat sides to the shafts. But there was plenty of grease on the shafts which was not helping matters. I cleaned things up as best I could and tried again. The shafts still did not turn. I then looked at the Eccentric Shaft Nuts. I loosened them and tried again with no luck. I then looked at the machine back and noticed two more Eccentric Shaft Nuts. I loosened them with a 16 mm wrench (the front nuts need a 19 mm wrench). Still no luck.

I then looked to see how the outfeed table moves, and relative to what surface. You can see in my picture that the outfeed table has a flat surface that is pressed against the casting that holds the Eccentric Shafts. These two surfaces slide relative to each other. But I had grease act like glue before, so I gave some well tempered, but firm taps to the surfaces to see if I could get things moving. I believe I also used a very stout putty knife. This worked. I could now get the Eccentric Shafts to turn and adjust the Outfeed Table height.

Before I did any more adjusting, I marked the location of the Eccentric Shafts to make sure they turned in unison. You can see my black marks on top of each shaft.

I made one small adjustment and measured the height of the knives. They were way off! I quickly figured out the Eccentric Shaft Nuts must be tightened before you can take a measurement. This became an iterative procedure of loosening the Eccentric Shaft Nuts, turning the Eccentric Shafts, tightening the nuts, and measuring. I got it dialed-in within a few minutes.
Hopefully I will not have to adjust this too many times. In four blade changes I had to do this adjustment twice. But at least I now know how to do it.

The weak link in the design is the pinch fitting that is supposed to hold the shafts. I thought about drilling a hole and inserting a pin, but I got it working now and I do not fix something that ain’t broke.

I hope this rambling helps someone.

BLESS YOU ROBERT! I just moved my, new to me, A3 41 (with the Silent Head) into the shop and spent the last two days trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and how the outfeed table could be lowered. As advertised, the Hammer Owner's Manual is beyond poor. One would think that for high quality, expensive machines F/H would expend a lot more effort to provide decent, comprehensible instructions instead of disclaimers and liability screens. Your post took me from POed to Happy Camper status. Susumu also gets props for clarifying which rotation raises and which lowers the table.

Again my sincere thanks - Bill

[Ben Rivel]

Hmmmm.... Good thread. I should be getting my A3-31 this month, so Ill bookmark this one should mine need adjustment. Thanks for resurrecting this one!

[Prashun Patel]

Wali this old thread up. I had this exact issue today. I did not find that the casting/table interface was glued. Rather, I did find that the 19mm eccentric nuts needed to be loosened.

This thread was invaluable. Thanks.