New (Used) Delta Jointer (37-190) - Sharing a CL Story

[Gary Mazzaferro]

I'm new to this forum and as I'll reaching retirement in the next 10 years, I'm returning to fine cabinet making. I'm used to old style tools,@1960s.


While fishing on craigslist for some tools and finding a Delta 37-190 jointer which I talked down to $80 from $240. Purchasing at night and poor lighting is never a smart move. Running the jointer table vibrated badly and sounded like rolling marbles spinning up. But it was $80.


On inspection in the light, the table was a bit pitted from rust and the infeed table locking block was cracked. The painful part is the cast iron infeed block is no longer available, so I need to fix it or make a replacement. The original owner placed a long screw in the infeed stop to lock the table via the gib (great idea).

Pulling the cutter head, showed bone dry bearings that sounded like a baby's rattle. It looks like the bearing were replaced with Perry brand, maybe autozone ? I just ordered new NSK, ABEC-3, metal clad bearings. Hopefully the bearing will fix the vibration.


Not being familiar with the newer-ish Delta jointers, I'm truly horrified at the table and table design.


The tables which should be flat and co-planer and to the cutter head, well aren't. Each table is high on the edges at least 0.003", although the interior of the tables seem flat. The in/out feed tables aren't co-planer, off by 1/10 inch after 18 inches.

Worse there is no alignment adjustment for the table and the gibs aren't tapered. This is a design I'd expect to see from the pac-rim in the 80s. The angle of the tables change as they are moved over the ways. Making the table co-planer, shimming requires 15 mils on the extremes and 8 mils in the center. It seems the dovetail ways are not flat and likely incorrectly machined.

The tables are not planer with the cutter head, about 4 mils off. Again, just to keep the factory's final assemblers on their toes, the in/out feed tables are offset in opposite directions. The outfeed table is lower on the back and higher in the front. The infeed table is higher in the back and lower in the front.

The hardware is especially interesting. Some bolts/nuts are metric, while others SAE. The gib set screws are the best, neither metric or SAE.

The odd thing about this jointer, when assembled on the stand, there is no reference to align the motor or the bed. The motor sits on the dust chute which has a 1/4 inch play making pulley alignment a best guess. The chute is too flimsy for a 3/4hp motor, contributing to vibration and cut chatter.

I'm thinking I've shouldn't have ordered carbide blades for this machine. It does give me an excuse to break out the anderson way scrapers.

Lesson learned: Don't buy a jointer in the dark.

Happy new year

[Steve Demuth]

For $80 I'd call it a lesson and sell it for scrap, unless rebuilding cheap iron is what you want to do in retirement. You can do better, and then get on to some woodworking.

Just 2 cents from another guy whose youth and energy are long gone, trying to optimize the use of what's left

[Brian Henderson]

Don't buy anything for any price in the dark. If it doesn't sound right, don't buy it period. It will probably cost you more to fix than it will to just trash it and buy another. And don't buy Delta because parts are virtually impossible to get.

[Eric Keller]

heh, that sounds like a challenge. I'm not quite to retirement age, but right now I'm not taking on any more projects where the only attraction is saving money. Maybe if it's something I really want and would never get otherwise, but those deals and projects never seem to be forthcoming.

[Mike Kees]

Gary I bought that same jointer brand new as my first jointer. When I began to read about how a jointer should line up I checked mine. It was way out. I took it completely apart and found dry hardened shipping grease in the ways,once cleaned and reassembled it was flat and coplanar. I used it for about ten years before upgrading to an old delta 8'' 37-315. You are right the older jointer is way better quality. Maybe yours just needs a tear down and clean up. Good luck ,Mike.

[Gary Mazzaferro]

Thanks All,

This was an impulse buy and will be a challenge to get running properly, but not too bad. I sometimes adopt old machine tools to restore and donate for resale/auctions or give them to habitat for humanity (great tax write-offs). I still have a 1940's 10" Sheldon metal lathe restore in process.

The decision point on this jointer is when new bearings are installed. If the cutter head is out of balance, the jointer is scrape. I doubt the head was balanced with blade hardware mounted, so it should be an easy check

@Mike: I opened the gibs today, there is NO grease at all in the ways. Bone dry !!

I pulled out the outfeed gib. The manufacturing quality of this jointer is pretty disappointing (horrifying). How were they used ? Rough-in carpentry and "rustic" furniture ?

Gibs are easy and cheap to fixup/replace (I have a B&S micromaster 6x18 surface grinder, $53 at an auction). The jointer's ways are just poorly machined, but fixable. A trick I picked up from a local machine rebuilder is rigging up a light duty, power machine way scraper using any oscillating power tool and a carbide or a diamond abrasive blade. I'm using a rockwell tool from lowes. For heavier work, an air chisel with a old file ground to a chisel welded on works well on cheap cast iron (a harbor freight air hammer is "the" tool).

The tables surfaces are not too bad when compared to the ways. They look like they were once good. Inspecting in more detail, it looks like someone took a sander to them. A diamond sharpening stone will fix the high edges quickly.

Having some scrape 3/8 steel plate and some 1/2" thick cast angle brackets will serve as a new motor mount to the bed. I just have this stuff laying around, unused for over a decade. Adding two pins to the bed and the angle brackets will fix any pulley alignment issues and stop the stand vibration. I just wonder whether the flimsy motor mount is deliberate to soften vibration force transfer to the cutter head improving bearing life, sort of like a shock absorbed. Or am I giving them too much credit ?

I have some old delrin or some other hard as nails, tough nylon to make a new infeed block. Its harder than steel to drill through. If it doesn't work I'll epoxy a steel plate to the old block. With a little bondo and farm equipment paint, it'll be done and look better than new, lol.

Bearings will be arriving tomorrow.

I'll be cabinet making soon. I still need a good, mid-duty table saw like a unisaw or a powermatic 66. BTW in the denver area, "junk" unisaw sells for over $1000.

[Gene Takae]

You may be able to part it out since Delta parts are hard to come by. You should be able to recoup all of the money.

[Gary Mazzaferro]

Thanks Gene, That is a great idea. It only took 30 min to make the plastic block. I'm going to get a tee nut for the table locking screw. I ordered some dura-bar g2 to replace the gibs, low cost. It should be less than 10 hrs to fix the ways taking it easy.

[Mike Kees]

Hey Gary ,you sound a lot like me. I would be bored to death if I bought a machine that was just plug and play. I was thinking about my "better" old Delta jointer and remembered that I had to shim the outfeed table .005 (I think) because it was twisted compared to the infeed table. I have also driven to California to pick up a DJ-20 jointer and a wood lathe bought on Ebay. So all in all the way I see it you are doing just fine! Have fun , Mike.

[Jared Turner]

Hey Gary,
I recently purchased the 37-190 on Craigslist for $150. The unit was in amazing condition. The gentleman I purchased it from bought it new over 10 years ago and only used it twice. Once I got it home I disassembled the unit to give it a good cleaning and tuning with no problems. After giving it a test run I noticed the infeed table block was starting to crack from tightening the locking pin. I was wondering if your solution to this problem a successful and if you can give me any suggestions on what I can do along with any pictures you have. I appreciate any help you can give, as I have this unit looking brand new with this being the only issue. THANKS!