Leveling a jointer

[Robert Hayward]

never seen a machine come with levelling feet

My Oliver 4240 has leveling feet.

[Warren Lake]

Its a good idea, been in many shops towards and yet to see one machine with levellors, for sure its not a common thing. These are some of the top shops with usually older Europeans working there likely on some or all CNC machines. some on rubber or thick mat chunks but its more about vibration. Its not common to have adjustable feet on machines or i would have seen many times by now. Its a good idea though if it can have rubber on the bottom and the system is ridgid enough that there is no movment in the machine. Did you Oliver come that way or a past owner add them, good idea either way.

this is typical to what I saw in shops if anything at all


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[Andrew Hughes]

20 inch jointer has got to be heavy. With lots of heft just in the tables no doubt it will push a twist in the frame.
My jointer has levelers that’s just weird yours doesn’t. Must be European

[Warren Lake]

it is european and machines dont come with levellors, you would be the exception that ive yet to see. I cant say what the machine frame will do I can tell you there is no flex in my SCM table saw the base is so ridgid it just raises the machine proportionally to any change you make so that speaks highly for the base at least. It surprised me how stiff it was and how strong that base is. its heavier than on the jointer under discussion here even though it is a heavier machine and more of that weight is up top

found one, didnt come that way but customer added other ones just saw the rubber pads like on the shaper


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[Andrew Hughes]

Still would like to see Patrick’s 500mm jointer maybe it’s a Martin? Just for fun here’s what the leveling bolts look like on my Oliver. They are 1 inch.

[Brian Holcombe]

I did the same as Warren, since there are no levelers on the machines.

[Warren Lake]

Brian second time round I did a better job, having thinner shims was good and likely needed thinner still, Cutting them to small size to match the foot of the machine I think a turn adjuster is better as it does fine increments. I had an issue where id shim up then either another measure was off or if you tried to rock the machijne it rocked. It seemed solid till you tried to move it up and down and could sometimes but at first had thought it was fine. Thinner shims were good smaller shims much better on my uneven floor. I didnt get at first adding another shim and them shuffling around a bit I was not getting the exact same result when I was adding shims

I looked at a number of shop photos big ones 50 -80 employees size wise that had gone out of business and half the machines had nothing. I did see a fair number with the black rubber under them. It likely makes a good difference to have a machine on that rather than a concrete floor. I had levellors on one machine that were heavy duty and had rubber on the bottom so they took care of vibration and leveling. It wasnt a machine that i pushed material across so it didnt have sideways forces on it and id want to be sure that adjustable feet didnt add an wiggle when really heavy boards go accross. Also be sure that they fit okay and didnt raise the machine more than wanted. I think in the past I had info from a few places that specialized in those things.

What are people using here? or do the dealers sell some product for that. IM level now but not attention to vibration.

Andrew the jointer looks like this only its a bit newer I think. I cant read my serial plate it was likely labelled by a doctor.

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[Bill Dufour]

My air vertical compressor swayed side to side when starting up. I have heard that bolting it down to stop that can cause metal fatigue and rip a hole in the tank at the leg welds. I stopped by the side of the road and picked up some thrown tire retreads. About 3/4" thick more or less. I only took those with no steel belt showing. I tipped the compressor and put a piece under each leg. It no longer rocks visibly. I need to tie it with a chain to the wall so it does not fall over in a quake.
Bill D.

[Warren Lake]

good point about tires. Know people recycle them to make vibration stuff from that. Friends daughter got me hockey pucks she is a ref. I haven't tried them yet thanks for reminding me. neither of them allow leveling just some vibration damping. I guess shims could go on top.

Never had attraction to vertical compressors and likely its mostly ive seen so many cheap princess auto type ones that are annoying loud. Then I shouldn't talk my 2 stage beat to death 30 year old is more than annoying loud, never did have it on rubber but on wood which was a bit better. its either rebuild that one or replace it ideally two same size.

[Patrick Kane]

Still would like to see Patrick’s 500mm jointer maybe it’s a Martin? Just for fun here’s what the leveling bolts look like on my Oliver. They are 1 inch.

Martin!?!?you flatter my bank account, sir. No, anything with Martin on it is out of my budget. I would need to find a T51 that was left out in the rain in order to have a martin jointer in the shop. One day id like to look at a long bed T54 in my space, but thats a long way away.

Actually, im not 100% sure of what i bought. Maybe we can do a little crowd sourced detective work on this one. When i originally saw the photos of it, i was intrigued that the guy made a mistake in listing it as a16" machine, when the model number is PF-500. I was right and it is a 500mm machine. Other than that, i saw what looked to be a tersa head, and decided to make a run at it. Despite looking at tons and tons of vintage machines, i couldnt find an exact match for this one. My best guess was it was italian--griggio, paoloni, Cabo etc. Still, not having any form of branding/badging on it was odd, and i was teetering on the edge of walking away from it because of this fact. Then, i saw a similar looking machine in the background of Darcy's youtube video one saturday morning, and i emailed him asking about it. He was kind enough to get back to me with some info about it being Griggio. That was enough for me and i bought the machine. Now that i have it in front of me, im still not sure who made it. It definitely is Italian though, the motor is an Electro Adda and everything is in italian. Frankly, idont particularly care who made it, just so long as it performs well.

In the end, it was kinda the perfect machine for me at this time. It was cheap to ship it to my house. The fact that it was mislabeled and somewhat generic looking helped me get it for a decent price. It has a tersa head, which ive wanted to try after owning straight knife and byrds. It has somewhat shorter beds compared to most 16-20" machines. Finally, the lower HP means i can power it with a VFD affordably and on my 60amp subpanel. Im in abasement, and this is pretty much all the machine i can fit and/or get into the space. Thats another thing, it being slightly under 20" probably helped meget it through the mandoor, where a typical 510mm might not have fit. It only cost me a couple hundred more than i sold my 12" grizzly for, and looking at on tersa knife last night, the whole set should have one trash edge and one brand new edge. All that is left to do is to get the VFD in and see how it runs.Oh, and calibrate the tables coplanar. They are out a bit right now.

A few photos

[Darcy Warner]

Looks just like my 16" Griggio. Same generic tag and all.