Help on Minimax jointer/planer

[roger wiegand]

So I'm thrilled to have a beautiful, new-to-me Minimax FS41 Elite S jointer/planer thanks to another Creeker. Boy is that a step up from my well-loved Delta machines! The planed surface that comes out of it is astonishing. Although the thing is the size of an aircraft carrier its total footprint is actually smaller than my previous 6" jointer/13" planer. It's given me a few critical extra inches at key points in the shop. Delivery was an adventure, I should probably write that up as a cautionary tale. Upgrades to dust collection and installation of a rotary phase converter accompanied the new J/P, so it's been a week of upgrades in the shop.

Unfortunately the user manual went missing in transit, and there are a couple of things I haven't been able to figure out. (and more, like using the mortising attachment, I haven't even thought about yet) I'm trying to get one from SCM, but that is turning out to be a challenge-- they've sent me the parts list instead of the instructions twice now, and promised to email the correct manual yesterday, but it hasn't shown up. The parts list shows at least 10 different numbers for "manuale istruzioni" (different languages maybe?) but I can't even try to order one because so far SCM won't give me an account on their parts web site. I'm sure it will all work out eventually, but I'm impatient.

Istruzione in Italiano would be fine, I've been working on learning it for the last three years and it would be good practice, but the pictograms have me stumped. In particular, what does the circled knob do? Trial and error have shown me at least some of what the rest of them do. Is there a shortcut for lowering the planer table for switchover-- something like click the button twice to have it drop the table? There's a second start button on the back of the machine, does it do something different to the one on the front?

IMG_1385 (1).jpg

Also I'd love to switch the readouts from english to metric, but have no clue how to accomplish that.

Cheers!

[Mike Kees]

Roger can you contact the guy you bought it from ?Have you been able to power it up yet ? I have a Minimax shaper and the switch is kind of a two step thing. There is a master "on" and "off" that has to be in the on position then you turn to black switch to make it go . the black switch on my shaper looks like the one in your pic. The bigger red knob is the "O _ _ _ _" button. ( emergency stop). So my guess is that may be the "first stage on-off" switch. If your machine powers up by just twisting the black switch I would suspect this missing switch is turned to the " on" position. Hope someone with this machine chimes in here. Mike.

[Brian Holcombe]

The circled button releases the electronic motor brake. The main (center) switch must be on. The safety tag-out should be off. Turn the switch to the left and it releases the brake so that you can change knives.

This confused me as well when I received my machine.

You got the deal of a lifetime on that machine!

[roger wiegand]

Thanks! I've wanted a bigger jointer for decades now, I'm really pleased to have gotten this one.

I just this morning received a PDF copy of the manual from a guy in England, so I am set for the moment. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to tell me how to switch the display to metric, I guess I'll have to continue to call SCM.

I would have played with that knob a long time before figuring out the brake release thing!

Do you use the mortiser? If so do you have a recommendation for a source of bits?

[Brian Holcombe]

I have a stand alone mortiser, I use router bits in it.