Not sure who wanted to use the less frequently used inserts, but it was a big fail.
Its easy to move the fence over, but must be a bit more difficult to square it.
Great reminder for members to always check the fence with your square or 1-2-3 block
This is how it should look prior to use. You know, kind of square.
oof. good call. reminds me that i need to keep my square with me.
on a different jointer misadjustment note, I jointed the edges of a couple 6-8’ boards a month ago for a panel glue-up and they did not come out flat. Not sure if the jointer outfeed table has been adjusted since then, but i didn’t want to touch it (since i don’t know how to adjust properly) and i forgot to mention it.
PSA: never, NEVER adjust the out-feed table on a jointer (at least after the one-time initial set-up that ensures it is co-planer with in-feed table, or if some major overhaul is occurring)
For day-to-day, this-cut-and-then-that-cut adjustments, always/only adjust the in-feed table.
On a machine as abused as ours isn’t it best to test your square on the outfeed versus infeed?
Ideally you would adjust the squareness of your measuring tool to meet the squareness of the machine, as the machine is always right you know.
/s
Nobody touch the ourdeed table, nobody talk about how the out feed table can be adjusted, nobody suggest the out feed table be adjusted! Please for the love of all that is perpendicular please only adjust the fence is you need to rarely and the in feed table other than that the jointer has no other adjustable areas
I’m not advising to make an adjustment to teh outfeed table. I’m suggesting when you are squaring the fence to the table, you should measure it against the outfeed, as that is where your board will end up needing to be square. If there is a half a degree difference in squareness between the fence to the infeed and outfeed, I want my 90 degree square on the outfeed table.
Using a square to eyeball the fence adjustment is unlikely to result in a perfectly square fence. You probably won’t notice it on a piece with just a few joints but if you were doing a cutting board with a lot of glue joints it won’t be quite flat. And if you use cauls to try to pull it flat to the clamps you’ll have slightly open glue joints on one side.
I was taught to alternate the face of the board you are pushing into the fence so any misalignment of the fence to the table gets canceled out. So I lay out the pieces on a workbench, make sure the curvature of the growth rings in the end of the boards are in alternate directions, and draw two light diagonal lines like /\ across the face of the rough layout.
This makes it easy to glue them in the same sequence. Then I write “flip” on every other board in the glue up sequence. When I pick up a piece to run through the jointer I run the side with the diagonal lines against the fence unless it says flip, and if so i run that side opposite the fence.
If the long grain is diagonal to the joint and I’m getting too much tear out then I might reverse the faces I push against the fence for a given joint
The height adjustment of the outfeed table relative to the tip of the blades is critical to getting a straight joint. Our jointer has a very poor adjustment design.
If you lay the end of a small piece of scrap on the outfeed table so it hangs over the blades and rotate the cutting head by hand slowly, the tip of a blade should snag the board and lift it and move it 3/16" to 1/4" towards the infeed table before the blade looses contact and doesn’t touch the board.
If the blade doesn’t hit the board the outfeed table is too high, if it moves more than 1/4" it is too low. The wood compresses slightly when the jointer is running so the tips of the blades need to be slightly higher than the outfeed table.
I use an aluminum level for this at home, its machined flat and the aluminum is softer than the blades so won’t cause any damage.
This brings back fond memories of middle school shop classes where I learned enough basics of hand and power tools and safety to know it’s more fun to make stuff than to watch TV.
Well I mean obviously check both sides, and you shouldn’t be using a square, we have multiple digital angle meters cause as I mentioned in another thread squares can become unsquare especially anything involving wood or plastic construction but yea just grab an angel gauge that way you can do what I do and measure 3 points on either side and if they all say 90 you’re good, cause our eyes won’t pick up 89.8 Or 90.2
100% spot on absolutely accurate but Such detailed instructions will cause people who’ll take those and run with them where as you have years (I’m assuming decades of experience) with proper adjustment and alignment of machine to incredible tolerances
Also same here I only use a piece of milled aluminum cause it’s the only thing I trust to be truly “true”
Okay guys. This is why we need a class on each tool group. My point was very simple. Don’t trust the fence on any of the machines. 95% of the people using these machines are happy that they kind of work. Maybe, just maybe, a square will stick in their mind. I didn’t get more complex because I didn’t want to be tuned out.
Randy is correct about the flip-flop method. The two angles cancel out the inevitable error. I taught a new user that concept late last week. Personally I was gluing flat to flat today. I was running the resulting slabs through the table saw twice. Once using the jointed surface, and then flipping for the final trim.
We need a simple and memorable method for beginners and then cover the finer concepts when the intermediate class is taught. A cutting board class would be great. Just teaching people to line the glued up edges on one side would be helpful. Think about how much effort goes into finishing a poorly executed glue-up. Techniques we might take for granted are vodoo magic for most users of the wood shop. Consider this when offering an explanation to the average woodworker. They just want to have fun.
So a lot of time people just aren’t really fully aware of what’s actually going on when they joint their boards, so you have a higher surface(outfeed) and l long piece of material moving from a lower surface(infeed) now if the board was already perfectly flat this would never happen but as you pass the board through and you get to past half of the board, if you’re apply a downward force to the back end since it’s not perfectly flat it can then raise the front end (thing a see saw) so right around that mid point you need to shift all your downward pressure to the front end cause now that’s perfectly flat and won’t cause it to tilt causing that bowing effect, 9 time out of 10 that’s what’s the issue is not the adjustment of the tables, so I use those yellow magnetic featherboard and use them to do all the horizontal force pressing it against the fence so all you have to worry about is the downward force and that makes it easier to shift the pressure and get a perfectly jointed board
I’m not going claim to be a jointer expert, but wouldn’t the squareness of your cut depend on the infeed being square to the cutter head? The outfeed seems fairly irrelevant unless I’m missing something because by the time your board is there, it’s already been cut.
The outfeed table (along with the fence for an edge joint cut) is actually the reference surface…the infeed is mainly to set the depth of cut and then just acts as support once enough of the stock has shifted to the outfeed side such that you can shift your body/weight over to it. But the whole key is that if infeed and outfeed are co-planar, then any angle the fence has to infeed must equal the angle it has with outfeed…I know this because I just asked Euclid and that’s what he told me (between bites of goat cheese, that is).
And YouTube’s take on the subject. The high speed camera is great.
Okay I totally get it now.
I apologize for ever having used the words “outfeed” and “adjust” in the same sentence!
yes, I know never to adjust the outfeed table.
yes, I know how it works.
yes, it was still probably my fault for why my boards didn’t come out perfectly straight.
yes, those slo-mo shots of the jointer were cool.
I love being proven right without even having to make an argument lol!
Lol it’s only being proven right when it’s an opinion, when it’s factual documented information it’s just proving that you know said information
