going nuts with jointer problems

[Keye]

I was really looking forward to making a lot of progress yesterday. I finally completed two things in my shop I had been meaning to do for a long time. I attached a dust collector to my jointer and made a permanent work station for my miter saw.

Things did not go well at all. I had rough dimensioned the wood at my new miter work station, face jointed and planned all the wood for the two carcasses. I edge jointed a number of boards in prep for panel glue up. Decided I needed to go ahead and start glue up as I do not have enough clamps for all the panels I would be making. This is when I discovered I had a problem.

All of the edge joints looked like my jointer fence was leaning at about 80 degrees rather than 90 degrees. Checked the fence and it was dead on 90. These boards are not that long, 42", but I decided to check my technique any way. I could not obtain a good edge. Started looking for a problem. Finally found a blade edge that was visually a little high. Reset the blade and tried again, no luck. Then decided to reset all the blades, no luck. Started checking the infeed and outfeed tables with a dial indicator. Could not find any problems. Got the manual out and did a little reading. Took the fence off and reset all the blades again. I used the dial indicator and the stick method. Set the height of the outfeed table above the blades per the manual. Ran a few more test pieces, things are now worse. I have a good 90 degree edge on the boards but other problems have now appeared. I run the board through one time and the results indicate a low outfeed table. Don't change anything, run another board and the results indicate the outfeed table is to high. Run a board through again, no changes, and I get a "sprung" board result.

I am going nuts by this time:kamahlitu.

The jointer is a Delta 6" Professional that is about 3 years old. I have changed blades and set up a jointer many, many times and I know that they can be frustrating at times. This has gone way past frustrating.

I just bought a glue line rip blade, Frued, and so I did finally glue up a few panels but I still need to resolve what is going on with the jointer.

To add insult to injury when I went to close up the "shop" the garage door opener that I put new guts in about three months ago died.

It only gets worse. Went into the kitchen and the new $260 pump and motor in the dishwasher has leaked water all over the floor.

It gets even worser! Today my son and I have to go to court and listen to why the driver and the owner of the tractor trailer that T boned my son, after running a red light, should not be held libel.

When my wife came home and found I had broken out the 18 year old single malt scotch she did not even bother to ask how my day had gone.:rotflm:

I made way to much sawdust yesterday but that is still better than not making any:eusa_danc:eusa_danc:eusa_danc.

 

[Larry Rose]

At least you got an excuse to break into a fresh jar of Scotch. Nothing that it wont cure.ccasion1

 

[Larry Rose]

Actually it wont cure it but it makes you suffer so much better....

 

[Trent Mason]

Keye,

That sounds like a rough day. :BangHead: I wish I knew what to tell you about the jointer, but I just got mine a month ago (same one you have). :roll: I know what you mean about stressful days though, I've had quite a few of them lately. Sitting back, having a few beers and listening to reggae has been my vice. ccasion1 Hang in there, it'll get better. :icon_thum

Trent

 

[DavidF]

When you checked the fence angle did you also check it with the square sitting on the blades one at a time? I had a similar problem (not 10degs off!) that I struggled with and finally traced it to a blade that was not straight it tipped up for last 1/4" or less, but made it impossible to get a square edge. Not wanting to replace the blade at this point I brought the fence in a 1/4" and the angle was fine. For the future, try the "book match" method of jointing, it doesn't matter what the angle of the fence, the panels will join flat. When jointing panels for glue up, mark the faces as normal and then joint one with the face mark towards the fence and the other away from the fence. This method obviously requires that both faces have been run through the planer to make them parallel to each other after face jointing, but it does guaranty a good edge joint.

 

[Tar Heel]

I see you signed as "halfblind". Boy, that scotch will do it every time.

 

[Keye]

Stranger and stranger.

Replaced the blades with new ones this morning. Did a very carefull job of setting them. For some reason I decided to try a different wood. Picked up a couple of pieces of scrap cherry and would you believe perfect edge joints. I then went back to the ash. This is the first time I have used ash as the primary wood. The joints were not nearly as good as with the cherry. I then noticed the grain of the ash makes a really big difference with the quality of the edge joint. This is more than just feed direction. The new blades helped enough so that I am good to go. I have already glued up a bunch of panels this morning.

The garage door opener is toast, the dishwasher is OK and I still have to go to court late this afternoon. I have heard some really bad stories about this scumbag (he was given this name long before I came along) that owns the trucking company.

 

[Bas]

The jointer problems alone warrant a full bottle of Scotch. Especially since this was beyond a "simple" knife setting. Jointers can be extremely frustrating, kudos for sticking with it, and not using a sledge hammer to "fix" things

Hope everything goes OK in court.

 

[JimmyC]

Keye,
They say bad luck comes in threes, but man you've proven that wrong. Brighter days will come.

Godspeed,
Jimmy:mrgreen:

 

[Keye]

David, did not mean to ignore your good tips. I have used the bookmatched method before but once you get past two boards I can not keep them straight:icon_scra. I had not heard about setting the square on top on the blade. This is good to know.

Today I have 16 half panels. Tomorrow I will have eight full panels. It will then be time to start cutting halfblind dovetails, my favorite joint.

 

[DavidF]

David, did not mean to ignore your good tips. I have used the bookmatched method before but once you get past two boards I can not keep them straight:icon_scra. I had not heard about setting the square on top on the blade. This is good to know.

Today I have 16 half panels. Tomorrow I will have eight full panels. It will then be time to start cutting halfblind dovetails, my favorite joint.

Setting the square on the blades is a double check that things arn't off with the outfeed table. Normally all the gauges etc used to set the blades actually reference a little down stream of the actual blade so if there was any distortion in the table it might be that the blades and the Fence and the outfeed are not perpendicular.

 

[Woodman2k]

Halfblind,
I have the same jointer and also alot of the same problems.In addition my outfeed table is low on the fence side tapering down away from the knifes.I recently sharpened the knifes,spent a long tme getting them set and one of my neighbors comes over and runs some c@ap :kamahlituthrough the jointer that has/had staples in it.Knicked knifes-say that three times fast- and I'm back at it again.I'm buying a new jointer and I'm seriously considering a Powermatic with the easy set knifes,or whatever you call them.You have any scotch leftover?:BangHead:

 

[Keye]

Halfblind,
I have the same jointer and also alot of the same problems.In addition my outfeed table is low on the fence side tapering down away from the knifes.I recently sharpened the knifes,spent a long tme getting them set and one of my neighbors comes over and runs some c@ap :kamahlituthrough the jointer that has/had staples in it.Knicked knifes-say that three times fast- and I'm back at it again.I'm buying a new jointer and I'm seriously considering a Powermatic with the easy set knifes,or whatever you call them.You have any scotch leftover?:BangHead:

I will give you the shirt off my back, my last nickel and will let you use any of my tools but the single malt is off limits.:eusa_danc:eusa_danc

 

[NCPete]

Halfblind,
I have the same jointer and also alot of the same problems.In addition my outfeed table is low on the fence side tapering down away from the knifes.I recently sharpened the knifes,spent a long tme getting them set and one of my neighbors comes over and runs some c@ap :kamahlituthrough the jointer that has/had staples in it.Knicked knifes-say that three times fast- and I'm back at it again.I'm buying a new jointer and I'm seriously considering a Powermatic with the easy set knifes,or whatever you call them.You have any scotch leftover?:BangHead:

Whatever you get, make sure to get the Byrd shelix head, the extra cost only hurts once!

 

[scsmith42]

Keye - sure sounds like you've got a head-scratcher type of problem...

Two things that I would suggest checking are the snugness of the bolts holding the jointer fence assembly to the jointer, and the bearings on the jointer head.

There may be a chance that something is moving under load, and with the machine vibrations is may not be discernable when it occurs.

Scott