Hi Ken, I have the 6" Yorkcraft, which I love. Plan to upgrade to the 8"
eventually.

Tony

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Mountan Talk:

Parts-Area or neighborhood "What's he
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"Ken Dibble" wrote in message
...
Yorkcraft YC-8J Jointer

Price 649
Shipping 280 includes liftgate delivery
Shipping Assistance -40
Total Price 889

Ordered 11-22-04
Received 12-3-04

Arrived in 2 boxes on pallet.
One box contained stand.
Other box contained everything else.

Lower box arrived with minor fork lift dents.

Assembly required about 3 hours.

Manual shows a picture of the Delta Professional Jointer and
is accurate mechanically, but has problems with spelling
and grammar.

Jointer is manufactured by JINTENG and appears to be a clone
of the Delta 37-380.

The first (ultimately non-) issue was the mismatch between
the documentation and expectation.

The documentation says the motor is 110/220 wired 110.
The jointer is actually pre-wired 220.
The plug on the jointer motor is 110. The switch has a 220 plug
and accepts a 110 for the jointer motor.
A check of the motor wiring (by removing the cover) and the switch
(using a Voltmeter) showed that the switch passed 220 and the motor
was wired 220. As long as the switch is only used on the jointer
it shouldn't be a problem. Plugging in any 110 device to the 110
looking plug would probably be a disaster.

The shipping grease was easily removed.

The stand has a built in mobile base which requires one caster to
be attached to it with 3 bolts.

Putting the bed on the stand was an adventure. It is heavy!

The bed attaches to the stand with 3 bolts. The front bolt is
accessed through the dust chute. I dropped a piece of thread
through the hole to lift the bolt and installed it upside down
(per the instructions).

It took some time to line up the pulleys, with a second issue
presenting itself. The bottom pulley has .034 runout. I
called Wilke to ask them about that and they responded by saying
that they would ship out a replacement pulley. The top pulley
runout was less then .002.

The dust collector connector (4 screws) and the rear panel(6 screws)
attach easily into threaded holes.

The fence (6 bolts) and electric switch(2 bolts) connected easily,
as did the cutterhead guard, although you have to make sure the
spring tensions in the correct direction.

As far as I can tell, the beds are flat. I was unable
to find any 6 inch distance that was more than .001 different in
height.

The fence has a .008 twist on the outfeed fence. I'm going to ask
Wilke about it, but I don't think it is a big deal.

The base seemed pretty solid, but starting the jointer made it rattle.
How much of that is caused by vibration from the bad pulley I don't
know, but I suspect most of it.

The test board was a 3 foot piece of twisted hickory. Feeding it
into the cutterhead with pressure on the infeed table and
transferring the pressure to the outfeed table while feeding the
board resulted in a nearly perfectly flat board. Laying it on the
infeed table it almost felt like it was being sucked down to the
table.

Fit and finish are pretty good, not a high gloss Delta or Jet finish
but a nice soft gray. It looks good in the mostly gray garage.
Everything went together fine and the machine seems to function well.

A 37-380 (1049) and mobile base (90) from Amazon would be $1139.
Liftgate delivery usually adds another $75.
I figure that puts me ahead $325.

Well, actually not ahead, but the difference paid for a
Grizzly G1029Z dust collector.

As a side note, had Delta responded to me (who had never bought
anything but Delta until this year), in the two days time they
promised to (YES,I AM STILL WAITING), this purchase probably
would have been a 37-380 and a 50-850.

BTW, SWMBO insisted I buy both. She's the best.

Ken Dibble