I've got a Sears Contractor jointer (6 years old) which has given me
pretty good service over the years.

Lately, however, it has lost alignment and I can't seem to recover it.
Run a board over it and the resultant edge is proud in the center.
Perfect for cawls but not very useful for gluing up panels. Very
symetrical, incidentally.

I've adjusted the blade height several times to no avail. One of the
problems is there is an amazing amount of backlash in the outfeed table
adjustment so setting it is problematic at best. Anyone have any
suggestions as to what I might do differently. New jointer isn't an
option right now.

tnx

Have you done a complete check-up on co-planarity and flatness? If
that's all good, raise the outfeed to within about 1/8th inch of full
height and lock it, get all the blades to the same height, then unlock
and tweak the outfeed table to the top of the blades by sneaking up on
it from below. This should help negate the lash you're experiencing. It
may take a few attempts to hit it just right. Then lock it and leave
it. You shouldn't have to mess with outfeed adjustments unless you want
to do tapers and the like. Tom
wrote:
I've got a Sears Contractor jointer (6 years old) which has given me
pretty good service over the years.

Lately, however, it has lost alignment and I can't seem to recover it.
Run a board over it and the resultant edge is proud in the center.
Perfect for cawls but not very useful for gluing up panels. Very
symetrical, incidentally.

I've adjusted the blade height several times to no avail. One of the
problems is there is an amazing amount of backlash in the outfeed table
adjustment so setting it is problematic at best. Anyone have any
suggestions as to what I might do differently. New jointer isn't an
option right now.

tnx

In article .com, "tom" wrote:
Have you done a complete check-up on co-planarity and flatness? If
that's all good, raise the outfeed to within about 1/8th inch of full
height and lock it, get all the blades to the same height, then unlock
and tweak the outfeed table to the top of the blades by sneaking up on
it from below. This should help negate the lash you're experiencing. It
may take a few attempts to hit it just right. Then lock it and leave
it. You shouldn't have to mess with outfeed adjustments unless you want
to do tapers and the like. Tom

I should think it would work better to raise the outfeed table to just
slightly above the blades and lock it -- then adjust the blades upward until
they're a couple thousandths above the table. Much easier to make fine
adjustments on the blade height than on the table.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.