A couple weeks ago I was given an old Craftsman 6" jointer by an older
man in our church. It isn't a DJ-20, but it's a heck of a lot better
than what I can do with a hand plane. I set about trying to get this
thing into good working shape, first discovering that the blades had
evidently been sharpened on a grinder and had about a 1/4" dip end to
end, so were essentially useless. They were also seriously blued, so I
question their temper. Decided it was easy to just get replacements,
so did that. While waiting for the new blades to arrive I went out
this morning to try to clean up the tables a bit. It looks like it had
picked up some rust at one point and he had removed it with a circular
sander (not ROS, just a spinny disk thingy). The outfeed table isn't
too bad - mostly flat and cleaning up good, but the infeed is a bit
problematic.

First, it has some unevenness ground into it from the sanding,
probably 6-8 thou. That is probably small enough that I'm not going to
try to sand them out - they are only in spots and the basic bed is
mainly flat.

Second, and this is the thing that really concerns me, the infeed
table isn't parallel with the outfeed *side-to-side*. Along the length
it seems to be perfectly parallel, but if I make one edge even with
the outfeed the other edge is about 1/16" low. I haven't tried tearing
the whole thing apart to see if I can shim anything, since that will
take a lot of work, but I wondered if this discrepancy on the infeed
is really worth worrying about as long as the outfeed and fence are
good.

Ah, heck. After reading all that I'm going to tear it apart and see
how I can shim that thing level - there has to be a way somehow. If I
can make this work I'll consider it a gloat. If I spend money on
blades and time messing with it and it still doesn't work right I
guess it'll just be an anti-gloat.

--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:40:05 -0800, Tim Douglass
wrote:

[snip]
Second, and this is the thing that really concerns me, the infeed
table isn't parallel with the outfeed *side-to-side*. Along the length
it seems to be perfectly parallel, but if I make one edge even with
the outfeed the other edge is about 1/16" low. I haven't tried tearing
the whole thing apart to see if I can shim anything, since that will
take a lot of work, but I wondered if this discrepancy on the infeed
is really worth worrying about as long as the outfeed and fence are
good.

If it's the same 6" jointer I used to have, you're doomed. I could do
one of two things with the infeed table. I could adjust it pretty
nearly coplanar with the outfeed table (which is fixed and part of the
main body) or I could adjust the infeed table so it would move up and
down with the hand wheel. I could not do both. I even got a new infeed
table from Sears.

I tried shimming. I looked at it time and again trying to reengineer
it. I had it apart more times than you can count, but the only way I
ever got anything done successfully was when I replaced it with a
DJ15...which is for sale, by the way, and only because I now have a
DJ20.


--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:40:05 -0800, Tim Douglass
wrote:

A couple weeks ago I was given an old Craftsman 6" jointer by an older
man in our church. It isn't a DJ-20, but it's a heck of a lot better
than what I can do with a hand plane. I set about trying to get this
thing into good working shape, first discovering that the blades had
evidently been sharpened on a grinder and had about a 1/4" dip end to
end, so were essentially useless. They were also seriously blued, so I
question their temper. Decided it was easy to just get replacements,
so did that. While waiting for the new blades to arrive I went out
this morning to try to clean up the tables a bit. It looks like it had
picked up some rust at one point and he had removed it with a circular
sander (not ROS, just a spinny disk thingy). The outfeed table isn't
too bad - mostly flat and cleaning up good, but the infeed is a bit
problematic.

First, it has some unevenness ground into it from the sanding,
probably 6-8 thou. That is probably small enough that I'm not going to
try to sand them out - they are only in spots and the basic bed is
mainly flat.

Second, and this is the thing that really concerns me, the infeed
table isn't parallel with the outfeed *side-to-side*. Along the length
it seems to be perfectly parallel, but if I make one edge even with
the outfeed the other edge is about 1/16" low. I haven't tried tearing
the whole thing apart to see if I can shim anything, since that will
take a lot of work, but I wondered if this discrepancy on the infeed
is really worth worrying about as long as the outfeed and fence are
good.

Ah, heck. After reading all that I'm going to tear it apart and see
how I can shim that thing level - there has to be a way somehow. If I
can make this work I'll consider it a gloat. If I spend money on
blades and time messing with it and it still doesn't work right I
guess it'll just be an anti-gloat.



I inherited a 6" jointer in similar condition. after spending way more
than it was worth in time and machinist's services making it cut more
or less straight I sold it to my stepbrother for $100 and bought a
used 8" rockwell for $600 that was more or less ready to go.

Tim Douglass wrote:

A couple weeks ago I was given an old Craftsman 6" jointer by an older
man in our church. [snip]

Just a note about the knives. If you are buying them from Sears, be
very careful. I had a major problem some months ago (google jo4hn and
jointer for documentation) where replacement knives differed in width
from one end to the other by .008". This was enough to allow the knives
to come out of cutter head and take a piece out of the infeed table.
Happily no harm was done to yr hmbl srvnt.
mahalo,
jo4hn

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:00:39 GMT, jo4hn wrote:

Tim Douglass wrote:

A couple weeks ago I was given an old Craftsman 6" jointer by an older
man in our church. [snip]

Just a note about the knives. If you are buying them from Sears, be
very careful. I had a major problem some months ago (google jo4hn and
jointer for documentation) where replacement knives differed in width
from one end to the other by .008". This was enough to allow the knives
to come out of cutter head and take a piece out of the infeed table.
Happily no harm was done to yr hmbl srvnt.

Freud knives through Amazon tool crib. Cheaper than Sears and I didn't
have to deal with those guys.

--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:14:40 +0000, LRod
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:40:05 -0800, Tim Douglass
wrote:

[snip]
Second, and this is the thing that really concerns me, the infeed
table isn't parallel with the outfeed *side-to-side*. Along the length
it seems to be perfectly parallel, but if I make one edge even with
the outfeed the other edge is about 1/16" low. I haven't tried tearing
the whole thing apart to see if I can shim anything, since that will
take a lot of work, but I wondered if this discrepancy on the infeed
is really worth worrying about as long as the outfeed and fence are
good.

If it's the same 6" jointer I used to have, you're doomed. I could do
one of two things with the infeed table. I could adjust it pretty
nearly coplanar with the outfeed table (which is fixed and part of the
main body) or I could adjust the infeed table so it would move up and
down with the hand wheel. I could not do both. I even got a new infeed
table from Sears.

I've got it off the rather iffy home-built stand it was on and can see
that there are what look like 4 adjustment points (bolts with what
look like lock nuts on them) for the infeed table. Maybe I've gotten
lucky and I can actually just adjust it to be level.

I tried shimming. I looked at it time and again trying to reengineer
it. I had it apart more times than you can count, but the only way I
ever got anything done successfully was when I replaced it with a
DJ15...which is for sale, by the way, and only because I now have a
DJ20.

Some day. But for right now this little gift opens up the possibility
of getting a planer and finally getting away from buying S4S.

--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com