I was pretty happy when I started using the first jointer I ever bought, the 8″ Grizzly 500. It cut the teak I am using silky smooth and square, worked great on short 3 foot lengths. I thought this is better than hand planing!. When I tried to edge join the 6 and 8 foot lengths I got bowed boards. There was always 1/16 space at the ends of the boards. I asked for jointer advise and was told to adjust the out feed table lower and test cut till I get a straight joint. I went out and got some Popular 1 by 6 to practise on, the teak dulls the blades quickly. After a week of experimenting I still get bowed boards. I am building a 6 foot long desk and 8 foot dining table and neither is moving forward. I am wondering if I will ever get to use this jointer to help finish these jobs. What does Grizzly do if they sell you a tool that does not work?
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Replies
Currently, you have a nice paperweight.
You may be able to align the tables or not.
Find yourself a good straight edge and see if each table is flat. Once you have tested each bed for flatness place one end of the straight edge on the out feed table and use a feeler gauge to see if the tables are parallel to each other. If they are not which is what I am thinking maybe wrong then consult you owners manual to see to to level the guilty table. if the tables are not flat then find out how badly they are out and then contact Grizzly to see what they can do for you.
Scott C. Frankland
Scott's WOODWORKING Website
"He who has the most tools may not win the race of life but he will sure make his wife look like a good catch when she goes to move on."
Woodman,
Every tool must be properly set up. Your jointer is perfectly capable of the results you need.
First, the knives must be properly sharpened and set parallel to the infeed table. The infeed and outfeed tables must be square to each other across the width of the machine and length. Are yours? If not, one or the other needs to be shimmed, or maybe just clean and tighten the adjustments.
Standard practice is usually to also set the knives "exactly" to the height of the outfeed table, but this is hard to do in practice. It's easier to adjust the outfeed table to the right height.
Set the infeed table to give you a very shallow cut - 1/32," and the outfeed table just a hair below the board's edge as it some across. Joint two boards. Slowly raise the outfeed table until the two jointed edges placed together indicate a perfectly straight cut. Or adjust until you get a barely perceptable gap in the middle of the boards (desireable for glue-up as clamping puts greater pressure on the ends when the gap is closed up).
VL
Woodman,
Here are a few things that come to mind. First, follow the advice of the other posters who have given directions on setting up the machine. After that, when jointing long boards, think along the lines that you would if hand planing. You'd have to initially work on the areas that are high, to get a try plane to cut a full length shaving. Same with a jointer which is shorter than the piece you are jointing. If the piece is concave to begin, try taking a pass (or 2) off each end, by easing the board down onto the bed in the center of its (the board's) length and jointing to its end. Swap ends and repeat, til it looks straight by sighting along the edge. Finish with a full length pass. If the board is convex, start jointing in the middle, and let the cut run out where it will. Keep pressure on the outfeed table as you pass the board across the knives. This will give you a straight section near the middle of the board's length. Start the next pass with this section on the infeed table, and the cutterhead will gradually extend the straight section with each pass.
When you put two boards together and there is a gap in the center, more than you'd like for a sprung joint, just take one of them and joint a light pass from the center of the board's edge to its end. Recheck, and repeat if necessary. Same if they leave a gap at the ends. Rejoint one of them by letting the leading end rest on the outfeed table just beyond the bed gap, and joint the full length. Start with pressure on the infeed side, and chase the middle of the board across the bed, by gradually transferring pressure to the outfeed table. Imagine the cutter planing off the high center of the board, and running out as the trailing end passes the cutter- you don't want to be pushing down on the end at that point.
Finally, a jointer will yield a straighter cut if you are taking a relatively light cut, 1/16" or less. Deeper settings will have more of a tendency to allow irregularities to transfer across the tables.
Regards,
Ray
Ray (Joinerswork)made a crucial point in his excellent reply, but it was hidden in the second paragraph. You have to have the jointer accurately aligned, of course, but once this is done the most crucial factor is technique. Once you have the first 12" or so of your long board past the knives put pressure only on the material on the outfeed table, not on the infeed side.
I have an old Craftsman 6" jointer which only has a 36" bed. Learning this little lesson hasn't made it a good jointer, but I can reliably get straight edges on 6' boards if I'm conscientious about keeping the pressure applied on the outfeed table. We work with what we got, don't we?
Regards,
Ron
No, I don't think that you have a paperweight.
Here's a link to a good site on machine setup. When I get a spare hour I'll sketch up the causes of snipe.
But, in this link there's a wealth of (other's) information on jointer/surface planer setup.
A google search on the terms jointer snipe or jointer outfeed bow might also turn up something else promising
Cheers,
eddie
edit:
Look at the troubleshooting guide at the back of this - four possible causes
http://www.shopfox.biz/manuals/W1684m.pdf
Edited 4/11/2004 8:48 pm ET by eddie (aust)
It's worth going very carefully through a good book like "Care and Repair of Shop Machines" by John White http://www.taunton.com/store/pages/070551.asp
or "Mastering Woodworking Machines" by Mark Duginske.
The White book details making a master bar to adjust your jointer accurately without an expensive straightedge. White also has a video showing how to tune a jointer: http://www.taunton.com/store/pages/014019.asp with a free preview that will let you know what it is.
The Duginske book has a bit less detail on this topic, but there's a video also available that shows how to tune your tools. http://www.taunton.com/store/pages/061011.asp
Try a library for these too.
Does the jointer work properly when you try to joint long lengths of softer woods? If it does, then the most likely problem is that your blades are dull (easy to do very quickly on teak), and you are trying to take too deep a cut on wood that is very hard to machine. If the tables were warped or misaligned the problems would occur on all woods not just teak.
If you've done all of your edge jointing with the fence at the back edge of the table, move the fence forward. The blade at the front is probably much sharper than the over used section at the back.
Also press down very firmly on the stock over the outfeed table, the upward force of the cutter, especially if the blades are dull, may be raising the stock off the table just enough to cause the problem you describe.
The method of tuning the height of the outfeed table by raising the table in very small increments may also have to be done, but it won't correct for blade dullness or incorrect technique.
John W.
Thanks for all of the advice, it has been a frustrating week but I have had some good luck today. I borrowed a 4 foot Starret straight edge from a local machine shop to check the jointer. I found the 6" ends that you bolt on to the main tables needed shimming. I installed the ends using a 7" Incra square,that was not long enough to really do the job. A couple of strips of cellophane tape corrected my whole problem! The first pass and I had two boards ready to glue up. Now the tables are very flat, I could not slide a piece of paper between the straight edge and the table any where. Back to work.
Were the ends rising higher than the table or were they drooping down?
John W.
The ends were higher but I could not see or feel the difference. Four layers of cellophane tape lowered the ends to parallel with the table. I could not believe such a small difference in height could mess up the jointer so much.
Glad to hear the machine is not a paper weight. Imagine having to lift 1000 lbs every time you want to secure a sheet of the stuff!
VL
I hate to say this, but in a fraction of the time you've messed around with this machine you could have shot all your joints perfectly by hand!
Set up right, any machine will do the job, but often it's quicker to get out the long plane and set up a shooting board and have some fun!
Kiwi,
I too am a big fan of hand tooling......but when it comes to milling lumber 4 square, tails are the way to go. A power jointer and thickness planer will eat through wood much faster than you can do by hand. This is assuming you are wanting very smooth, machined boards and not boards that show handplaning marks.
I use my hand planes when boards require face jointing prior to thicknessing (they've some mild bow or twist) and they're too wide for the power jointer or if I feel like it......and for final surface preparation.
Woodman,
glad you got your problem solved.....sounds like the table extensions were dead even at the joint with table but canted upwards at the very end.Tim
Handplaning is great, I have doing it for 30 years. I think I am pretty good at it , I have a pair of 9 foot long matching teak dining tables 2 1/2 " thick that are 25 years old. The joints are still perfect. But these two jobs I have involve a couple of hundred feet of jointing. The teak is from 1" to 3" thick. This is why I finally bought a jointer.
I've shoved 20,000 feet of walnut and white oak thru mine, try that with your hand plane..
yeah, yeah, yeah ... I never surface or dimension wood by hand either. Not even little bits. I'll dimension a big bit and cut a little bit out of it to avoid 4 squaring by hand.
I guess the point I was making though is that sometimes the hand way is faster and better. It's often easier to clamp an awkward piece of wood to a bench and hand joint, than waltz around the workshop trying to feed it across a bit of cast iron.
But on the other hand, if you've bought a machine to deal with a particular production requirement, and it doesn't perform, you're entitled to get a bit short tempered.
Hence this string, and all the good advice about getting a jointer to joint.
I guess I'm too afraid to us a lot of hand tools, part of it is the time factor.. I mean learning to work hand tools is a real craft/art/skill and I just don't have it.
I can feed boards into machines and have them come out smooth and straight and square but I spent one weekend with my new Lie Nelson's and couldn't do any better than my old Stanley's.
Maybe I'm just a hopeless power addict or too lazy or whatever (please note how carefully I avoided the use of the word"stupid")
Sure I realize that to some on this board the use of powertools is a dirty name. I can understand the arguement when it's a hobby and you have no timeline..
On the other hand that attitude is why I avoided any wood working for so many decades..
Hi Frenchy. It's tempting to dive into all of the interesting leads you've left dangling in this response, but here's a couple:
>> I guess I'm too afraid to use a lot of hand tools ... learning to work hand tools is a real craft/art/skill and I just don't have it <<
Even when I made furniture for a living, and commercial speed was THE imperative, I used hand tools for some jobs. Because I'm self-taught there's a lot of hand stuff I can't do, and have never bothered to try, but there are some things, and shooting a straight edge with a long plane is one of them, that I can do well and fast. You don't need to be a hand tool craftsman to get good value from hand skills, and most are easy to learn.
>> Sure I realize that to some on this board the use of powertools is a dirty name. I can understand the arguement when it's a hobby and you have no timeline >>
The weekend woodies and the hand tool purists have got a lot to answer for! It's the outcome that matters, not how you get there ... unless you want to make a living, and then how you get there becomes very important. If there's ANYONE making a living using only hand tools, give him or her a medal. There won't be many.
wow, I admit my weakness regarding the use of hand tools and it once again becomes a serious offense..
I wish I could use them well. I remember in 7 th grade wood shop (I'm now 55 so it was a really big deal) how the shop teacher berated me for how clumsy I was with the use of tools... It didn't matter that my work was OK, rather that I was clumsy..
Since my dad never touched a tool in his life, that was my first exposure to tools and yes I was awkward and clumsy.
I see on an almost daily basis guys who are elegent and skilled with tool. I envy them yet as much as I try I cannot achieve that level of craft.. If using powertools is a crutch please let me use my crutch without critism... Please judge me rather on my results. (for the record, there were pictures over in breaktime of the double timberframe that I'm currantly building, check the archieves)
I have a lot of experience, 30+ years, with both hand and power tool methods of making furniture.
In my experience, most woodworkers are no more skilled with using power tools than they are with using hand tools, it is just that with power tools even an unskilled worker can produce something.
Many woodworkers don't achieve anywhere near the accuracy and quality of joinery that power tools are capable of producing, basically they are wasting most of the capabilities of their machines. A really skilled power tool cabinetmaker has as many skills and just as much knowledge as a hand tool worker and he or she probably took as many years to learn those skills as the hand tool expert.
John W.
Edited 4/15/2004 11:09 am ET by JohnW
I think that's a very good point. I know of no tool that doesn't take skill to use. My hand planes and hand saws take skill to get good results, my power tools take skill to get good results. I guess you can get "decent" results more easily on power tools than with hand tools, and you can certainly get them faster. But every time I buy a new tool I find there is a significant learning curve to make the tool do what I want - or maybe I should say learning how to do what the tool wants me to do.
The drawback to power tools is they're loud and dusty and at least a little dangerous. For me, cutting the tenon with a hand saw is more relaxing than cutting it on my radial arm saw. But if I'm in a hurry and have a lot of tenons to cut of the same size, I still cut them on the radial arm saw, even though this is just a hobby.
Interesting debate here. I agree that it takes a great deal of skill to use the capabilities of both hand tools and machine tools to the full. Both sets of skills take years of (ideally) training and practice to master fully.
I do find when training new workers that those that develop hand skills first are usually more adept at transfering their knowledge to power tools than the other way around.
For instance, if they know how to tune, sharpen and use hand planes to flatten and square wood, then adapting to power tools is usually relatively painless. On the other hand experienced power plane users seem to find it somewhat harder to pick up hand planing skills.
I suspect that working up close and quietly with hand tools quickly teaches the worker a lot more about the nature of wood and what you can get away with than power tools teach in the same time. Slainte.RJFurniture
Yes, and that's the reason why traditional training always started with hand tools.
In my two years at high school, I never switched on a machine (mind you, that was a good few years ago, and we didn't have many!)
But frenchy makes a good point - the hand-tool purists do tend to imply that their's is the one and only way ... which is not what I intended to imply.
Sorry again Mr f
I know what you mean kiwi. The first six months of my training involved only using hand tools including hand held power tools. I wasn't allowed to use any of the fixed plant like saws and planers except as the cabinetmaker's or machinists assistant, which meant I was always the gofer or standing at the dumb end. And the dumb end wasn't really for dummies either-- you had to make sure all the bits of wood that came out of the thicknesser were stacked in the order they came out or there was hell to pay. Same with the saw, and so on.
The first time I was allowed to flatten and square wood over the surface planer (US jointer) I was solemnly told to think of the machine as being, "Just like big hands, son, f***ing big hands. If you know how to slowly screw up a piece o' wood wi' a hand plane, ya can really f**k it up in a big hurry on one o' these things." The quote may not be exact, but it's close and I cleaned it up a bit for those with delicate ears, ha, ha. Slainte.RJFurniture
cheez frenchy, I didn't mean to offend
>> wow, I admit my weakness regarding the use of hand tools and it once again becomes a serious offense.. <<
How you work and what you're good at is no-one's business but your own.
I agree that using any tool well - power or hand - takes practice and skill. There are no right or wrong answers here, just a bit of an attempt to make the point that sometimes it's worth knowing how to do a job by hand.
To illustrate (at the risk of getting myself deeper into trouble - what's the old rule ... if you're in a hole, stop digging!?) I often see people spending hours making a clever jig that allows them to perform a machine tool operation safely and effectively, when picking up a hand tool would have seen the job done in a few minutes.
frenchy, what's breaktime?
Fine wood working is put out by Tauton press. they also produce other magazine such as fine home building etc. Their version of knots is called breaktime.
look up at the top of your screen. do you see the word Knots? next to it is the word Breaktime, double click on that word and it will take you right to it..
Well said and I really don't take offense.. I'm not as good as some on this board so what? I'm better than others, (my wife for example) it all comes out in the wash! ;-)
Yikes! I can see it now........
"Hand tools are a crutch for people who can't set up power tools right" ;)
Regards,
Dan
I was guessing that they were high, thanks for the confirmation. Jointers are very fussy machines, being off by just a few thousandths can make a big difference in how straight they cut an edge. Glad you found a solution.
John W.
how mechanically adapt are you?
My 8 inch Grizzley jointer gives me perfectly staright boards with only minor set up. (I mean I was jointing inside of twenty minutes once I set it up)..
Now granted I need to deal with boards that are 24 feet long sometimes so I build simple infeed and outfeed table so that I can do it myself..
what it amounts to is you need to be able to have a perfectly flat surface twice as long as the boards you are jointing..
take a string and stretch (very tightly) across the surface from entry to exit.. get the outfeed table level (to start) with the infeed table..
OK take a look at your boards.. How much of a "belly" do they have? 3/4 of an inch? kinda extreme but lets go ahead.
You don't want to remove everything all at once.. so lets work in 1/4 inch increments.. (bit too much, but stay with me) what is gonna happen is you'll shave the front 1/4 inch off so the outfeed table would need to be 1/4 higher than the infeed table if the board is longer than the infeed table you'll need to make infeed and out feed table long enough to support your work while you are surfacing everything.. I have it set up so I can make infeed/outfeed tables inside five minutes so it's really not too hard..
If you think it's gonna be tough just e-mail me & I'll run ya' thru the process.
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