I have a 1960’s 6″ Powermatic Jointer ,cant seem to get the out feed table, outer end raised up (about 3/32″)to line up . Have tried the looseing and retighting of the ways, opproach didnt work,on both the infeed and out feed tables. To get it to work right have to keep pressure on the stock on the out feed table.
any ideas??
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Just finished refurbishing a 1975 Delta 8" (37-315) that I recently got at an auction. I had to shim the dovetailed ways at the bottom ends on both tables to correct droop & make tables parallel. Used strips cut from beer cans as shims since I didn't have any brass shim stock - lots of beer cans around though. Before moving my Busy Bee 8" jointer (Grizzly, to you folks south of the 49th parallel) to my shop at our cottage, I checked it over & had to re-shim it's tables - had done this when I first bought it & a couple of times since. Both jointers now work flawlessly giving me square, flat surfaces. This seems to be a fairly common solution from what articles I have read in Fine Woodworking concerning jointer alignment, over the last 30 years. As a side note, I have a 1949 Delta 6" short bed jointer (sold, waiting for pick up) that required no shimming at all, tables are true as can be.
Edited 1/1/2009 4:25 pm ET by piker
I will check to see if there is some way to shim.The ways the Powermatic has are what I would describe them are in the shape of V's and about 1/2 to 3/4" deep. thanks for the suggestion.
I have a similar prob. with my old Rockwell 8 ". Finally got the in/out feed tables parallel (somewhat) by shimming the gibways with brass shims. Now the prob. is they are not co-planer. I have worked on this thing 'til I am blue in the face. Finally just gave up on it for a while until I can get my brain rewired to figure this thing out. Best of luck to you on yours.------WW 57
You can only shim to correct a twist or non-coplanar. You can sort of spit the difference with shims but for jointer beds really out of whack you muct have the tables reground. They must be mounted on the base casting and the whole jointer gets reground at the same time. Removing the tables for grinding will result in a bigger disaster.
I've been rebuilding machines for 25 years and have had a dozen or so jointers reground over the years. Blanchard grinders are the more common large grinders and it's a very specialized machine shop operation.
Rick, I've always wondered... where would one look in the yellow pages?
Grinding is in my yellow pages, then try machine shops. The palce I use is under machine shops. It will vary with your local yellow pages. Some shops specialize in grinding. You will have better luck in a larger metropolitan area than a small town book.
Edited 1/2/2009 12:47 pm ET by RickL
Rick, thanks for the reply. I have no problems with my jointer (I shouldn't have just said that), but I was always curious.
Unfortunately, if I ever have problems, my jointer weighs 1000 lbs :0(
My jointer, at 844 pounds, is a little lighter than yours at 1000 pounds, but I hauled it all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to Pennsylvania only to find it was 3 phase so sent it back down for an exchange. Glad it was their mistake and not mine.
Edited 1/3/2009 1:50 am ET by Tinkerer3
Would you take out all of the shims that have been put in the gibways and just start from "scratch" with the joiner?------WW 57
I should have added---To have it ground flat as a pancake.
A real brain-twister for sure. And once you do get, you'll resolve to NEVER, EVER try to move the machine by pulling on one of the tables!!!The way I finally got mine right was with steel feeler gauges that are strong enough that that I could drive them in from the side with a tap o f a hammer. This made the job much quicker as I put shims in quickly and then test it. It was well worth sacrificing a set of feeler gauges rather than screwing with aluminum or brass, which requires that you create a gap to insert it, by loosening everything up again.
Edited 1/2/2009 7:30 pm ET by saragosa
Feeler guages work great and they ar cheap. I've sacraficed a few in my time. you can just cut a part out of them as well. The rest of it is still good. ;^)
You are right about the brain knashing. Mine is not on a mobile base, but I think I need to do that so as not to push/pull on the tables(which is very tempting to do when you want to move the machine). WW 57
Blanchard grinding is often performed on cylinder heads and engine blocks.engine re builders may offer some assistance. I hope this helps.Ron
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