It's not a huge problem as long as it's straight up and down. It needs to be square to the bed along its length which it can be even with a bow. The problem would be if it was bowed at the top and not the bottom.

 

yeah probably wont matter as long as the bed is dead on and the fence is square as bill said,if the price is right id go for it.

 

The bigger question is: is it common for a name brand jointer (Grizzly in this case) to have a bowed fence? Surely there are jointers out there where the fence is flat and square to the beds along it's length.

 

This problem is more common than you think, and it's typically found in the newer asian machines because the quality of the machining performed, as well as the actual cast iron used, is lacking. They rush to production these castings, machining them before they have properly cycled and cured. The curing process on cast iron can take years, and the vintage American and European makers of old knew this. A company like Northfield would let their castings sit outside for as long as 10 years before machining them, and selling them as finished machines. Big difference between a $1500 Grizzly jointer and a $18K jointer from Northfield.

It's quite possible that fence you looked at was straight when it was machined, but stresses relieved in the castings, over time, have released and are causing the castings to move.

I restore a lot of vintage machinery. My entire shop is filled with them. I've had machine surfaces reground, and can tell you that when machining/grinding is not done correctly, or if it is rushed, the castings can move, and they can move a lot.

There's a good chance that fence is not through moving, and you would also need to see if it's moving in other directions, as well. I've seen several fences for jointers that had twist in them, as well, and that would make it very, very difficult to edge joint boards for glue-ups.

You were wise to walk away. Plenty of machines out there, in all sizes, that were made with quality castings. No need to chase gremlins in a machine that may be a problem child for some time to come.

 

As mentioned, as long as it's perpendicular to the table, it should not cause much problems. And it is more common than people realize… here is a snippet from a vintage Powermatic PM50 manual that describes how to fix it:

Straightening Warped Fence:

The fence furnished with your jointer is a finished casting. Under certain conditions it is possible that the fence may become warped. If fence is high (bowed) in the center, remove fence and place face up on the floor on two 4" pieces of wood (2" x 4" blocks will suffice). Gently apply presure to the center of the fence with your foot increasing gradually until you feel the fence "give" slightly. Stop applying pressure as soon as you feel the fence "give" and check with a straight edge. The fence should be perfectly straight. Repeat if necessary.

If the fence is low on the center, place on the floor face down and repeat the above procedure - REMEMBER, stop when you feel the fence "give".

Should your fence be twisted, the following steps will return it to its original shape. Clamp one end of the fence to a wood vice and sandwitch the other end between two 2" boards and gently "twist" the fence. When the fence "gives" stop applying pressure and check fence with a straight edge.

(From PM50 manual http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/655/4309.pdf)

Cheers,
Brad

 

i like the sharpening instructions.

 

I don't mean to be too critical but I find it absurd to think that an iron casting needs 10 years to cure before it is ready for final machining. Tool companies that follow that procedure would be out of business long before their first piece was ready to sell. Established companies would also have to guess how many castings to make 10 years in advance. Millions of dollars would be tied up in work in process. So much for inventory control.

 

I don t mean to be too critical but I find it absurd to think that an iron casting needs 10 years to cure before it is ready for final machining. Tool companies that follow that procedure would be out of business long before their first piece was ready to sell. Established companies would also have to guess how many castings to make 10 years in advance. Millions of dollars would be tied up in work in process. So much for inventory control.

- ArtMann

i gotta agree on that,thier not making high end wiskey-lol.

 

If it is a good deal, get it. If the bow bugs you and impacts your work, take it off and take it to a machine shop for facing.

 

I don t mean to be too critical but I find it absurd to think that an iron casting needs 10 years to cure before it is ready for final machining. Tool companies that follow that procedure would be out of business long before their first piece was ready to sell. Established companies would also have to guess how many castings to make 10 years in advance. Millions of dollars would be tied up in work in process. So much for inventory control.

- ArtMann

10 years is alot, saw a show on Rolls Royce they season the engine blocks for a year outside.
But also rough machine, let rest for awhile then finish.

I have a 6 Delta Rockwell that had a bad fence so I fixed it.

 

I don t mean to be too critical but I find it absurd to think that an iron casting needs 10 years to cure before it is ready for final machining. Tool companies that follow that procedure would be out of business long before their first piece was ready to sell. Established companies would also have to guess how many castings to make 10 years in advance. Millions of dollars would be tied up in work in process. So much for inventory control.

- ArtMann

I am just telling you what Jeff at Northfield Machines told us during a tour of their facilities. I'm NOT saying 10 years is necessary, but that's how many castings they had sitting outside, back in the day, when high quality industrial machines were being made. That's the difference between the vintage heavy duty stuff, and the low quality stuff sold today to hobbyists.

A year or two outside, going through weather cycles, will be enough for castings to season. Not happening at all with the new stuff being sold.

I ended all my frustrations with these problems 20 years ago when I sold all my new asian made stuff and invested in vintage "made in the USA" high quality machinery. It started for me when 2 brand new Delta jointers, out of the box, back to back, had to be returned because of alignment problems with the tables. One of the fences was warped and twisted, too. Slowly but surely, I found what I needed, and restored them all myself.

 

wow what a treasure trove of beautiful old machines just waiting to be loved back to life.looks like about a 20" jointer in front? what woodworker hasn't dream't of that.probably weighs a ton (literally).

 

The machines shown, save one, are all working machines (Yates American Y30 in back right is under restoration). Some were full restorations, including paint, and some were mechanical only, like the Powermatic planer shown. The jointer is a Yates American #1, a 16"er. It was a full restoration, as it sat in a barn for about 20 years when I found it. It was rough, rough, rough, with heavy pitting in the tables, so I had it reground.

 

I don t mean to be too critical but I find it absurd to think that an iron casting needs 10 years to cure before it is ready for final machining. Tool companies that follow that procedure would be out of business long before their first piece was ready to sell. Established companies would also have to guess how many castings to make 10 years in advance. Millions of dollars would be tied up in work in process. So much for inventory control.

- ArtMann

10 years is alot, saw a show on Rolls Royce they season the engine blocks for a year outside.
But also rough machine, let rest for awhile then finish.

I have a 6 Delta Rockwell that had a bad fence so I fixed it.

- Richard Lee

This "aging" business reminds me of a Gallo Wine TV commercial from the 70's where the voice says "we will sell no wine before it's time."

 

The bigger question is: is it common for a name brand jointer (Grizzly in this case) to have a bowed fence? Surely there are jointers out there where the fence is flat and square to the beds along it s length.

- dbw

The fence on my Grizzly jointer has about a 1/16" bow in the center but it is square all along its length. Its never been an issue.

 

The bigger question is: is it common for a name brand jointer (Grizzly in this case) to have a bowed fence? Surely there are jointers out there where the fence is flat and square to the beds along it s length.

- dbw
The fence on my Grizzly jointer has about a 1/16" bow in the center but it is square all along its length. Its never been an issue.

- rwe2156

Yup. When you think about the operations one performs on the jointer (either edge jointing or face planing) a bow should not affect anything as long as the fence is square to the bed.

 

Cast iron does "age", as nitride clusters form and hardness goes up, but the process only takes a few days. There should be no effect on dimensional stability, and typically it's best to do the machining early to save cutter wear. It's possible that the fence was warped by being machined without being stress relieved first, but more likely it was dropped or subjected to some extreme temperature.

If anyone's leaving castings outside to rust, it's because they don't know how to manage their supply chain, and they're telling you a story about "seasoning" so you'll pay extra for their inefficiency.

 

Cast iron does "age", as nitride clusters form and hardness goes up, but the process only takes a few days. There should be no effect on dimensional stability, and typically it s best to do the machining early to save cutter wear. It s possible that the fence was warped by being machined without being stress relieved first, but more likely it was dropped or subjected to some extreme temperature.

If anyone s leaving castings outside to rust, it s because they don t know how to manage their supply chain, and they re telling you a story about "seasoning" so you ll pay extra for their inefficiency.

- theart

No offense, but you're wrong. Not worth getting into it here, but if you've had the background of working on vintage castings vs. new ones, especially with hand scraping for alignment, you would know otherwise. Even after heat treat, the longer a casting is given for stress release, including thermal cycling, the better it is long term. Not my opinion, but the word of a guy who I learned from, who does machine alignment and hand scraping for a living, and for over 50 years. I'll trust his word, and I've witnessed it, in my shop, with my own eyes and hands.

Castings are definitely tough on tooling, especially if they are not cooled slowly. That being said, a proper rigid mill like my K&T 2K doesn't even blink at that stuff. Hard work for a Bridgeport, for sure. Cake work for a proper rigid mill. Surface grinding would be a better option. The guy I purchased my 36" camelback (shown above) couldn't machine it because it was hardened…..probably pulled from the sand mold too fast. A 5" carbide face mill on my K&T mill handled it easily in one pass.

 

No offense, but you re wrong. Not worth getting into it here, but if you ve had the background of working on vintage castings vs. new ones, especially with hand scraping for alignment, you would know otherwise.

My background is more on the engineering side, so I generally don't take offense to any claim made without citations. What I do know is that precipitate formation in cast iron happens rapidly. And I know that stress relieving is a creep phenomenon that only happens on any time scale at temperatures hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit above ambient. The US Office of Naval Research disproved the idea of stress relief at ambient temperature over seventy years ago.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/620556.pdf

Your vintage casting is physically no different now than it was a week after it came out of the mold. And a new casting, while almost certainly made with a different alloy and heat treat schedule, isn't going to change over time either.

 

My couple year old Grizzly 8" jointer also came with a bowed fence (and a bunch of other issues I documented in a tool review.) It works fine. As others have said, just bring a square so you can check it is perpendicular to the tables along the length.

 

My 20 year old Powermatic jointer had a bowed fence. I read somewhere that you can bend it back by standing on it. So I did just that. I put some wood blocks under the ends and stood on the middle. I'm fairly light weight, so it took about 10 jumps to remove the bow. My fence is now nearly perfect.

 

The machines shown, save one, are all working machines (Yates American Y30 in back right is under restoration). Some were full restorations, including paint, and some were mechanical only, like the Powermatic planer shown. The jointer is a Yates American #1, a 16"er. It was a full restoration, as it sat in a barn for about 20 years when I found it. It was rough, rough, rough, with heavy pitting in the tables, so I had it reground.

- Jeff Heath

That jointer is a beauty! Do your neighbors' lights dim when you turn it on?

 

As mentioned it shouldn't be a problem as long as the beds are flat. If the bow in the fence bothers you , it's not hard to make an aux fence to slip onto the jointer fence to compensate for the bow.

 

To be perfectly honest if I have to bend, grind, or modify a machine in order to get it up to the standards at which it should have been in the first place I'll pass on it. I have a feeling there are other machines out there which don't require repair in order to make them work correctly. I got into wood working to make things out of wood and not to fix machines.

 

To be perfectly honest if I have to bend, grind, or modify a machine in order to get it up to the standards at which it should have been in the first place I ll pass on it. I have a feeling there are other machines out there which don t require repair in order to make them work correctly. I got into wood working to make things out of wood and not to fix machines.

- dbw

I hear what your saying, and am glad a lot of people feel the same way as you do. I worked with wood for a living for 30 years (semi retired now), so my hobby is rebuilding and restoring woodworking and metalworking machinery, and fishing. The fact that most people don't want to tackle a restoration project leaves more machines for me to find. I've got 11 machines in my shed right now waiting in line for restoration. I enjoy it. Here's the caveat…..that jointer I posted above ^^^^ is a 16" jointer, now in perfect like-new running condition. It was in horrible condition when I bought it. I paid $400 for it, $250 for new bearings, and $200 for the grinding work. With new knives and paint, I've got less than $1000 invested in a machine that's worth $5K to $6K, and it would cost me $17K or more to buy an equivalent new machines from Northfield Machinery, who is the only North American company still building machines of this quality. A Martin is even more money. I can't justify that kind of expense, especially when I enjoy restoring an old beauty so much. Not work to me, but my hobby time. Your mileage may vary.