[bpollock]

I have a bench-top Shop Fox jointer. I noticed that it seemed to be leaving a bit of a cup on my boards (taking too much off in the middle). I took a look at the knives, and noticed that they were a little bit high in relation to the out-feed table. The out-feed table on my jointer is part of the cast, and is not adjustable, but I was able to lower the one offending blade. After making that adjustment the jointer now wants to cut wedges for me. The blades look to be the right height based on placing my Starrett ruler on the outfeed table and rotating the blades by hand - they just brush the ruler. It looked like the in-feed table was a little bit out of co-planer, which I adjusted as well (although I can't claim that is perfect, I think it is close).

I still a getting the wedge problem. What is the most likely cause? I thought at first that the front end of the in-feed table was too high in relation to the blade-end. I was not able to adjust this out, however. Could the out-feed table be warped enough to need a higher blade height? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Ben

 

[TomHintz]

First, a jointer always will cut a taper over the entire length if you make enough passes. It has no way of following the opposing face so it just keeps making cuts on the surface on the table.
Generally, if the taper is over the entire length, I do nothing other than get that face straight and go to the planer which is designed to cut parallel faces.

If the taper is across the width, it can still be pretty normal if it shows up after several passes but it can also be caused by the knives being dull on one end. Many woodworkers leave their fence in the same place for edge jointing which concentrates the knife wear in one area.

I get this question often enough that I wrote a tory on the subject. See the link below.

http://www.newwoodworker.com/jntrtaprs.html

 

[PineInTheAsh]

On LumberJocks one thing wonderfully leads to another.

Ben's jointer question above prompts a Tom Hintz response and a first visit for us to the NewWoodworker website where we find a site chock full of solid information, well presented, easy to follow and understand. We appreciate the plain talk, common sense approach. Complemented with nicely produced video NWW is one of the few sites where we "get it"-the first time!

We just added NewWoodworker to our favorites list. Take a look and you might also.

The best to all,
Peter

 

[TomHintz]

Peter,

Thanks for the kind words. I am glad to hear that my site is of help! That makes the 3 am stuff easier!

PS: My publisher didn't put you up to this did they?

 

[juniorjock]

I have to say that Tom's site was a great "find" for me. Been using it for a while, and really like the easy to read suggestions on just about any topic that has to do with woodworking.

 

[FatherHooligan]

Thanks Ben for the question and thank you Tom for the link to your very interesting and informative web page!

 

[sandhill]

That is some good information tom gives and ever bit worthy of merit. You need is one flat face and the planer will take care of the other side. You will get the desired results with a tuned machine, you will get out of plane with as little as .002 discrepancy on you knife at one side in relationship to the out feed table the in feed is not as critical but does add to the co-plane or Parallelism. some shops use power feeders as one measure to keep the work tight to the out feed "aside from safety" but the cutters must be perfectly parallel to the surface. About 90% of the problems I saw when traveling around doing repairs and set up was due to cutters slipping and dull and all most every time the feeders were set to fast for the cut.