Jointer question

[Zack Butler]

It's been a while since I've fired up any of my tools.  We moved a little over a year ago and I no longer have my 24x24 shop, now I have half of a 2 car garage.  I haven't been very motivated to do much since the new house has a 30 acre lake and I've spent most of my spare time fishing.

Anyway, rain and cold have pushed me inside and I'm ready to make some new doors for the cabinets in the bathrooms of the new house.  I fire up the jointer and rather than making the board straight, I'm making wedges.  The leading edge is getting thinner and the trailing end isn't getting surfaced at all. I would think this tells me the our feed table is not parallel to the infeed, but I'm not sure how to adjust it.  I have an ancient 6" jet.  Any thoughts?  Or a link to a YouTube how to?  I've watched several and none of them address my issue.

Thanks.

[Rob Young]

It's been a while since I've fired up any of my tools.  We moved a little over a year ago and I no longer have my 24x24 shop, now I have half of a 2 car garage.  I haven't been very motivated to do much since the new house has a 30 acre lake and I've spent most of my spare time fishing.

Anyway, rain and cold have pushed me inside and I'm ready to make some new doors for the cabinets in the bathrooms of the new house.  I fire up the jointer and rather than making the board straight, I'm making wedges.  The leading edge is getting thinner and the trailing end isn't getting surfaced at all. I would think this tells me the our feed table is not parallel to the infeed, but I'm not sure how to adjust it.  I have an ancient 6" jet.  Any thoughts?  Or a link to a YouTube how to?  I've watched several and none of them address my issue.

Thanks.

 
Table alignment for sure. There used to be a pretty good jointer setup video from Marc Spagnolo (Woodwhisperer). It is probably buried somewhere in his YouTube channel.

What's the model number of the Jet? Likely somebody will recognize the number and know where to find an on-line manual or know which other machines are clones and thus their manuals could help.

[jteneyck]

Put a couple of 12" long strips of 3/4 or 1" square and straight hardwood on the outfeed table with a couple of inches overhanging the cutterhead.  Now rotate the cutterhead forward by hand.  If it moves the wood pieces forward more than about 3/4" the outfeed table is too low, and that could be the source of your problem.  If one side moves more than the other then the knives aren't parallel with the outfeed table. Adjust the knife heights until the two strips of wood both move about 3/4".

If that's OK then put a straight edge on the outfeed table, one that's long enough to hang over the infeed table.  Check to see if the gap under the straightedge on the infeed table is consistent from the cutterhead to the end of the table.  If it's drooping down at the front more than a couple of thousandths then that's your problem.  

Follow the owner's manual on how to realign the tables.  If you don't have one, come on back.  

John

[Zack Butler]

I found the Spagnolo video. I'll check the set up tonight to see if that's the problem. I didn't have a chance to get to the garage last night. I'll report back. Thanks all.

[Zack Butler]

Update: It is a model JJ-6. The manual online has been updated since mine was built. Nothing in the online manual matches my jointer. That being said, I fiddled with it taking the advice given here and from the various videos I watched and I got it serviceable. From what I can tell, there is no left to right height adjustment for the infeed and mine is currently a little low on the outside (away from the fence). I can probably fix that with adjusting the knives once I can find my 5/16 wrench or the metric equivalent as my gib screws are hex head and not allen as the manual states.

At the end of the day I was able to joint a straight edge and get the new doors built for the update to the bathroom cabinets. All in all yesterday was a win. The first thing I've completed in the shop other than shop storage or fixtures in a couple of years. It felt good.

[Rob Young]

Update:  It is a model JJ-6.  The manual online has been updated since mine was built.  Nothing in the online manual matches my jointer.  That being said, I fiddled with it taking the advice given here and from the various videos I watched and I got it serviceable.  From what I can tell, there is no left to right height adjustment for the infeed and mine is currently a little low on the outside (away from the fence).  I can probably fix that with adjusting the knives once I can find my 5/16 wrench or the metric equivalent as my gib screws are hex head and not allen as the manual states.

At the end of the day I was able to joint a straight edge and get the new doors built for the update to the bathroom cabinets.  All in all yesterday was a win.  The first thing I've completed in the shop other than shop storage or fixtures in a couple of years.  It felt good.

Found a scan of a manual dated from the mid-80's.  Pictures aren't much use in this scan, very poor. But quick read through shows it is rather limited in the adjustments. Looks like bed warp/twist is dealt with via shims instead of parallelogram type adjustments. Time to cut up some beer or soda cans for shim material.

https://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f12/jet-...al-202834/

There are two files linked in there but only the larger of the two PDFs is readable.

[barryvabeach]

Zack, I agree with Rob,  if you decide it is worth while adding shims, some cut up cans work well as shims.  When I had an older dovetailed ways jointer, the advice I saw was to shim the outfeed table to deal with an out of parallel table problem, since the outfeed table is adjusted more less than the infeed, you have a better chance the the shims will stay in place.

[dvanvleet]

Update:  It is a model JJ-6.  The manual online has been updated since mine was built.  Nothing in the online manual matches my jointer.  That being said, I fiddled with it taking the advice given here and from the various videos I watched and I got it serviceable.  From what I can tell, there is no left to right height adjustment for the infeed and mine is currently a little low on the outside (away from the fence).  I can probably fix that with adjusting the knives once I can find my 5/16 wrench or the metric equivalent as my gib screws are hex head and not allen as the manual states.

At the end of the day I was able to joint a straight edge and get the new doors built for the update to the bathroom cabinets.  All in all yesterday was a win.  The first thing I've completed in the shop other than shop storage or fixtures in a couple of years.  It felt good.

Grizzly Support has some videos on adjusting jointers, and using shims if necessary, that might pertain to your style of jointer. Less about the model, more about the style.

[Zack Butler]

Thanks for the replies. I don't think the difference is enough to cause a problem. If I decide to dig into it further down the road I'll keep these suggestions i mind.