Marc:The Wood Whisperer
is brought to you by Powermatic. The gold standard since 1921, and by Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. Create with confidence. Today I'm going to show you how to setup your jointer for peak performance. (lively music) Now this big boy is my
Powermatic PJ-882 Jointer. It has an eight-inch wide bed that's about 83 inches long, and that is plenty of support
for those longer boards. You could see mine is
outfitted with a mobile base. One of the most common questions that I get from folks about jointers is whether they should
go with a six-inch model or an eight-inch model. Typically bigger is better because you have more
surface to run wider boards. If you use a smaller jointer you have to cut your boards down into more narrow strips and then glue them back
together for wider panels which is never really fun. For me I found that 90%, 95% of my stuff that
comes through the shop is between six and eight inches wide. I used to have the six-inch
version of this tool and it was great. The problem was I wound up cutting an extra inch or two off of these boards that were just about eight inches wide. I figured the eight-inch
jointer was the sweet spot because you go a little
bit wider to 10 inches and it gets really, really expensive. I mean eight is expensive enough as it is but I think that extra two inches in width is really gonna help you
over the six-inch models. My recommendation for most average woodworking shops at least get the six-inch and if you can get bigger
than that go for eight-inch, and if budget isn't a problem or space isn't a problem then certainly go even
wider if you want to. In order to understand the setup procedure for a tool like this, it's important to know what it is, how it works and what it does. The jointer in my shop, the primary purpose of the
jointer is for milling stock. You can use it to cut things like rabbits and bevels and things like that, but I honestly I just never really find the need to do that. I use my router for most of that work. Primarily, all I want
to do with my jointer is take a rough board and I create a nice flat face by passing it over the beds and over this cutterhead that spins in between these two adjustable tables. As you push it across you'll see it starts to remove material and essentially flattens one face. Once you have a flat face, you can use that for
reference for the second step. The second step is to
create a nice flat edge but not just flat. We also want it to be perfectly 90 degrees from the surface that we just cleaned up. I would do my first pass this way and then I would take
the newly cleaned face and put that up against the fence and run the edge across
the blades that way giving me the perfectly 90-degree corner. That's really all I'm gonna
do here at the jointer because the next step
would be to use the planer to clean the top surface and the table saw to clean the other edge and make it parallel to the first. The jointer really it doesn't
exist in a vacuum, right? It's gonna be used in
conjunction with other tools to really get the most out of it. (lively music) It's time for a little anatomy lesson. The jointer really only has four parts that we need to be concerned with. You've got your infeed
table, your outfeed table, your cutterhead in the middle and your fence. The infeed table is where we adjust how much material we're gonna remove. For me personally, I don't
like to remove much at all. I take very, very light passes because it gives me a cleaner cut. It just means I have to take more passes to get enough material off
to consider a surface flat and I'm okay with that. Typically, I just leave it locked in place and I don't really touch it very much. The outfeed table is
something that we only adjust during the setup process. Once it's locked in
place in the proper place we don't touch that at all. The cutterhead of course is in the middle. You'll find a few different designs. We'll talk a little bit
more about that later but what I have here is a
straight knife cutterhead. Very simple straight knife design. The fence moves in and out. It also tilts on an angle and again this is one of those things that you can get pretty fancy with some of the stuff
you can do with a jointer, but me personally, I just leave it set. Perfectly 90 degrees with the table. Call it done. For more information on how
to actually use the jointer, check out one of our earlier episodes, The Jointer's Jumpin'. Go to thewoodwhisperer.com,
click on the archive and dig back into those earlier episodes and you'll find it. (lively music) There are two primary setup procedures that we need to do to this jointer to make sure it works properly. First, we're gonna look at the tables. The tables must be coplanar. To explain that I've got a
couple pieces of plywood here. Sometimes it's easier to
see what is not coplanar to sort of understand what it actually is to be coplanar. These two pieces right
now are not coplanar. If I do this they're still not coplanar. When they're both on
the same plane like this that's when they're coplanar. They're nice and even but don't be confused because
they could still be offset, and in fact with this tool
that's what we have to do. We have to make sure
they're perfectly coplanar and then later we're going
to lower that infeed table so we actually take a
certain depth of cut. Of course, you want to unplug the tool. That should be common sense at this point. Remove the guard. This is one of the only times you're ever gonna see me take this guard off of this tool. Since in a minute I'm gonna putting a metal straightedge over this surface, I want to make sure there's no chance that those blades are
gonna come in contact with my straightedge. I'm gonna raise my outfeed
table up just by a hair. Not much at all. There we go. Now anything I put across this surface should very easily clear those blades. It won't touch. You guys know that whenever possible I try to give you the
cheapest solution to a problem or at least a cheap alternative and a different way to do it. When it comes to setting up a jointer, I've tried a number of different ways, I've tried a bunch of different gadgets. What I'm gonna show you
is the way that I found to be the easiest and that will ensure your success. The problem is the things
that I use cost money. Primarily this straightedge
is one of the biggest things that people have a hard time plunking down the cash for. This is a 50-inch straightedge. This one happens to be from Lee Valley. It cost about 80 bucks for this guy. You could find different
ones on the market. You could just do a little bit of shopping and find them cheaper, but what you don't want to do is grab a level from the home center. Those things generally are not going to be nearly as accurate as we need them to be for this operation. Kind of apologize ahead of time for not having a great
cheap solution for this but I know this system works and you can use that straightedge on so many different
things in the workshop. Not just your projects but setting up all your other tools. It is a good investment. The other thing I'm
gonna recommend you get is a set of feeler gauges. I'm not a feeler gauge kind of guy. I don't really like to get this
picky about my tool setups, but when it comes to the jointer a few thousandths can
really make a difference. A lot of people spend time frustrated wondering why they are
so terrible at jointing and in reality is it's not even them, it's the tool setup. If your tool's not setup properly you're just gonna frustrate yourself and you're gonna question your technique when in fact it's probably just the tool. I do recommend getting a
standard set of feeler gauges because they're gonna
help us with this process. Here's the basic idea. You're gonna take your straightedge and drop it on the outfeed table. We want to make sure that
we're referencing it all times from the outfeed table. You could see how we might
have a little bit of an issue if we want to get all the way to the end where we can detect the most error by having this all the way out there. We need something to keep pressure on the straight edge on this end and I'll show you a little
trick for that in a bit. Essentially what you need to know is that the infeed table is
where all the adjustments are going to be made. I'm not making any adjustments
to the outfeed table. It depends on the type
of jointer you have, it depends on the brand. There's a lot of factors that go into what you're gonna have to do. Definitely consult your manual for the individual procedures of setting up and moving
that infeed table. For me I've got four cam adjustments. I basically turn four bolts
in four different locations and what they do is they correspond to the four points of this surface so I can tilt it one way or the other. It's actually really handy because if everything seems in alignment but this corner here let's say is just a little bit too low, I can just raise that
one up just a little bit. But keep in mind, every
adjustment you make can affect the other three. You have to constantly go back and forth, and back and forth, and keep checking all of
these different locations until they're all close enough let's say. They don't have to be
perfect but close enough and we'll decide what is good enough when we get there. The first thing I want to do is check the infeed table
here closest to the cutterhead and that's very easy to do because all I have to do is place most of my straightedge
here on the outfeed, and then I start taking measurements with my feeler gauges. Okay, so I have my straightedge toward the back of the
jointer on the fence side and I'm gonna take my first
measurement right here. I have a 0.016 here and that seems to slide pretty easily. Here's 0.018. I can get it under there but
I can feel a lot of pressure. It's somewhere between 16 and 18. I don't happen to have a 0.017 but I would guess that that's probably about where it is. For now let's just go for 16. What I'm gonna do is use a
little business card here to sort of represent the infeed table and the location of the four corners to show exactly where we're at. It will give me a little profile view of what we need to do. 16 at that front corner. Let's test it up front here. 16 unfortunately is a little
tight, let's look at 15. 15 just barely gets under there. 14. 14 is not so bad. You could see it gets hung
up right here at the front. (lively music) To take the measurements at the far end of the infeed table, it's gonna be a little bit trickier because we need to get
as much of straightedge over there as possible, while maintaining
pressure down on this end. The way I'm gonna do that is using a piece of wood here. I actually just looked around and I saw that I had these
boat clamps in the shop and realize that these would be perfect. Really only you need to do
is get a piece of hardwood and cut a groove down the middle that will hold your straightedge so it sits kind of like so. The idea here is I could
push my straightedge pretty far over and I could ... Obviously it's very easy to make it fall. If I apply some clamping
pressure back here it's actually gonna push
down on the straightedge and keep it registered
against the outfeed table which is exactly what we want. The other thing you might want to do here, I got my clamp. Since the underside of this is relatively open under here, you might need a block of wood to give you a little bit
more clamping support. That's exactly what I'm gonna do and just like we took a
measurement on one side and then other side when we did the area nearest the cutterhead we're gonna do the same
thing on the other end and I'm gonna start
close to the fence here. You could see now this
end is nice and secure. It's resting perfectly
flat against the outfeed, and I've even got my 0.001
little feeler gauge here and you could see even at
0.001 it doesn't go under. That's how we know that it's basically perfectly tight against the outfeed all the way across this surface, and now we could take our measurements. We have 16 and 12 at the front. Let's go ahead and try the 16 back here. That slides with no problem and in fact I could already tell that we've got a lot of room to spare. That's 0.022. 24 starting to catch, and 25 is (chuckles) 25 is our magic number here. At the back end we are 0.025. Let's check the front side. Now I move the clamp and
straightedge to the front and I could take my measurement. 24 just barely. Let's see if 25 is too tight. 25 seems to make it under. Final measurement 25. (lively music) All right, now we've
got a pretty good idea of what's going on with this infeed table. With a gap of 25 on this side and a gap of only 16 or 12 on this side we know that the table
is sagging this way. The tip of it is sagging
down a little bit. We're gonna need to raise
that up at some point but there's one other
thing that's bothering me that needs to be fixed first. That's the fact that
we're 16 toward the fence and the gap is only 12
here at the front end. We're gonna need to
make an adjustment there because I want those to be even first and then I'll worry about the sag that might exist back there. This can be a pretty tedious process so just want to warn you ahead of time that there have been times where this has taken me
four to five hours to do. This could be an all day event depending on how lucky you get. The problem is the adjustments
are very sensitive. Every time you move one point you still affect the other three. You have to be very careful and it's literally adjust
here, check the measurement, adjust there, check the measurement, and it's a back and forth thing. Take a few deep breaths, get a coffee, whatever it takes. Just approach it with
a very relaxed mindset because you don't want to
get frustrated by this. It's one of the worst
feelings in the world when you can't get this
thing setup properly. Just take your time. The first thing I'm gonna do is address these two points at the front and try and make them the same. It doesn't necessarily matter if I try to bring the
twelve down a little bit so that it's also 16, or if I try to bring that
back end up a little bit to bring that to 12. It doesn't really make
that much of a difference. I want them to be the same bottom line. Let me get started in
making those adjustments. By turning this nut here what that's gonna do is
make adjustments to a cam that's going to raise and
lower this corner of the table. You have to make very slight adjustments and check your progress. Let me do just that and let's go to the 12 here. Okay, still tight at the front. 12 is loose in the back. That's to be expected. Let's make another little adjustment. Okay, 12 is getting looser. Still loose in the back. What I'm doing is widening this gap. Essentially lowering this corner. Now the 12 is sliding freely and let's grab our 14 here. Okay 14 slides freely. Slides freely. Now let's check the 16. 16 gets under there. It's under there in the back. I think I can go just a hair more. 16 slides, little resistance at the front. Slides and a little
resistance at the front. That's pretty darn close. Now both of the front and back. We've got a nice 16 foul gap. (lively music) Now this is where things
can get really confusing so you have to be careful. I know that the amount
that it's sagging is even on both sides of the infeed table. Whatever change I make to one I want to make that same
change on the other side so I don't get it all out of whack. Basically I've got my 0.016 here which we know is our
clearance at the front, and obviously we have
way too much clearance here at the back. I'm gonna give this guy a clockwise turn. That's going to close
that gap a little bit. Not as much as we need but that's okay because I want to go in the back here and make a similar adjustment, and just as close as you
can bring that up as well. We want to keep those as close to each other as possible because I don't want to ruin the fact that I already went through
all that work to get them perfectly even. Okay. Now you see what just happened. I made an adjustment
on both of those ends. I brought the tail end up but that didn't just
affect those two points. It affected these points as well. What was a nice, snug fit with the 0.016 over here is now loose. It's loose all the way across. Because I've increased the overall gap, I need to switch to 0.018 now. Even 18 is loose so that was a pretty dramatic
change that we just did. You could see how this gets
crazy if you're not careful. Here's 20. Okay, now 20 tightens up here and it's still a little bit loose there. We can make another adjustment. Very slight now because we're really getting close. Now let's see what
happens with the 20 again. Just barely slides under and just barely slides under. That's pretty close. That's good for the front measurement. Now I need to move my clamp and straightedge to the back, and I'll kind of do the same thing. With any luck those
adjustments that I made trying to keep pace with the
changes I made at the front, hopefully those adjustments
were pretty close to perfect so I don't have much to do back there, but we'll see. If we got lucky it will be dead on, if not we're gonna have
to do a couple rounds back and forth until we get this perfect. All right, so checking it with the 0.020. Now we're doing the back end of the table. It's a little bit tight here. It feels pretty good back there. This is close. This is actually the fastest I've ever gotten to this point. We're talking a very, very slight variance that's a little bit tight there but it still slides under. It slid under at the front but it was a little bit of a looser fit. Just from experience because I've done this enough times, I can probably guesstimate that we're talking
maybe a 0.001 even less. Maybe a half of a thou. A difference between the back end and the front end here. The question is, is
that worth messing with? In most cases I'm gonna say no, it's not. Remember, as soon as you
mess with one of these things you start to mess with all of them. The offending corner
is this guy right here and I'm gambling that if
I make a slight adjustment that it's going to move it
a half, a 0.001 of an inch. That is very difficult to do. To be quite honest if
the 20 slides under snug at all four points here, that's good enough for me and I think I'm gonna
call it a day right there. I lucked out today. Now although I got very lucky today chances are the next time I do this I won't be so lucky and chances are you won't be either. A lot of times it's a back and forth thing that lasts quite a while. What would happen if it wasn't perfect. Let's say I had a little
bit too much of a gap here and it was a little
too tight at the front. It's very likely that
that would be the case. I'm just going to make my adjustment to the nut that's in the back, and it's gonna bring this
corner up just a hair and I try to get those two perfectly even just like I did before at the front here. Once those two are even I'm not out of the woods yet because I still need to
bring the straightedge back to the front edge of the jointer and check those two measurements up front. They could have moved. If they're perfect and everything responds and has the same gap all the way around on all four points then I'm done. The question will come up, how far to go? Like how close is good enough? To me one to two thousandths
at each point is good enough. If you could slide a 20 under here but the 20 is just a
little bit tight here, that's only a half thou. Maybe a thousandth at the most. I'm okay with that. As soon you get to two,
three, four thousandths that's when things start to
go a little bit off for me. I am for one to two at the most as a level of error for this. The bottom line is this. As soon as we start using this, we put big planks of wood on there, stresses on the table, things are gonna move
over the course of time but we want them to be
as close as possible to perfect at the beginning so that we can extend the amount of time before we need to do this again. Usually when I change my blades I'm gonna do it all over again anyway so at least once a year
I'm doing this procedure. The next step is to adjust
the knives and the cutterheads so that they are perfectly even and at the same height
as the outfeed table. Before we do that, let's hear what Nicole has to say about the history of jointers. Nicole:According to the Old
Woodworking Machine Wiki the jointer was invented in 1866 when a patent was filed by
John Riley and Henry Climer. The patent described a
pair of adjustable tables separated by a cutterhead. Riley and Climer sold the design to a company known as
Bentel, Margedant and Company who brought the unique design to life in the form of the universal woodworker. This was essentially the
first official power jointer. (lively music) Now we're on to the second
part of the setup process and that is taking care
of these jointer knives. This can be really intimidating for people because you have to get those knives set perfectly even with the outfeed table. Maybe if you get it done
once, maybe you get lucky you still have to do it two more times so it's not about luck. It's about getting down to a system that actually works every single time and it's down to a science. I want to show you a couple different methods of doing it but first let's talk about
what most manuals recommend. A lot of times they will recommend using some sort of a dial indicator or something for a very accurate way of doing it, but they also recommend
a very low tech way, and that typically involves using some sort of a wood block or maybe the jointer actually
came with a setup block made out of aluminum. The idea is you put it
over the cutterhead, manually rotate the cutterhead and you sort of just measure the amount of movement of
that block for one rotation sort of tells you how high
that blade is sitting. I don't really think that's
a very accurate way to do it. I don't really recommend doing that. What we're gonna do is use a jig. This really requires exact settings and sometimes jigs are really the only way to get you there. The problem is there are a
lot of jigs on the market. Which one is the right one to use? You know what? Sometimes I've got to make
sacrifices for the show and I went and bought four
new toys to play with here. In fact, actually three of them are new, one is something that I've already had but I'm gonna get into
the details of this. I want to actually set my jointer up four different times and show you the process and how it works and then I'll just give you my opinion on which one I think is probably gonna be the most worthy of your hard-earned money. These are not cheap. I'll warn you ahead of time. Let's get into it. We'll start of with the one that I have been using for years now and that's called the jointer pal. The jointer pal is a very simple system that utilizes rare earth magnets to bring the blades up to the
level of the outfeed table. To use it you need to find a top dead center of the blade's path. I use a piece of tape and a pencil to mark my best estimation. Simply line up the jig
with the line on the fence and loosen your blades. The magnet should pull them up and hold them in place as you tighten the blades back down. The Oneway Multi-gauge is a simple and sturdy dial indicator that gives you an accurate measurement of your blade's height. Rotate the cutterhead back and forth to get a precise reading, and use the screws under the blades to raise and lower the blade as needed. The A-Line-It kit works
on the same principle as the Oneway with a slightly
different form factor. Finally the MLCS 9327. This is another magnetic system only this one bridges the
infeed and outfeed tables and let's you make micro adjustments to the blade height. This was an incredibly
fun little experiment and I'm really glad I did it because I've had a change of heart. For a long time you guys know that I try as hard as I
can to avoid using things like dial indicators,
feeler gauges when possible. You saw me use feeler gauges on setting up the tables for alignment, and we've got some dial indicators here that we're playing with. If I can avoid using them I'm going to but man, now that I've used it it really has affected how I feel about my trusty old jointer pal. Let's start out with this guy. It's all based on the magnets and really the blade should be dead level with the table in theory. The problem is as you
tighten that blade down, we know it's gonna raise up a little bit and even despite this
relatively strong magnet, it still moves up, and you have no way of controlling it and you have no way of stopping it. You have no way of measuring it. What I did was after I did all three which by the way takes about
three minutes per blade. Less than 10 minutes is your setup time if you're doing all three
of your blades from scratch. I took my gauges that I now
have, my dial indicators and I just wanted to see what the variants was from side to side and from blade to blade. I'm looking at between
anywhere from one to 0.004 from one side of the blade to the other. Some of them came out even. One of them was one on one. 0.001 up on the one side and 0.004 on the other. The problem is it's a
little bit unpredictable. You can get close but you're
not gonna get perfect. The truth is I've been
using this thing for years and I've had decent results. My work wasn't adversely affected by it in any major way. This is an adequate option but if you want to get better and you want better results and you want to ensure that all of your blades and your jointer are doing the work and they wear evenly, you may want to try something else. But reasonably priced, the cheapest model is $27. They get pretty expensive if you want a really wide one but they range for the
six to eight inch models, for six to eight inch jointers. You're looking at 27 to 80
bucks for the jointer pal. Now very similar to the jointer pal because they're based on magnets but a little bit more sophisticated in what it's trying to do is the MLCS 9327 which
just rolls off the tongue. These things run for 70 bucks and I've got to say I'm kind
of disappointed in these. I really ... When I saw them I was like great. I've got the functionality
of the jointer pal only now I can actually micro adjust by turning these little
knobs left and right. The problem is how do you know how much to move it. If you don't have a dial
indicator on that blade how do you know how much
you're bringing it up and down. The other thing is it's a plastic body. The magnets aren't quite as strong as something like the jointer pal, and I think part of it is the form factor because you've got a large top on here, it's very easy to move. The problem is those blades are still gonna be able to move this thing up and distort it a little bit. It's not really locking it down. We still have the same fundamental problem that we have with the jointer pal in that little bit of movement. If I know that one side
is up 0.004 let's say and the other side is down at 0.001. I can adjust this to get it down and I can make little micro adjustments, but if I don't have a
dial indicator on there how do I know? The reason I'm gonna give this a fail is because you need
something else with it. I just don't see how this is gonna work as a standalone item Kind of neat but I don't
know that it's good for what we're trying to do here. Choosing between these two bad boys. That's a little bit of a different story. You've got a decision to make here. If you're the type who
wants an all in one tool that's gonna do everything, it may not be the very best
at each one of those tests but it's certainly gonna be very good. I would say the A-Line-It
kit is the way to go but if you're the type of person who wants the absolute
best tool for that job, the one way hands down is my favorite in this whole test. It's just so, so beefy, so rugged. I think I'm in love with this thing. I can't wait to setup my planer with it because it's gonna make it so much easier. Same thing with my drum sander. I think primarily those are three tools I'm gonna use this on, but those are some of my
most used tools in the shop, and if those aren't setup right it can make your life miserable. For me the one way is definitely the way that I'm gonna go in the future. Again, I can't say that
the A-Line-It is ... It's really a close second. I mean it really did a great
job setting up the jointer. I just think that this
is a little bit better at this particular task. Kind of a toss up between the two and it's gonna depend on
your personal situation with what you want, but for me I love this thing. Now that I've picked my favorite, I'm gonna give you a
little bit more detail on how to set that blade up using a dial indicator. I want to start by loosening up the blade. Be very careful when you do this. Just be very aware of
the path of your hands. Let's pull the blade out. Done and aside. Get this guy out of here. Now a lot of jointers
will have springs in them underneath the blade. It keeps the blade pushing upward. That's very handy when
you're doing the magnetic jig because it helps the blade go up until you tighten it down. In this case, if we're
gonna use a dial indicator that's actually gonna work against us. It's gonna be a real problem
so I'm removing mine. Inside here you'll see a
little adjustable screw. What the screw does is it rests against the bottom of the blade and sort of determines where
that blade is gonna sit so you could make very slight adjustments and raise and lower the blade. Pop this guy back in place, and you may want to lower
those just a little bit. I'd rather start with them low than start with them too high. Slide our blade in place. I just make all of these just to the point that they're snug. I'm not actually turning
them with the wrench. I'm just kind of smacking the bolt here until it contacts the back
wall of the cutterhead. That's a nice snug fit. The blade is as far down as it's gonna go. You may even want to use something to protect your fingers. These little rubber sanding pads I find they're pretty good for this because I can push directly on the tip and not really have to worry
about my thumb getting cut. You still obviously want to be very, very careful when you do this, but you want to put
downward pressure on here so that it doesn't move when we start to tighten these things up. First thing's first though. We need to see how far
off we are at this point. We're just under the zero point here. What I'm primarily concerned with is I want to see if
we're even on both sides. This side seems like it's a tad bit lower. Okay. Now we're gonna start making adjustments. The easiest way I find to do that is keep the three in the middle and yours may be a little bit different but you'll get the idea. Keep the middle bolts loose and start to snug up
the ones on the outside. Right here is the point
that I feel it catching and you could see how much I turned it. It's really not a whole lot but just enough to snug it up so it's not gonna slip around. I'm gonna do the same thing
on the one in the very back. Now what I can do start back here first. Try to find the highest point. Almost hitting zero. I'm gonna turn this screw
here counterclockwise. It's gonna be a little bit tough to turn because I did tighten
up that blade a little. As I turn it watch what happens. See, we're approaching zero, we're on zero and now we actually went too far. The problem here is if you go too far we introduce the little
bit of friction here and tension so it's not gonna go back down unless I push it down. I'm gonna have to loosen this up so that's why I have to be
careful not to go too far. It's always easier to raise the blade than it is to lower it again. We'll put that screw down again and we'll make sure
that we pushed the blade all the way down. We should be below zero
again which is good. Now I'm gonna snug this one back up again. Put the gauge back in place. We will be very careful. This is not a micro adjustment here so you have to be careful
how much you turn it. I just want to hit the point basically the needle touches zero. There we go. I feel pretty comfortable with that. See how we're doing near the front here. I'm gonna turn the bolt
now counterclockwise and see if we can get this front end to be up to zero. There we go. I left these three loose because if I made
adjustments to the outside while these were also snugged up what can actually happen is you could sort of [twerk] the blade and create a little bit of a dished effect where it will stay low in the middle and move up because we
forced the outside edges up. I like to keep those middle ones loose until I'm at this point where I'm really comfortable
with where everything is. I don't know if you
necessarily have to do this but I do like to put
some downward pressure on that blade when I start
to snug these things up because inevitably, as you tighten them you are going to raise that
blade just a little bit. Really it's a matter of getting used to how your jointer responds to this because it may go up a thousandth, it may not go up at all. It could go up 0.003 so you have to see what you're up against. In the back we're looking at one thou, maybe 1 1/2. That's pretty darn good, I like that. Let's look at the front. At front we've got 1 1/2. Okay, excellent! What I can do now is
really bear down on these and give them a good, nice, tight fit. If you've been paying
attention up to this point you're probably wondering why I'm okay with that blade
being 1 1/2 thousandths higher than the outfeed table. Previously I was saying you want to make it dead even. When we're talking about thousandths for all practical
purposes it is dead even, but you really do want it to be just a hair higher than the outfeed table. In the past there are times when I've used the magnetic method to keep it perfectly even with the outfeed and the results were kind of ... I just wasn't getting an effective jointing operation out of it, and I tinkered with the outfeed table, moving it up and down, and when it was just a
hair lower than the blades all of a sudden everything just worked. The more I looked into it, then I found out people were recommending that those blades need to
be just a little bit higher than perfect level. That's what I would recommend. Try to aim between one and two thousandths higher than the outfeed table if you can. Obviously you need a dial indicator to do that level of accuracy. You're just not gonna be able to do that with a magnetic system. That's why I like to ... When I first snug up the bolts I like to set them at zero knowing that my jointer
as I tighten that up I know that those blades are actually gonna come up a little bit. It really is important that you know how much yours are gonna move, and once you're kind of familiar with it you can sort of adjust four. If mine moved up four and I want to end up at one I should probably make sure that my blades are registering below zero
when I get them setup. That way when I tighten them up they'll move perfectly up to one. (lively music) Nicole:When a patent was ... (babbling) Marginant, Margedant. Marc:Mergeder. Nicole:Margerike. (bleep) (laughing) I'm talking to my fancy voice. Marg, Marg, what? The jointer was invented. (chuckles) (bleep) Hold on, let me fix my hair. Because you wanted some out takes. Well, there you have them.
