Jointer Knife Setting with Bob Vaughan

most woodworkers appreciate the precision of well-tuned Jorgensen but very few woodworkers that I know of appreciate and enjoy putting in the knives this is a freshly ground and balanced set of jointer knives even though they're sharp they're not going to perform to their potential until they're properly set in a jointer I'm Bob Vaughn contributing editor to find Woodworking magazine this is the 8 inch jointer that I'm going to be installing the knives in in this companion video to my recent article in the magazine these are the knives this is a $30 magnetic base and dial indicator set imported and these are some very simple inexpensive tools now let's go back over to the jointer in going step by step and setting the knives on this jointer the first thing you've got to do is prepare the area one of the first things you should do is choose the time when you've got very few interruptions no one interruptions and being distracted you've got to remove certain parts of the jointer you've got the cutter the guard needs to be removed the fence is going to be removed and always keep your plug in sight now what I do normally just pick the pins up after it's unmoor slide it to the end of the tape off at least and keep your plug in view now we're going to be dealing with a lot of parts lot of little screws things like that so if you've got a dust collector on your jointer remove your dust with it because you're probably going to drop a little parts down in there and also clean up the area around you so you can find your parts a lot easier now you want to get comfortable when you're setting these knives because bending over and standing up is at this height is just not a good thing to do particularly money so what I do is bring a chair along and put it in a diagonal to the corner and want to sit down in the chair I put one way on one side one length on the other and I've got my elbow right here and I've got the cutter head right in front of me now if you'll notice here's the on/off switch and here's my playing and there's on the process of the pump that from time to time with my leg and every time I bump that I like to look up and be able to see that plug just makes you feel good you know what I mean anyway let's go look at the dial indicator before we get into this like city here we have the magnetic base and the dial indicator set it has magnets here in this box and the magnets have turned on and off by this switch here's the the top shaft and the side shaft which are connected with this little cross clamp this crossed clamp on these inexpensive sets are made out of aluminum so you need to be a little bit careful with them they don't have the resiliency and durability that the 180 to 150 dollar sets have whether they because they have steel or other materials in their cross clamps here's the fine adjustment screw then find an adjustment device you turn this in it find adjusts everything and here's another aluminum cross clamp and the dial indicator is held in with this pin that goes through the backlog of the dial indicator onto here and of course it's tightened down here also to modify this particular device it came with a small point a small part of this shaft sticking out here reduced diameter part of that shaft I cut that off so I could remove the dial indicator around the way I wanted to put it on there now let's look at the dial indicator the dial indicator itself has a movable dial that will prove handy later on now and you just move the outside perimeter and it moves around to wherever you want the hand to show you can lock it in place this little set screw on the side the plunger actuates the hand as it goes in and out and up and down now with this particular dial indicator and a lot of them that you get in these sets they come with a standard fine ball tip on the end of it on the end of the plunger I recommend that you buy a aftermarket plunge your tip these are interchangeable the three-eighths inch convex which makes it real good for easing off the Kyi's in the contact over the surface of its sharp jointer knife these things simply unscrew everyone goes off goes on in there now we're going to look at the other tools we use as you can see this is a rather unsophisticated bunch of tools we've got here first we've got a ice pick to slide onto the back of the knife to raise it and lower it we will show you how to do that we've got a very rich that I've made out of a plane tonight hardened steel it's very thin and I can get in there and I've got an extension that I've made for it to keep your hands out of Mike slicin territory when their fingers slip off this small wrench it's much easier to do you don't need that much torque on these things we're looking into that later then we've got something to lower the knives which is a very sophisticated little block of a hoe handle or something that I've just cut up and used and I've been using this thing for about three years and I've got a little plastic headed mallet here that I use to knock things down knock a knife down when I need a little more force here's a symbolic sketch of the cutter head and the knife holding assembly in the various parts that were working with this will represent the knife this is the lock shim this is a screw with the screw threads going through the lock shim and putting pressure on the knife in the back of the night first thing I'll cover is the height of the night the height of the knife is in relation to the cutter head should have its heel about a sixteenth of an inch distance here or less it should never come below the arc of this cutter head because you're just inviting chips to be compacted in there and really get into a big problem the front of the thing between the lock SIM chip breaker arc some have this some don't should be another sixteenth of an inch now we're going to look at another sketch to see what happens when we tighten down on this lock screw this line here represents the arc of the mic when it's just in there loosely enough just snug you know just so you're setting the knives and get them to the right position and they're just just snug enough so you can't pull it by hand but you know it's not tight enough now on another part of this I've got shown what happens when you tighten down on this thing and you put down the pressure going this way it's a pressure is in expansion and you can see the luck Shem was raised up and how the cutter head raises up and that arc of the knife comes around the original mark of the knife comes up and this raises up above that arc at the night this is the long shim that have taken out of a cutter head you can see where the screws go the screws are removed what I'm going to do is show you how a new knife relates to this and how short how much the knife can be ground down before it's to be rejected as you see a knife will stick up on this thing approximately a sixteenth of an inch over the top of the lock sham and the back sticks down about it eight the very sixteenth of an inch but that's really not important what's important is what you can see through these screw holes you can see the full knife through there so you know that's going to be the center line of your pressure point that's what that's that's good this knife is in perfect shape sand naturally because it's a new one now I'm gonna look at a knife that's pretty short and if you've got any question about it you stick it in there you take the screws out you put it in behind there and stick it up so there's about a sixteenth of an inch showing at the top and then you look down through your screw hole and if you can see any light through that screw hole then reject that mine before we start the procedure the first thing I want to do is Mark the cutter hit one behind this night market behind each night this helps you keep continuity it's one two three get interrupted you better know where you are if you spin the cutter head to check a few things you can note which knife you're going to it doesn't matter where you start just as long as you have a one two and three in that order the first thing we want to do is take the old knives out and we do this by doing this taking out one night at a time and replacing one line at a time otherwise the cutter head gets distorted with pressure if you take thread that is if you take all the knives out at once just keep going doing this this is this is a the procedure I'm going to show you is the one that I use in my machinery rehabilitation work all the time now sometimes when you take these out the knives give the stuff you just wrap on the back of a little bit and it'll come right out maybe you got to loosen it up a little more there we go need three turns knock it down we live to the old life out and we'll remove the lock Jim look to see if everything's okay it seems to be clean no rust or anything that should be removed no burrs feels good and smooth and flat inside the cutter head is clean dry no rust so we're in good shape there that should be that is as it should be you may keep the locks you up in there take the new knife and install it now for its lateral position back and forth I take the old knife and lay it on the rabbiting ledge and but the new knife up against it like so just to make sure we get the right positioning then shove the new knife down a little bit below where it needs to be and lock the screws down just like just just enough to keep it in there just know if I were to turn the cutter head right now it wouldn't fall out when it's I'd nail just running in go to the other side and it's just very slightly tight now we're ready for starting to aligning and getting into using the dial indicator come look over my shoulder while I do this process and you can see how I'm doing it and getting a good idea how to work on your jointer first thing I want to do is set up the dial indicator so the tip of the plunger is just barely touching top dead center on the cutter head now that's that's got a pretty good run on it so I'll take my fine adjust and move that down just a little bit just want it to tip a little bit that's not quite enough up about there it you know whisp in about five to ten thousands and I do it on one side I cut her head then I move the dial indicator plunger to it the other end of the cutter hit to make sure it's hitting there because not all cutter heads are parallel to the outfeed table and so you got to be sure it's going to work right that look good across now that that's done you it's a good idea to move the plunger tip up by your hand because you don't want to bang it around too much slide the thing back slide the dial indicator back and set the plunger down on the table then we twist the dial until it reads zero and so there we know that that plunger tip is zero that when the dial gets to zero that the plunger tip is going to be right at the same plane as the outfeed table so we go back over top of the cutter head and we find our top dead center there there's a top dead center and then I reach over here and I roll that thing roll the cutter head back over it and as I can see when I put the knives in there five thousands load so we want to raise that night five thousands and that's what we're going to get into and this process continues all the way down the cutter head for each blade you've got the two more blades to do because you'll be moving the indicator around quite a bit you don't ever want to turn the magnetic base form if you do it'll be very awkward when you have to slide the base around where you need it on the outfit table it's okay now this knife on this side is ten thousands high so we want it about five thousand slope so the best thing to do is just take your precision adjusting device here and your other limits a little bit and this this rough handling doesn't hurt the money because it's not really real bad rough England Fair we're about one thousand side so these knives are going to come pretty close I'm gonna beat that down just a little more all right and we're going to use the ice bag do it over here I'll cut her head over on top dead center Manimal this around notice to you take your readings over top of being screwed because that's the only place you can really make a difference in the height to the night now if you notice this knife he is about 15,000 slow so we want to raise it up about 15,000 I'll insert my wrench in there put some leverage on there and I'll raise this thing up put this nice pick under the plate and raise it up and see me raising it good thing going up above a rocket occasionally to make sure a hopsie because nothing raises up it raises up an angle so you got to keep rocking it back and forth I'm really about where I want to be there's about 2,000 so I said I usually start out with setting my two thousand slow see what happens when I lock it down sometimes when you lock it down here will be just perfect sometimes it'll raise a couple thousand [Music] really that time I'm right on money just to have good manners and didn't seem to want to raise much top dead center walk a knife around under the plunger and look at that that's right on - they don't come out like this all the time I'm sorry they don't cuz I rather see some real tough challenges to show you some things that happen now and walk down just like that's good and we know so far either that part of thing that part of the thing is just dead even with the top of the that's a little high oh this is dead even with the outfeed table this is works particularly well good when you've got a joiner that does not have an adjustable outfeed table you know you know you can make your better head exactly even with the thing with the outfeed table there we go we're about half a thousand slow there if I walk in and she'll go up just to write the part of a safety ceremony that I've learned to do in years past - just make sure you skip on one little light tug just to make sure they're all about the same torque and you don't need a whole lot of torque on these things I'm not putting a whole lot of torque on you don't need them just enough to Snug them down there now as we take out this knife this is knife number two I see that some of these screw heads if you'll notice way down in here see how that one's all rounded over and messed up well the wrench is going to keep slipping off of there and slipping off of there and that's going to get rounded and rounded and so there's the best way to cure that is to simply replace the screw but if it's uh you know 7:30 on a Sunday night you just can't go out and buy one of these screws because these are hardened special science screws so of what I do is turn mine around take them out you can see see how that's kind of rounded over there that makes it hard on the ridge so what I do is I'll take remove this screw from locks him and put another screw and in swap swap places with it because chances are the when these things were threaded thread wasn't started at the same place around the around the hole and so chances are when this little this the flat comes up that's that's messed up chances are when it comes around to tighten up the round of over parts won't be the ones that the wrench grab but the wrench grabs another one of the parts there are some problems that you might run into that we haven't run into yet but I need to warn you about some of the little bloodiest problems and occasionally I'll find that it might get sharpened instead of being perfectly straight across here it'll be sharpened either conv cave or it can be sharpened convex there's it's this way can easily be dealt with because believe it or not these knives can be bent once they're locked in as you go down the as you lock them in going down the cutter head you can actually justify beating it down or prying it up you can actually snake this thing now let's say you're going alone one day two days right after you sharpen the thing in this happens to me all the time the only time you're going to hit a nail this when you right after you sharpen the knives and install them and you've got this little ding right in the middle you want to get that Bell ding yet because you want a joiner you don't want a molder that mark will represent the position of the nick that goes all the way around the knives often if you know if you haven't had your new now your old knife sharpened yet then what you do is you loosen that being representing the position of the Nick you loosen two of the knives here's another night that's marked similarly and you take them out or you slide them actually one to the left and one to the right just a little bit and with those going to the left and the right you'll find that it comes back up and it wipes out that little molding move that you have going through there now that's for a small Nick if the Nick is too big you can only slide so far before they start bumping into the bearing block but you can try that the next time you get a little nick in them here's a detail you might want to consider and I often do this this edge of the knife can be ground with a slight bevel on it instead of straight like it is the reason you do that is so when your rabbiting you get much less tear out here's an old life that has a bevel on it and you can see the difference between the two knives okay now the good fun part I'm putting the thing back together in anticipation of some nice new smooth cuts this little thing should take you maybe the first time an hour an hour and 15 minutes well now that we've set this thing to zero on the outfeed table and the cutter head knives are even with the outfeed table we're going to fit set the infeed table and you just roll the infeed table up until it indicates zero and then you know that the end of the feed table and the up feed table of the same then you reach down here to where your pointer is on your depth of cut gauge and loosen it up and you set it at zero come back up our tools now and head over to Salem Virginia to see Burt Boyd's 1951 Powermatic jointer eight inch the biggest difference between this order and the one I just worked on is in the cutter here I love the lock Jim and the subsets groove setup is the same on both machines this jointer has life lifters that raise and lower with an allen wrench this cross-sectional view taken to the cutter head at one of the jacks screw holes shows how the assembly works you don't ever want to advance the knife flip they're highlighted in pink here above the arc of the knives if you do it means your knives are too short and besides you'll get a groove down your stock if you use the machine this way to turn the jackscrew I like to use a ball edit Allen Ridge I can use it from any angle around the dial all right to zero this thing in find the top dead center when you rock it over there and we're about five thousand slow then you put singing there see how it raises up just nice you just watch that dial move it I'll loosen up do it again that's fun hey knock it down I just knocked it down with the back into my little allen wrench here so you just turn it so I'll just turn the element rings watch it go right up there turn it up to about 2,000 slow you teach others below will generally work because when you tighten up his first time at races it a test a little bit there we go yeah that's perfect yeah that's perfect right on the money see it there one thousands fan top dead center on the other one I'm 2000s below right there that looks wonderful move indicator back off deep cut her head again make sure it's on zero is still on Z yeah and you move it back over the cutterhead so that plunger is hitting the top dead center fine top dead center drop it around make sure this move plane is cave snug in there it's when you want to drive it knife down you want to tail down with that knife that the butt that screw so we're about four thousands up and I've got to move this out of the way because this is exactly where I've got to pound so in green bring it back over top dead center rock it around and we're just magically about one and a half pounds it's below it so now let's see what I'm trying to tighten this doesn't you've seen how easy it is to set the new knives in this machine let's go back over to my shop so I can demonstrate how the Delta jointer now makes that silky smooth cut since we set the new knives before I show you the payoff of our labor I'm replacing the guard want me to cut yet okay just plug the machine in and now we're ready to drop the table a little bit so we can don't drop my depth of cut to 1/8 of an inch so you see where the pointer is here was on zero I'm moving down to 1/8 of an inch there we go [Applause] there now take a look at this super smooth nice finish that the pores are cut as cleanly as any brand-new jointer plane that I've ever seen you can just truly see right into the ends of those pores

Channel: Joe Wells

Views: 83,151

Rating: 4.8205128 out of 5

Keywords: googlevideo

Id: VRnrWOwun68

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Tue May 08 2012