Jointer Set-Up for Perfect Cuts!

hey this is ASA here in my workshop in Portland Oregon you'll need a jointer if you want your boards to be perfectly flat and perfectly straight it's the first step before you put them through a thickness planer but the jointer is no good to you if it's not set up right [Music] [Applause] you only need a few simple tools to tune up your jointer you need an accurate square and you need a long straight edge like this one at least 36 inches long but first we need to talk about how a jointer works the board starts over here on the infeed table moves across the cutter head and at that point it's been milled flat and straight by the cutter head and that flat straight section starts riding on the outfeed table and that guarantees that the rest of the board comes out just as straight and just as flat so a lot of problems can be addressed by simply moving this outfeed table up or down if it's too high when you go to join to board it'll simply bump into the outfeed table like that if it's too low you'll get snipe at the end of the board that looks a little bit something like that an even more serious problem can come up if these two tables are not level with each other and not completely in the same plane but that's more rare it's common on very old machines it's something to look for if you buy a used machine and we'll talk about that a little bit later let's now first deal with the most common problem and the one that's easiest to fix which is getting this outfeed table level with the knives in any case whenever you start adjusting a machine taking guards off getting your fingers close to the cutters you need to have the machine unplugged at all times this is an accident waiting to happen obviously jointer cutters come in two varieties this is a newer type called a segmented cutter head the older jointers will have straight knives but the basic principle is the same with both types you need this table to be exactly level with these cutters at the top of their arc the first step for success of course is having sharp blades are sharp cutters in your jointer on this jointer you just rotate these little cutters to get a fresh edge but on most jointers they have long straight knives your jointer will come with some sort of a knife setting jig but you want to be sure that those knives are not only at the right height but that they're also parallel to this outfeed table all the across here's a super simple way to check all you need is a straight stick with a little line drawn on it you're gonna line that up with the front edge of the outfeed table and then rotate the cutter head by hand and see how far the teeth or the knives drag this stick alright that looks to be about a half an inch now let's try this at the front edge of the table and see how far it drags it here that's just about the same as it did at the back it's about that same 1/2 inch so now I know that the cutter head is level in parallel with the outfeed table which is really important okay so now you know that we're all parallel from side to side or front to back however you want to look at it now let's address the more common problem which is just that the overall outfeed table is not exactly at the same height as the top of the knives that's what's more likely to be a problem on the jointer and it's super easy to fix but first I need to lower the outfeed table a little bit all you do is take a board and joint just the first 1 inch or so of that board and then pull the board back out now take that same board put it back over the top of the cutter head and you want to look at this tiny little gap that's here hold the board tightly in place and now just raise that outfeed table until that tiny gap underneath the board disappears and you can slide it back and forth to check you want it to ride right onto that outfeed table that's perfect so now we're all set up for success on jointing the faces of boards but in order to do the jointer second job which is jointing the edges of boards Square to that first face to create two important reference surfaces we're going to need to square dispense to the table put your square on the outfeed table push it up against the fence and you'll see light any place that it's not square so now I know I need to tilt that fence forward a little bit and lock it just double-check that there's no light and that looks square all right let's give this a whirl and see how it's cutting [Music] all right let's take a look this face looks great there's no snipe at the ends the edge looks just as nice and we can check it with a square to make sure our two reference edges are good dead square nice job successful jointing there's one last thing that we need to talk about I'm really old jointers or maybe on planer jointer combos like this that aren't properly set up and adjusted they have their own sort of swinging tables and mechanism but most likely on older vintage jointers that you might be considering buying you might own one there could be a separate problem where the tables themselves are sagging they're not parallel with each other or they're twisted somehow and you'll know because you've done everything else right that we just showed you and you're still getting strange and inconsistent results like curved edges and things like that so all hope isn't lost I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to fix those things as well first I'm gonna unplug the machine for sure and then I'm going to take off this guard and get it out of the way what you want to do is grab that straight edge that you can trust and you're going to sit it on the outfeed table and you're going to notice right now that there's light under the infeed table that's normal because we're set up for cutting so the first step we want to do is raise that infeed table until the light just disappears so you want to hold the straight edge down firmly on the outfeed side and make sure it's not hitting the knobs on the cutter head and start moving it around and look for gaps a little bits of light on the infeed side so it looks good at the back of the jointer I don't see any gaps there and I'm gonna look at the front and hold it down firmly and it looks really even at this end of the table as well these two tables are definitely parallel to each other if you do see a little bit of a sag or a twist and you start seeing gaps under that infeed table don't worry you can fix it even on very old jointers there's a few different styles of jointer there's those that the bed's ride up and down on dovetailed ways and then there's another type that's supported by sort of a mechanism that's in the shape of a parallelogram they both adjust a little bit differently the parallelogram is really easy to adjust the dovetailed ways are a little bit trickier you might have to insert shims in different places in the ways but there's a lot of online tutorials for that but anyway those sagging tables or twisted tables are a pretty rare problem almost everything you're going to run across with a jointer you're going to be able to address with those tips I showed you earlier in the video so good luck [Music]

Channel: Woodpeckers

Views: 93,426

Rating: 4.8085108 out of 5

Keywords: wood, woodworking, woodworker, jointer, planer, machinery, machine, tools, tool, carpentry, carpenter, how to, make, maker, make it, build, builder, diy, project, home, improvement, shop, workshop, woodshop, jointer set-up, how to use a jointer for perfect cuts, Asa Christiana, woodworking tools, woodworking accessories

Id: 5UsaxqTlwcY

Length: 8min 6sec (486 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 11 2018