Hi Friends,
It's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to share a story with everyone that may save some other poor fellow some heartache on down the line. It's a sad tale of woe and lost shop time, that ends in success…
About a week ago I had the good fortune to come into possession of not one, but two dial indicators and magnetic bases. I eagerly looked around my shop for things to measure and settled upon the joiner first. Hooked up the dial indicators zeroed them out, and lo and behold my recently changed jointer blades were to within 1/thousandth of each other (using shop made jigs to boot). With that success under my belt I turned to the planer. Now the planer had not been giving me the greatest cuts lately, so I thought it was probably time to sharpen blades, although I have just sharpened and changed them a month or so ago. They had had a little use since then, but all of it in Hickory, so being dull was not totally out of the question.
I took the hood off, and immediately noticed that two blades looked like they had been through the war, and two blades looked freshly sharpened… Never a good sign. I hooked up the dial indicators, and sure enough the blades were all out a whack (previously set with guides that came with the planer). Not having time to stop and sharpen blades I thought I would just reset them and sharpen in a week or so. I loosened the jib bolts, and set to work readjusting the knives. Using the dial indicators and the Jack screws, it was easy enough to move the knife into position. Started tightening down the jib bolts, actually using the tightening sequences noted in the manual. Got it all cinched down, remeasured with dial indicators just to verify how good a job I did, and came to discover that the left end of the blade was high by 7/1000, and the right side of the blade was low by 2/1000. Disgruntled, I loosened everything back up, readjusted and retightened. I remeasured. This time high on the right 5/1000 and high on the left by 1/1000. Repeated the above processes several times with all different measurements being the end result. I tried a different knife, and came up with the same inconsistencies. I took all the pieces out cleaned, the head up with mineral spirits so that everything was squeaky clean. Tried again. Knife moved. Try again. Knife moved. and so on... for four days!
You get the picture.
I had a few minutes this evening, and when out just to "look" at things. Looked it over all carefully, including getting out the big Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass and eyeing everything up very carefully. Nothing was bent, broken, cracked, stripped, everything was fine, although in the process of tightening and releasing I did occasionally see what looked like small metal filings here and there.
I thought to myself, "people put knives in these machines every day… I just need to go slow it will be okay". readjust...Knife moved. Retried. Knife moved. Severe agitation set in as this was the fourth day I was spending on trying to get these knives aligned. Finally, I got irritated at the wrench (which seemed to keep binding in the slot), and went over to the toolbox and got a REAL 10 mm. I had to try out a couple different ones to find one that fit easily into the slot.
Reset knife, tightened jib bolts… Remeasured… Knife was 0/1000 off. It was right where I had put it. I reset the second knife, tighten the jib bolts… Remeasured… 0/1000 off. Third knife-reset-tighten-off by 1/1000. Loosened, readjusted, remeasured-third knife now dead on. Fourth knife-you get the picture… Dead on.
Upon closer inspection, it now looks like the wrench, which was the one sent with the machine, was just too snug for the slot, and as I would adjust the screws it somehow would twist things a little bit because it was too wide. It has scrape marks on the sides, hence the metal filings here and there. I suppose it's possible that my Dad's old USA made Craftsman 10 mm just brought good karma to the process which enabled me to get all four knives adjusted in five tries, but I think it's much more likely that the cheaper fatter wrench caused bad karma on the previous 40 tries (no lie, I must've tried 40 times to adjust those knives!).
Like I said, hopefully this will help someone on down the road when they search for answers as I did. Toss the cheapo wrench, use a good one that easily fits the slot.
Best of luck,
Dave
Reply With Quote
. Using this method it's quite easy to make adjustments to within +/- 1/1,000 which is well beyond any precision you'll ever need in woodworking.
