Shelix - glue joints

[J.R. Rutter]

It has been a while since I've posted regularly on the Creek, and just finished reading up on the Shelix discussions. I have a 20" head in my planer that I really like, though it trips the heaters in my starter more than fresh steel knives when hogging off tough woods. It is VERY nice to just push jobs through at full speed without paying attention to grain.

I've been considering a Shelix or Tersa head for my 12" jointer, and am wondering about edges destined for glue joints. Although I do skew my surfacing cuts, sometimes tearout happens at the most inconvenient time. I also run a lot of Braz. Cherry, which is super hard and dulls blades fast. The head on my planer leaves very shallow surface scallops the length of the board surface. On the jointer, might this translate into edges that are either at a slight angle or make for a thicker (visible) glue line?

Has this been an issue at all for those of you with jointer heads, or is it such a tiny imperfection that it amounts to nothing?

[Ken Salisbury]

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[J.R. Rutter]

Done. Got a Shelix?

[Alan Turner]

JR,
I have a Shelix on my old 12" jointer, and it is an excellent head. As you said with regard to your planer, grain direction is not too important in most cases. As to the glue joint, mine is fine for this use, but I had to send the original back as the tracks were .004, and this was way too far off to permit a flat glue up. Mine was about the first head off the line just after Byrd moved. They made me another one, without complaint, when I sent them a sample of the cut. The present one leaves about .001 tracks, and this is good enough. Great investment, IMHO. Note that mine was a custom head as my join ter is from the 20's or so.

[J.R. Rutter]

Thanks Alan - mine will be custom as well for my 50s General. Can you feed faster as well? I run a power feeder most of the time and bumping the speed up a notch would be a big bonus...

[Alan Turner]

I wouldn't want to give you a casual ansawer to question like this, and I have no power feeder, and have never used one on a jointer. I use a speed that is pleasant to my hearing. Whether it is faster or slower I don't know. Because of the smallish hook angle, I don't think you can take cuts of 1/4", but I never do that anyway.