Oops moment. - powermatic 54a

[David J Blackburn]

Holben gives free shipping and 10% off the standard Byrd prices. They don't take the SMC membership discount on the Shelix heads. But it's still a good deal.

[mark mcfarlane]

My fault I guess. Was cleaning up edges of a cutting board with walnut, maple, cherry and purple/yellow heart. Made the bad decision to run the end grain across and boom. Should have gone over to the table saw with it.

So this begs the question: is edge jointing glued up end grain like this considered 'unsafe' in all/most cases, or is this simply a machine failure? Or maybe the result of trying to joint off too big bite,...? Inquiring minds....

[Martin Wasner]

So this begs the question: is edge jointing glued up end grain like this considered 'unsafe' in all/most cases, or is this simply a machine failure? Or maybe the result of trying to joint off too big bite,...? Inquiring minds....

I do it all the time when I've got a cabinet door that is too big to just edge sand to size. I'm usually going pretty slow to reduce tear out, and I'm usually only taking about a 1/32" max and it's on 3/4" material. So not exactly the same scenario. I am using the same jointer for that task, but my knives are solid.

[Greg Parrish]

Bearings arrived a day early


Rigged up a makeshift jig to get the bearings on using a suspension washer from a 4Runner, a ceiling fan down rod, a floor flange, a wood block and a hammer.




Almost there


Mounted in bearing blocks and bolted to machine


And buttoned back up and aligned



I lost about 2 hours on install however trying to troubleshoot a problem. Turned out I put the upper belt pulley on backwards which was causing alignment problems. Long story short, got it straight and everything aligned and running like a top.

The he cutter head seems to do a very nice job. Not much noise difference but I'm thinking the dewalt 735 version I'll be installing will result in a big reduction.