I picked up a used SAC FS305 jointer built in 1999 yesterday. I spent some time cleaning up 17 years of gunk on it, lubing some squeaky pivot points, and apparently nobody who's owned this jointer believed in dust collection or blowing it out because it was PACKED full of chips. Then decided to pull the knives out so the carbide guy can sharpen them up and so I could get the size and order another set.
My current jointer is a generic Grizzlymatic 6", that has the bolts for the gibs, but then a jack screw in the head for adjusting the height of the knives. The SAC has the same bolts in the gib for holding the knife, but there is a spring that pushes the knife up. I am unfamiliar with this configuration.
Anything special I should know about this setup or setting the knives? I'm assuming it's just getting the right tension on the gib bolts to hold the knife just enough to slide it around to set the height, then locking them down? Seems simple enough, but I don't want to do anything stoooopid. Is this a case where a piece of glass or something else flat could be laid against the outfeed table and just allow the springs to push the knife up against it and torque down the gibs? The head would have to be indexed in the same spot for each knife, but that seems simple enough.
The gibs are stamped with a position number, as is the head. One of the previous owners wrote a position number with a sharpie on the head and gibs that doesn't match the manufacture's, but I think I'm going to use the manufacture's placement instead. I can't see a reason not to.
It cleaned up real nice. Other than missing the guard, it's pretty mint. I'm going to just buy a porkchop guard from the Northfield Foundry and make it work.