How much flatness is OK on a jointer?

Oh yeah; my jointer is accurate to 0.00000012", and that is pretty marginal. Take it back immediately and demand a proper one.

(are you using it to make integrated circuits?)

| What does the collective wisdom think? Flat enough or should I be | complaining?

Joint the edges of two reasonably straight-grained boards, hold 'em up to a bright light with the jointed edges together, and take a look.

If you don't like what you see, ship it to me and I'll send you my 6" Griz jointer and 12" Griz planer (I've never taken measurements of either; but both pass the light test with flying colors.)

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

First off I would bitch about the huge misalignment of the tables. That IMO is unacceptable, but probably the result of the rather large distortions in the surfaces.

I would send it back and demand a refund. I've never heard of these Rojek machines but what you describe is pure crap.

After all, you did use the $23.50 Veritas straightedge. Those are machined flat to 0.003" over the length.

IMO, you'll never get true and straight edge with that machine on a piece of wood you've dried for six months in your kiln and have had stored in your perfectly shop that's inside your PERFECTLY climate controlled compound.

warped he'll never get a straight/flat/square edge on that POS machine. We're talking 1.5 thousandths of an inch here, almost half a pubic hair width. Not worth wasting the scrap wood for a test cut if you ask me.

First off I would bitch about the huge misalignment of the tables. That IMO is unacceptable, but probably the result of the rather large distortions in the surfaces.

I would send it back and demand a refund. I've never heard of these Rojek machines but what you describe is pure crap.

After all, you did use the $23.50 Veritas straightedge. Those are machined flat to 0.003" over the length.

IMO, you'll never get true and straight edge with that machine on a piece of wood you've dried for six months in your kiln and have had stored in your perfectly shop that's inside your PERFECTLY climate controlled compound.

warped he'll never get a straight/flat/square edge on that POS machine. We're talking 1.5 thousandths of an inch here, almost half a pubic hair width. Not worth wasting the scrap wood for a test cut if you ask me.

Do you have the feeling you have said things before?

There is nothing you will ever do on that machine that would come close to testing that kind of accuracy. It's a good one.

I can't imagine any of the measurements you mentioned having any discernible effect on cutting wood. If you don't mind the question, what's the ballpark cost of a machine like that, anyway?

It just means he's twice as mad.

Pete

He must have thought he was talking to someone else in here about a jointer

It's here:

Thanks for the reply. You can find information on Rojek machines at:

Another similar machine to consider is the Hammer A3-31. This is made by the same folks who make Felder machines. It's more expensive than the Rojek, but has a few more bells and whistles (like digital readout on the planer). Not cheap but still less than comparable machines from Minimax and Knapp.

is extremely heavy duty (the machine itself is about 800 lbs), and the Tersa head makes knife changing ridiculously easy (under 1 minute, with no subsequent adjustment necessary). Infeed table height control is a parallelogram design, and thus fine-tuning the alignment of the infeed table with the outfeed table requires just a socket wrench -- no shims required. Fit and finish are excellent; runs quietly and with minimal vibration. Gonna run some stock though it today and we'll see how it passes the real world test.

LKB

Actually, I used the $42 steel one, not the cheaper aluminum one you mention. As I noted in my message, it is machined flat to 0.001" over its length. You can see the difference between the two here:

Nice looking machine!

I was reading the .pdf for your machine and have a question. Is EACH jointer table 50" long, or is the total jointing surface (infeed + outfeed) 50"?

Thanks!

Total jointing surface is 50". If you need longer tables, they have table extensions available as an option.

If you have any other questions about the machine, feel free to write.

LKB

Snip

With any machine, you should be happy with the price you paid for it.

From there, does it produce acceptable results? If not, complain. If so, enjoy your purchase. Your technique may have more to do with accuracy than the tolerances of the tool.