Jointer leaves a slightly bowed edge

[Toller]

I have the tiny Delta planer; I thing it is like 30".

On little stuff it is fine, but today I did two 54" glue ups of three pieces each. Most of the edges were bowed. When I set 2 together there is a 1/16" gap on half the joints no matter how I mixed and matched. I jointed the first and last 10" and then the whole piece again, and it came out good enough to run with, but it sure isn't right.

I would have expected the short bed to bow out if anything, so I am surprise they bow in.

Is there anything I can do to avoid this in the future. (Yeh, I thought of getting a longer jointer, but I really don't have any room for it.)

[BM Cooper]

How much pressure are you applying while you joint? Too much pressure can do lots of weird things. Also, are you being careful to joint with the bowing "up" in the middle so to speak? (Sounds like that could be responsible possibly). Otherwise I'm at a loss unless its just due to small jointer.

[George]

Sounds like you are aware of the techniques involved in removing high spots. Pay attention to the final pass, and keep your downward pressure just forward of the knives to minimize problems of table droop.

The run the adjustment routine.

I used to make 6' and the occasional larger board with Rocky, my little 4" with the 28" tables. Taught me a lot about leverage.

[Lowell Holmes]

It sounds like the blades are not set at the proper height. I have a small 4" Magna (now known as Shopsmith). I would never join a 54" long board on it. I would think you could straighten the cup by ripping both sides (1/16" both sides), starting with the cupped side against the rip fence. I use a #7 plane to straighten long boards and then rip them. The #7 plane doesn't take up much room in the shop. I yearn for one of the 8" Grizzly jointers, but like you, no shop space.

[Mike Hide]

Try this, start feeding the piece into the cutter with no pressure on the outfeed table at all . When enough of the piece is on the outfeed table to allow you to apply pressure there transfer the pressure so all the downward pressure is on the out feed table and continue to apply enough horizontal pressure to propel the piece through the cutterhead only.

If the problem persists then most likely the the knives need readjusting ....mjh

[Steve Knight]

well it sounds you may need to do some worth with a hand plane a jointer plane. you can do boards as long as you want. you can plane the two boards to get glued up at once and with a little practice get a perfect joint.

[Anonymoose]

I don't mean to distress you further, but I had exactly the same problem with that jointer and the only solution I could find was to Get A Better Jointer. I could never get the infeed and outfeed tables to parallel, and even when I thought it was close enough, my work was bowed, with much shorter stock than you're using. Hate to say it, but my best advice is to find more room, return that jointer (if you can - I lost $50 when I returned it to amazon cause I told them it was inadequate, not that it was defective), and buy a better jointer.

Then, if you're like me, the jointer will be the least of your worries. You can then agonize over your inadequate TS fence, the crappy collet in your router, the wandering arm of your RAS, etc, etc.

[Mike Hide]

Did you try shimming the gibs [ sp?] to get the infeed and outfeed tables parallel....? mjh

[Anonymoose]

"Mike Hide" wrote in news:dtr%b.402598$I06.4379638@attbi_s01:

No. I debated and debated about how much effort to put into trying to make it work, but read of too many people with the exact same problem and decided I'd rather get a real jointer and start making some chips, rather than turn getting that thing to make flat boards into a hobby. Every day I waited was a day closer to being too late to return it to amazon. Finally I figured that maybe it required more skill than I have to make it work, and that getting a bigger jointer would be easier - so I got a Bridgewood

6" and it solved the problem.

[Mike G]

Rule of thumb for the length of stock a jointer will do easily is 1 1/2 times the length of the jointer's bed. You shouldn't have had problems with a 54" piece of stock on a 30" jointer. I'd check your jointers set up.

[Mike Hide]

Fair enough, thats a fair answer. mjh

[Anonymoose]

"Mike Hide" wrote in news:_ew%b.131079$uV3.646398@attbi_s51:

OK. I did try something suggested by the Delta folks (swapping the infeed and outfeed tables) and that made it appear that my tables were parallel, but my output was still bowed. That's when I pulled the plug on it (pun intended).