Shim for Porter Cable 557 Biscuit Joiner

Owen Lowe used to offer/sell them but, IIRC, he quit doing so a year or so ago. Might trying pinging him here for advice.

I sent him an email already. Thanks, Darrell

I dont understand the "Type"

Mine is a 557 and the ID Plate says it is a Type 3 What is the significance of the type rating?

Thanks, J

J, This site will explain the differences better than I can:

Obvious way to make a shim is to cut it out of a soda can. If you need thicker than that then just about any decent hobby shop has aluminum and brass sheet stock in a variety of thicknesses.

says: *If you have Type 3 the fence is fixed* So, I guess I bought the right one w/o knowing I was doing so.

The shim is needed for fence alignment on the face. I guess I wasn't clear, in that I was asking the question to those who'd done the procedure on their Type 2 557 joiners. I was interested to know how people that made their own attached them to the face, and what kind of sandpaper did they use.

I made one for already, so I'm all set now.

I removed the anti-skid on the face and measured a gap of .0426 with feeler gauges. I sat the joiner face on my scanner bed and made a copy (template).

My local hobby shop had some 0.04 polystyrene material. I had some nice heavy duty double stick tape from Rockler. I also picked up some 120 grit

Then applied and trimmed out the tape and sand paper. Finally I applied this to the face of the jointer.

I didn't trim out the slot. I let the joiner do that with a few test cuts. So I now have a sort of zero clearance working on the cutting slot. The finished shim is now slightly proud of the fence. I think this is going to work great.

Darrell