Thread: Flattening Jointer table

Are you saying that each table is not flat within itself or the tables are not flat in relation to each other from end to end?

A tool this massive should not have warped tables. Check that first. Milling should be last last last resort. If you have table(s) milled, you'll have to remove them, and then re-shim for reassembly anyway. I suggest a little more time attempting to level them. Look for wear on the V-slides for suspect cause of problem. If there are tandem V-slides, they may just be out of phase. (Similar problem can occur with planer lift screws if basement bicycle chain slips a tooth, or setscrew loses purchase.)

JG

It has been a while since I tried to fix it, before giving up. By memory the table is not flat from end to end. The blades being the centre point is the high point and the front and back are the low points. I don't think there was enough play in the slides to shim them up. If it helps I will try and post some photo's this weekend.

Squirrel...

Sqirrel

Most jointers have gibs on the dovetail slide mechanism. Two screws on the side push the gibs against the slide mechanism to take up any slack. If you feel you don't have enough slack to shim enough then back off the gib screws and try again.

I had the problem where both the outer ends of each table was lower than the ends at the cutter head. I found I had to disassemble the whole machine and shim the slides to deal with it as this particular machine had no adjustment at all. I shimmed the tables a bit high and it came back to level when the weight of the tables loaded the shims. It was a b*****d of a job as I had to do it twice to get it right and it is a big machine. I suspect there is no way you could machine the tables on a mill as the mill would not support the weight and actually calculating the maching angle and getting it right sounds a trifle difficult to say the least. BTW I used copper shim on mine and quite a bit of it.