Thread: To all Jet JPT 310 owners....

Rob, I have had the same problem with my fence - I solve it with shims - I found the small sample swatches you can get of laminex in kitchen places are ideal, and it only takes me a couple of minutes each time I have to move the fence to get perfect results.

Also have experienced the ribbing that you have with some timbers - I don't think it is a result of incorrect feeding into the machine - I just sand it off.

Regarding set up - after some initial frustration I got an experienced machinist to come and do a set-up for me - it cost $150 but it was well worth it. I have had my machine for a couple of years and am very happy with it.

Ron,

I think you are right about the the setup. It takes a bit of time to get it right but once setup correctly the machine should work well. I've already found that my preliminary results are quite impressive...better than what I've experienced in the past and with much less effort and frustration.

Who did you get to check the machine setup? I might find an equivalent person in Melbourne.

Rob

Rob, I just got a local guy whom someone recommended - suggest that you either look in the Yellow Pages under Woodworking Machinery, or ask if anyone from this forum can suggest a suitable person in your area.

Ron

Hi Rob.

I have one of these as well. I found using the wixey digital angle gauge a help
in getting the fence 90 degrees and square to the table. I haven't noticed the infeed table marks that you are referring to on the timber. I have had mine about 6 months.
Its a beauty.

Rob - I'd have to agree that the locally supplied JET manuals leave a bit to be desired, however there are much better ones available from JET USA.

Over there the JPT-310 is called JJP-12 and your machine is the JJP-12HH

Go to this website

JET Tools - Manuals

These manuals are in part number order, so scroll down to somewhere near the bottom of the page where you will find 708475 (JJP-12) and 408476 (JJP-12HH). These manuals have a lot more detail on setting the machines up, getting tables coplanar, etc.

I only have the standard JPT-310 (3-phase) - would love to upgrade to the helical head if only JET Australia could be bothered to respond to my enquiries......

I haven't had the problem you describe with the thicknesser table marking the timber surface, but in general I only work with fairly hard timbers. You can get around this (and extend the short thicknesser table) by inserting a full width piece of melamine coated chipboard and securing against the front/back edges of the table with two cleats. Give the melamine a coat of wax and you'll find the timber goes through a lot easier, and without marking. Just remember to subtract the board thickness from the setting on the thicknesser height gauge

I've found JET machines tend to need considerable adjustment/alignment as delivered - on my JPT-310 just about everything needed to be tweaked for optimum operation. Once set up though, its a great machine for the money IMHO.

Thanks for the link to the manual. That is what I call a useful manual.

I will keep tweaking to get even better best results than I'm getting so far. I can see that it will improve the quality of my work.

Hi, as noted elsewhere in the forum I had problems with the fence. In the end I needed to undo the bolts retaining the arms and move them slightly forward and then all was right.

My switch burnt out on me in the first couple of weeks and I opted for an upgraded one - similar to the one on my JTAS saw.

The only thing I need to do now is improve my technique and actually get into the shed.

I typically only by Jet gear.

I bought my 310HH at the Brisbane woodshow and did a couple of small projects on it straight out of the box. No problems with the fence, but it did have too much snipe on the end. I did clean the table down with inox and steel wool before applying a coat of silver glide and did not see any marks from the table surface but I was using White Ash and Mahogany timbers, so reasonably hard.
My problem has been the out-feed table. It would not go up high enough to match the top of the cutters, hence the snipe. Gregory's suggested loosening the screws that connect the parallelogram to the handle, moving the handle down and retightening. This did solve the problem with the table now being able to match the top of the cutter. Now unfortunately the out-feed table and the in-feed table are not parallel. Another phone call to Gregory's and a suggestion to loosen just one of the parallelogram axles and lift the table. Now the out-feed table still slopes down away from the cutter but also is higher at one side of the cutter than the other. Manual is useless and while Gregory's have been helpful over the phone I now need them to come and sort it out with proper long straight edges and dial gauges that i don't have. They are due in a couple of weeks when I get bak to town. In the meantime I will down load the suggested US manuals.

It's certainly a shoddy state of affairs that when you spend a fair bit of money on machinery with a name that you credit with having a reasonable reputation that then lets you down by having to deal with the issues you have on delivery.
It is a given that ex factory and shipping can both be at fault with the inconsistencies that seem to appear moreover with one particular tool as is evident by this thread.

For Jet to sell these here in OZ with a poor manual as opposed to the manual available elsewhere reeks of a 'devil may care' attitude to the Australian market.

Good on you gingerbeer86 for keeping the POS outlet honest in rectifying the issues with your machine.Perhaps if were to happen more often then the the Quality Control issues might have more meaning if the outleta bring it to bear.

I also have to thank Mr Brush for his link to a decent manual on this machine.

I've had my rant I hope you gingerbeer86 get your satsfaction.

Cheers

You'll find quite a bit of info in the US manuals on setting up the tables properly.

I'd be surprised if any JPT-310 ever came out of the factory perfectly set up - probably good enough to use out of the box, but some tweaking required to get the best accuracy out of it.

At least with the HH version you don't have to go through the blade setup for a long time !! Worth spendng some effort now to get the machine spot on, then hopefully you won't need to adjust anything for a couple of years (apart from rotating the cutter elements).

Thought I would provide an update on the set up of the 310HH. Gregory's service guy came and spent 2 hours fine tuning the machine. Now up and running. Just finished prepping old sydney blue gum floor boards to make a stand for my lathe. The planer ran beautifully, great finish, no snipe, very quiet and excellent at collecting the shavings. Even when planing across end grain, if you slow right down at the edge there is minimal tear out, fantastic compared to straight blade cutters. I hit a small piece of nail that must have broken off in the hole and was very glad to see no mark at all on the cutters.

Good to hear it is now working as the makers intended ! Once set up properly, these are a great machine for the money IMHO.