Thread: Jointer not coplanar

if anyone is going to help you troubleshoot your issue you're going to need to provide some more info.

Eg Brand, model what you've tried etc.

In the mean time have you seen this video?

118 - Jointer Setup - The Wood Whisperer

It helped me setup my jointer when i got it many years ago. Your machine may differ in how you tune, eg for mine i had to make a custom tool to turn my concentric nuts. But the idea is the same.

Also note that given the next step is sending the board through a thicknesser, getting it perfect isn't critical.

I’ve just about given up on my new jointer. It worked fine for awhile, now it’s bowing, tapering or just not doing a perfect job. May as well just use my thicknesser for everything, even though you can’t but still a lot less headache than trying to get this jointer perfect. I’ve tried shims, feeler gauges, watched all the videos. Maybe its the blades? Haven’t touched them? Both beds seem to be coplanar? I’ve shimmed them up and down, though just end up with another problem. How accurate does everything have to be? within a 10th of a mil?

Shawn at "Worth the effort" woodworking does a great jointer retune for these contractor style ones, including how to fix issues like these

Super Tune Your Jointer - Basic Tool Setup/Tuning Techniques - YouTube

Have you watched any videos on how to use your machine? jointers are generally set up once machines and only need a tune up when they are no longer performing how you want them to. So unless something has moved i'd consider looking at your technique/boards. If your beds are coplaner thats the most important setup, blade discrepancies won't make your board wedge or taper.

thank you for your reply, I'm trying to plane pellet timber so it is quite flexible. After reading alittle im now thinking that my technique could be off also. Trying to take to much off at once and also applying to much down pressure on the outfeed side?? don't know will keep fine tuning the jointer and technique 👍

It may be that you have the outfield table too high.Sounds like the timber is being pushed up by the outfield table.

Check the out feed to knife height on both sides of the table.

Without fancy equipment just find a straight board and use that as a drag gauge to check the height.Position the board on the outfield table and mark it with a pencil where it sits on the out feed table nearest the cutter head.Rotate the cutter head by hand and watch how far the board moves forward when the knives drag it .Put another mark where the board has moved to on the outfield table.

This is harder to explain than to do.

Ideally both knives will move the new "gauge" by the same amount on both sides of the table.Once you know that for sure you can then lower the outfield bit by bit until it just drags the gauge along.

The final height may need to be adjusted once you can run some timber over it and check for snipe on the last bit of the board.