Thread: Jointer tables - How flat do they need to be?

All sounds good


Pete

Hope it works out Blazk. Did you try jointing with the fence in different positions, so the wood references on different areas of the surface?

I got myself a longer straight edge and the max gap on my machine diagonally across the out feed is a full 0.5mm. My previous straight edge wasn't long enough to reach both edges of the table, so must have been sitting in the hollow a bit.

I also know the hollow goes right across the width of the out feed table, and most of its length as well.

Similar position, the jpt310 I picked up has a dish across both in and outfeed tables. The infeed is the worst but it's only maybe somewhere around 0.1mm? hard to say as I don't have feeler gauges, all I can say is it is slightly less than 2 sheets of A4 paper. I say dish but more accuaretly it's more of a lip on the front and back of the individual tables. As soon as I get 15 amp installed (next year) I will have to see how much it affects things, if it's actually noticable then I can hopefully grind down the very ends of the tables to get them flatter.

I think you'll find that has no affect at all on the performance of the machine.......in fact, if its flat to within 0.1mm, you probably have the best JPT-310 in the land.

This is all getting a bit silly.

Had a quick look at the ACCC site on guarantees and acceptable quality and, in a nutshell:
You are LEGALLY ENTITLED to seek repair, replacement or refund from the retailer if the product fails to be of acceptable quality. The retailer is also LEGALLY OBLIGED to sort it out for you and CANNOT tell you to go directly to the manufacturer/importer.
Full article here: Consumer guarantees | ACCC

Also, used and second hand goods may be covered to a certain extent, so those of you who have bought one of these machines second hand should do some extra homework as you MAY be covered by the same laws.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I think you'll find that has no affect at all on the performance of the machine.......in fact, if its flat to within 0.1mm, you probably have the best JPT-310 in the land.

This is all getting a bit silly.

I'd be happy if mine was flat to within 0.1mm!

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I think you'll find that has no affect at all on the performance of the machine.......in fact, if its flat to within 0.1mm, you probably have the best JPT-310 in the land.

This is all getting a bit silly.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I think my novice hands are far more likely to stuff wood up that the machine. My comment was more towards having slightly dished tables and the inability to test the machine due to the lack of being able to find sparkies at this time of year, it will probably be mid January before I get to destroy my first bit of timber on it. All said mine seems pretty decent, wasn't that far from coplanar and the outfeed was only slightly tilted in relation to the blade, took maybe 10 or 15 minutes to fix. The fence isn't at a perfect 90 degrees but should be easy enough to shim into place when I get to it (it's only out by less than a degree, nothing a slim shim won't fix). The worst thing about mine so far has been cleaning the table. The porous iron seemed to bleed oil for ages and the ridges did a pretty good job of sanding fibres out of the cotton rags I was using to clean it with, there was at least a couple of hours of swearing in that job.

I do find the maner of the dishing on my tables strange though, the tables would be damn near perfect on the machine if it wasn't for the the very first and last 1 cm, seems odd that they managed to get the rest of the tables so flat except for the very ends which have a gentle curve up. It is also the only reason I wonder if I will see any sort of affect as it's a very small pivot point at the very end of the table, that said I'm not sure how much of an angle your likely to see from such a relatively small drop. Unfortunately I have to wait to find out, which in turn is creating a little itch inside my head as I can't actually use the thing I can only fiddle and ponder over it. I was considering getting feeler gauges so I can measure the dip just so I can actually do something with it.

Definitely odd to have a 'lip' like that. Is it on both ends of both tables? Something like that at the cutter block end of either table quite likely will give you grief. Might be time to break out those consumer rights.

I seem to be getting into more grief now with the thicknesser. Seems the table on that is dished as well. Not only that but when the material hits the dish the roller doesn't grab it, just Skips and the material just won't move without applying a fair amount of pressure so it grabs again. Maybe time to send mine back..

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

Definitely time to send it back. Quality won't change until Jet starts getting lots of returns

I have had discussions on the forum before with the proud owners of Jet machines claiming they are the best on the market, & i don.t know if this is still correct, but as I understand it, a few years ago, ALL Jet machines were sent to the USA & then distributed from there to the rest of the world. This naturally made them more expensive.

Just because they are more expensive, does not automaticaly make them better

Jet, in the past at least, did supply a pretty high quality machine by comparrison to alot of other companies, but by the sounds of things in this thread, maybe they are living off their name.

As I stated earlier, I have bought all of my new machinery from Leader, & I have been very happy with all of them. If only my skills were as good as my machinery. Leda have always looked after me pretty well, & although they are not a big well known company, The owner keeps a close eye on the quality of his machinery.

They are also an Adelaide Company, so for all us Crow Eaters, we should at least consider supporting our local business' rather than a forign owned company IMO.

I would like to point out that I am nothing to this company except a very happy customer.


Steve

Never used Leda machines but, looking at their product range, I don't think they're trying to be a direct competitor to Jet. Their range indicates that they're going after industrial/commercial set ups, not the hobby woodwork market, which will be much more demanding of high quality and tight tolerances.

Originally Posted by Ticky

......maybe they are living off their name.

Never!

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Hmmmm....

Just thinking about this, on my standard cutterhead JPT-310 everything is effectively referenced to the outfeed table. I set the blades up parallel and level with the outfeed table using a straightedge - but that doesn't necessarily mean the blades are exactly parallel to the axis of the cutterhead (although they'll be close). In a standard cutterhead it is easy to make the blades slightly higher on one side than the other, and to vary the height of the blades protruding from the cutterhead.

In your case, with the HH cutterhead, the "blade" height and orientation is effectively fixed - there is no adjustment in any axis. This means you have to reference everything to the cutterhead itself.

I'm guessing that would mean getting the outfeed table level and coplanar with the cutterhead first, then lining the infeed table up to be coplanar with the outfeed.

The US manual link I posted has a lot more detail than the local manual on setting up the machine for coplanar, etc., but it isn't specifically for the HH version.

Basically, if you can't adjust the outfeed table level with the cutting blades on the helical head, then you've got no chance. When I set blades I have a (metal) straightedge on the outfeed table, and set the blades in the cutterhead (checking each side) until the blade catches and carries the straightedge about 5mm or so.

Is youre machine definitely a JET JPT-310HH, or has someone retrofitted a helical head to a conventional JPT-310??

Having watched The wood whisperer set up his jointer and being educated by it I found his starting point of raising the outfeed table interesting. Having re-read your post I am realising that with the helical head there is no chance to 'balance things out' by adjusting the blades later. This means that your suggestion seems to be spot on. i.e get the outfeed right referencing the cutter edges then adjust the infeed.
I am almost sure this is the answer for me. THANK YOU. By the way there is no mention of this in the US manual.

Off to try it....allow a few hours!!