Jointer Blades

[masonsailor2]

I have tried the magnet method with the SS and have never been able to get a satisfactory setting for the knives. I have a planer pal that I use for the surface planer and used the magnetic bars from it. The magnet method works great if you have an adjustable outfield table but not so well with a fixed outfield table. Over the years I have found that the method using the steel rule works really well and with practice is fairly quick. Having a second set of blades handy makes life a little easier and cuts the down time. The same goes for sharpening your own blades. After you have done it a few times it goes pretty fast. I have the conical disc and that method works well but the setup time for me is too involved. The Deulen type jig works well for me and setup time is a fraction of the time and the results are excellent. But either way sharpening you own is a better plan. I agree with Bob that commercial sharpening services generally take too much metal off and the life span of the knives are shortened way too much.
Paul

[roamer46]

I revived this thread to get more details about compatibility between the SS jointer and non-SS knives. I'm especially interested in these carbide ones:

https://www.infinitytools.com/jointing- ... nives-5414

Any idea if they'll work in the SS? The dimensions appear to be compatible, but somebody mentioned something about taper in the SS OEM knives. What is this taper, exactly?

[dickg1]

The taper of the jointer blades is an essential safety factor and is there to prevent the blades from moving from their mounts. DO NOT attempt to use blades without a taper !
Dick

[roamer46]

I'm trying to picture the taper. Can someone demonstrate it with dial calipers or ??? The knives I removed from my SS measure 0.120 thickness...no taper.

[dusty]

I'm trying to picture the taper. Can someone demonstrate it with dial calipers or ??? The knives I removed from my SS measure 0.120 thickness...no taper.

This represents an unsharpened Shopsmith jointer blade. I hope this helps.

Jointer Blade with Dimensions.png (35.49 KiB) Viewed 5749 times

[jsburger]

I'm trying to picture the taper. Can someone demonstrate it with dial calipers or ??? The knives I removed from my SS measure 0.120 thickness...no taper.

Genuine SS blades are definitely tapered. Did you buy the jointer new? If not the PO must have replaced the blades with non SS ones. My spare set measure 0.106 on the cutting edge and 0.122 on the other edge. If you look closely you can actually see it with the naked eye.

So either the cutter head or the wedge (or both) is made to fit the taper. Who knows why SS decided to make them tapered. There are millions of jointers in the world with non tapered blades. They all work fine. In fact has anyone ever heard of another brand of jointer with tapered blades?

Can you use non tapered blades? Yes. After all yours has been running with them for how long? Should you? Probably not. Is it unacceptably dangerous to use non tapered blades? Probably not. The centrifugal force of the blades when the cutter head is spinning pushes the blade into the cutter head not out of the cutter head.

The SS blades are the same price as the Infinity. Yes the Infinity are carbide but the SS blades are dead easy to sharpen yourself. The Infinity blades are only 5/8" wide. SS blades are 3/4" wide. That would be a show stopper I believe. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think SS recommends new blades when they get less than 11/16" wide.

I checked the jointer manual. It says any blades less than 11/16" wide should not be used.