Basic setup of Jointech on the shopsmith 520

[reible]

Since this question has come up a couple of times I'll attempt to answer it as best I can without the aid of my camera or actual jointech system in front of me. (My garage workshop is closed for the season, 40 degrees in the garage and a nice warm 2 degrees outside.

To keep things simple we will stick to the saw train part of the set up. This deals with the very basics of the Jointech system or for that matter most likely the Incra table saw as well. I don't own the Incra table saw jig so if any owners want to post the Incra information it might be handy too.

The shopsmith must already be aligned and in good working condition. If you need to check and redo anything do it before you start adding on the Jointech system.

The system has what is called a sliding bridge. This is the part that lets you locate the the system on any of the support tables, floating table or even the main table of your 520. It uses the rails of the 520 much like the rip fence. In the case of the jointech system it has a back bracket that fits the rear rail and a front bracket that provides the clamping via a clamping knob. This piece needs to be fitted to your system for length and adjusted for length and squared. Procedures are given to do all of this and for testing that fit all along the rails. To loose may effect parallelism when clamping and of course to tight it might not slide at all. Again like the shopsmith rip fence it is depending on the alignment of the rail system. So if you can picture this you now have mounted the part that slides along the rails and have it square to the blade. The top of this part has slots that will be used to add the fence.

The next part of the assembly is to put the fence machine on. The fence machine is the part with the clamp that lets you slide the fence and do the micro adjustments and use the rules and templates. The base needs to mount at 90 degrees to the sliding bridge and provides the placement along the sliding bridge. Again procedures are given to do that. So at this point we have the sliding bridge that is parallel to the blade and the fence base is at 90 degrees to that again making the sliding portion of the system to slide in and out from the blade and still be parallel to the blade.

Now it is time to locate the actual "fence" to your system. The fence itself is split and if you are going to be using a router table this needs to be adjusted but if you are just going to be sawing it is not all the critical. You also have a bit of vertical adjustment to do so the system slides smoothly again that is all detailed for you. You also do a check to make sure the fence is 90 to the surface of the table...

You are also supplied with fence brackets that will allow you to lock the fence at both ends as well as the center via the bridge. Most of the time you don't need these but if you were to say do a sheet of plywood it would be used to make it even more stable. Again details are given to mount these, one on the back and a knob actuated clamping on the front side


At this point in theory the fence is parallel blade but now we do the final allignment. You raise the blade slide the whole system down and touch the blade. Following the instructions then are done or you may need to shim the fence to get it dead on. You also have the option of setting the fence skew if you wish. At this point you can run a few tests to make sure everything is operational and slides smoothly etc.

We have done all the hard work and are ready to get on with using the system... well except for one minor thing. At this point the fence has not been zeroed. One way to do this you open the jig fully, then slide the whole system down so the fence just touching the blade. You clamp the bridge in place and set the scale to 0. At this point all cuts will be based on the zero point you just set and each movement will be in 1/32 inch steps. Anything between these can be adjusted using the micro adjuster.

The critical concept here is that fact the jig has no idea of where the actual zero point is. The scale is a reference for the user to set this point called zero, since the scale also sides it has no real idea of where zero is either, that is until you set it. Like wise the micro adjustor has a zero marking but it too moves without making any adjustment... so you adjust that as well to the point you call zero.

As an example of what I'm saying let's say we have done the zeroing then take a test cut with what the scale is telling us is 2". When we finish the cut it is measured at 2.012. Maybe that is good enough or maybe be you really want that to measure 2". Since we know the cut is off by .012 and we have a micro adjustment that reads in .001" steps we can move the fence by the .012". A second cut shows the wood to be 2.000", we now can reset the zero on the micro adjuster scale to 0, doing so does not move the fence just the scale. Like wise we can move the 1/32 scale to make sure it is reading 2". Now for as long as the fence system is on the machine and you have the same blade on anything you cut will be correct. The threaded rod and lever inside the jig forces the cuts to be in 1/32" steps. For most wood working this is fine as you are most often working on thing that are 2" or 3-1/8" or 13/16" and less often 31/32" and the like. By reading the scale you get to the 31/32 mark and as you close the lever it moves the threads to lock in at 31/32.

If you happened to watch the Incra demo videos you will have seen the cutting of a 10" wide board, followed by cutting a 4" wide board and 6" wide board. When you stack the 4" and 6" and set them next to the 10" it is hard to miss the fact they are so close to the same height. You can give it a try at home with your factory fence and some of you might even get it that close but for sure it took you longer then it did in the demo.

I hope this cleared up the questions but if not ask again... and keep in mind you can use a lot of methods to so setups and zeroing so don't feel tied in by what it says in the manuals. Keep the safety stuff but most of the rest of it you can adapt.

Ed

p.s.
I might get brave and bring the jointect parts in the house and take some photos which will greatly enhance what was said.

[pinkiewerewolf]

Ed, thanks for the insights into setting up the Jointech. I'm sure to have more questions, my system is set to be shipped on Monday the 8th. I still need to order the rails but I got the necessary information on those parts from a thread that you and George were posting information in.
I'll be phoning in the order for the rails and necessary hardware tomorrow, as I think I'll need customer service guidance for this order.

2 degrees Fahrenheit, yep, I remember those days so I won't ask/push you to get those photos posted.

[Ed in Tampa]

Reible
Okay I think I see. You make your adjustments and then run the fence against the blade and check for parallelism. What do you adjust if the fence isn't totally parallel to the blade at this point?

Okay now let us say we take the fence completely off the SS, on the reinstall I understand what you are saying about zero outing the fence to the blade to insure the same distance adjustments. But once the initial setup does removing and reinstalling the fence have any effect on the parallelism between the fence and the blade?

[shydragon]

If your miter slot is parallel to the blade, and if you align the Incra/Jointech to the miter slot, then everything should be parallel. You will probably need to do a quick everytime, because you are dealing with a floating table.

Something I have thought of that would make this easier, is after getting everything lined up, would be to measure the distance between the extension table and the floating table. Then make a wood spacer that dimension. Lay it on the tubes up against the extension table, then slide the floating table with Incra/Jointech snug against the spacer allowing you to have it in the same place everytime.

[reible]

Reible
Okay I think I see. You make your adjustments and then run the fence against the blade and check for parallelism. What do you adjust if the fence isn't totally parallel to the blade at this point?

You can do one of two things at this point. If you are way off then you may need to go back to where you put the fence assembly on to the slider and do an adjustment there. If you are with in a few thousands you simply use a shim between the fence and the mounting point of the fence. I normally do a fair job of getting things right along the way and I found I didn't need to do any shimming... it was right on. Different hardware and different people doing the job may find things other wise... in fact it could be I was just lucky???

Okay now let us say we take the fence completely off the SS, on the reinstall I understand what you are saying about zero outing the fence to the blade to insure the same distance adjustments. But once the initial setup does removing and reinstalling the fence have any effect on the parallelism between the fence and the blade?

Just like you taking the shopsmith rip fence off and putting it back on... if you trust this operation then you will trust the jointech. Of course if you want to it is easy to check at the time you rezero the jointech fence to see if something looks wrong with the alignment... I personally have not seen any problems.

I have two 520's and I mounted the system on one of them first. When I went to mount it on the second one I found the alignment was off. This didn't supprise me but it also shows that the shopsmiths vary from one to another or maybe one is slightly off this way and the other slightly off the other way??? Just like I have never gotten my one shopsmith to be able to use the same extension table on both the right and left sides... I know Nick showed us his but his method must not work all the time. Of couse it could be something bent or twisted on the machine as it was a basket case when I purchased it.

OK enough for now...

Ed

[fixit]

Hi Ed,

I'm real glad to hear someone as experienced as you found Nick's process for making the aux. table work on both ends of the SS didn't work for them!:)

I made two attempts on my machine, going through the entire setup procedure (starting with aligning the main table to the blade each time) and could not make it work. After two serious attempts and two days messing with it I decided to use a different aux. table for each end - set them up - marked them and now everything is great.

Perhaps someone who DID get Nick's procedure to work could chime in here and let us know if they had any problems or have a neat trick like standing on their head with their tongue held in a certain way.

None of that worked for me. But I'd sure like to know if someone else has been able to make it work for them.

[dusty]

I have two 520's and I mounted the system on one of them first. When I went to mount it on the second one I found the alignment was off. This didn't supprise me but it also shows that the shopsmiths vary from one to another or maybe one is slightly off this way and the other slightly off the other way??? Just like I have never gotten my one shopsmith to be able to use the same extension table on both the right and left sides... I know Nick showed us his but his method must not work all the time. Of couse it could be something bent or twisted on the machine as it was a basket case when I purchased it.

OK enough for now...

Ed

We came to this conclusion a while back. Nick seems to believe it was resolved but it has not been in my opinion. Correction...it is resolved. I use two extension tables and do not hesitate to loosen the extension table mounting bolts and reset as necessary.

https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=1111&highlight=Extension+Table

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Archives/SS113/SS113_Aux_Table_Alignment.htm

[Ed in Tampa]

On my model 500 the instructions gave a procedure to do align the aux table at both ends. Then I installed the 510 upgrade and frankly the product was so poorly designed it was a waste of time.
Then I installed the 520 upgrade which is excellent! I then asked if it was possible to align the aux table to both ends and everyone said no. Everyone suggestted I order another aux table and use one for each end. I was ready to do just that when Nick came along and said it was possible and did a sawdust session showing how.

I smiled to myself since I tried a hundred times and wasn't able to do, but I figured I would give Nick's method one try. Much to my surprise it worked and worked perfectly. My rail connector tubes slide into my aux table perfectly.

My biggest problems were.

One making sure my Shopsmith was sitting flat.
I loosen all my way tubes and bench tubes and let all the rack come out of them. Then I leveled my SS and tightened everything. I have noticed that even slight changes in the floor of garage does not effect my SS now that I have done this.

Second I went through all my SS adjustments and made them as perfect as possible. The biggest things was making sure the table was exactly perpendicular to the spindle. If there is even a slight incline the main table will make the aux table match that incline and when you switch end for end the incline actually doubles the mistake making it nearly impossible to align the aux at one end or the other.

The above is critical. I tried to make my Aux table work at both ends but I couldn't so I made it perfect on the right side then using a four foot straight edge I made sure the surface of my main table and my aux were in the same plane. I then moved the aux to the left side and using the straight edge I found that both table surfaces were not in the same plane.

I then re-measured all my adjustments and found out my main table was about 1/4 degree out of perfect parallel. So when I put the connector tubes in the fence rails and into the aux table and adjusted the aux table to be in perfect plane with the main I was actually adjusting it a 1/4 degree or more out.


Now when you take the aux table out and put in on the left side the main table is 1/4 degree high or low and aux table is an additional 1/4 degree high or low making it a 1/2 degree which will cause the connector tubes to bind.

I corrected my main table to perfectly perpendicular to the spindle which is perfectly parallel to the way tubes and then adjusted the aux now when I put in the left the tables remained in the same plane. After that was nothing more than doing what Nick shows in the Sawdust session and now my connector tubes freely slide through my main table and aux no matter what side the aux is mounted.

My whole problem was the plane of my main table was not 100 percent parallel to the arbor and 100 perpendicular to a blade, it was off a very very slight amount but that amount gets multiplied by two when you move the aux table to the other side.


Ed

[reible]

I braved the cold of the shop and brought in my jointech fence so I could shoot a few pictures. I'll keep it in here for a couple of days so if you want pictures of anything else let me know.

Just to give you an idea of how heavy duty this part is I would have guess it would weight in at about 25 pounds... should have brought in the spring scale too. Anyway I just wanted to point out this is not some rinkadink flimsy cheap feeling part.

Please refer to the earlier post for details

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12199425@N ... 064018421/

In the first two photos you will see the sliding bridge and how it is adjusted for length and square using 3 fasteners at each end. Next can be seen the fence machine and how it attaches to the sliding bridge using 4 fasteners. These parts are adjusted square to one another and this is how you fix the locating of the split fence in relationship to the sliding bridge.

The rear portion is designed to fit the rear rail of the shopsmith as can be seen in the next photo, followed by how the front goes looks with it's clamping portion.

I also brought in a floating table so you can see how that all fits together. First the rear then the front. Sorry for the feet and socks in the photo but I have limited room in front of my computer.

The next shot will give you an idea of how wide the sliding bridge is, as can be seen it is almost as wide as the floating table.

The last shot just shows the scale with zero point. This whole scale slides and can be removed and put in backwards if for some reason you wanted to do that. This is the main scale and a whole pile of other scales come with it for making various joints or for easier stepping.

Ed

[pinkiewerewolf]

Ed thanks for braving the Northern Illinois cold for the pictures. (ex-central Il. guy here)
This will be a huge help when the Jointech and SS parts arrive.
One question was answered already, as I had wondered how the rear part of the Jointech Saw train attached to the rear rail. It looks like it fits very precisely.