Shopsmith Forums

Hi all hope someone can help with my jointer issue,

Today I tried using my jointer I purchased off ebay for the first time. The jointer mechanically works fine; my issue is with an obstruction on the table. A part of the fence quadrant is aboy 1/16 of an inch proud of the table. In the attached pictures you can see how the piece of wood sits on top of the quadrant and is kust above the table. I have removed the quadrant and reattached it making sure it is a low as possible, but I cannot get it below the table. The only thing I can think of is to grind it down, but there must be a better way. Any ideas? [ATTACH]21104[/ATTACH]

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The quadrant is one of the high fail items so this is not surprising. I think that if you inspect the quadrant with a very critical eye you will find that it is bent.

It seems that the quadrant is more easily damaged than you might think by cranking down to hard on the locks.

I have had to replace mine however the failure mode was different.

I believe the fence mounting bar is too high causing the quadrant to be higher than the jointer surface. I would loosen the two bolts that hold the fence mounting bar, lower it and re-tighten the rail. This should reduce/eliminate the interference.

Guys I don't think the issue is a bent quadrant. After reading your posts I went and did a detailed visual inspection and it does not seem bent. I stuck a straight edge on it and everything seems OK.

I took out my digital calipers and measured the thickness of the part of the quadrant that is causing the problem and it is .158. I then measure from the top of my jointer bedtop to the top of the bar the quadrant rides on and that space is .128. I think the quadrant is manufactured just too thick at that spot. Could this be possible?

My Goldie vintage jointer measures about .150 thickness of the quadrant and about .200 top of bed to top of the bar.

The top of bed to top of 'web' is .335.

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Hmmm. I took a look at my "C" style jointer. My new replacement quadrant looks just like yours (the original one was distorted when purchased on eBay). The slider bar also looks identical. However, my infeed table looks considerably thicker, and I'm wondering if perhaps someone machined too much off of yours while attempting to true it.

I measured 0.170 from the infeed table surface to the top of my slider bar, this corresponds to JPG's nicely annotated 0.200 dimension. Your 0.128" dimension appears to be the anomaly, not the quadrant thickness.

JPG's 0.335" dimension is .410 in my case.

The surface of my infeed table appears to have been machined with a fly cutter, which I assume is Shopsmith original. Does yours look as if it might have been milled or ground down?

Appreciate all the help. I do have an older model jointer and I inspected the top carefully looking for signs that maybe it had been previously ground down. Its hard for me to decipher what the marks in the top are telling me, except that the grinding marks look extremely old to me and I am going to therefore say they are probably the original marks, but I am not sure.

I took another picture and edited it with measurements like JPGs picture. My measurements comparatively are .275 from tabletop to top of the web (JPGs is .335, Buckys .410); .119 from top of table to top of my sliding bar (my previous measurement was .129) (JPGs is .200, Buckys is .170).

I also removed the sliding bar and remounted it to ensure it was as low as possible, actually there is very little wiggle room when mounting the sliding bar.

So I am obviously getting smaller measurements and I think they are beyond normal variance when measuring with calibers. I can think of three possible solutions:

1. Buy a new jointer and start over
2. Grind down the top of the offending piece of the quadrant.
3. Elongate the mounting holes in the sliding bar to get the sliding bar to sit lower when bolted on.

Anyone got any other suggestions? and what is your vote on what to do.

[quote="shealyl"]Appreciate all the help. I do have an older model jointer and I inspected the top carefully looking for signs that maybe it had been previously ground down. Its hard for me to decipher what the marks in the top are telling me, except that the grinding marks look extremely old to me and I am going to therefore say they are probably the original marks, but I am not sure.

I took another picture and edited it with measurements like JPGs picture. My measurements comparatively are .275 from tabletop to top of the web (JPGs is .335, Buckys .410)]
1) Probably not practical
2) I do not recommend that
3) Will also lower the fence(not good)

IIWM I would test the e-bay 'guarantee'. That is obviously not 'functional'.