I decided to tackle this one today. It took me about 2 hours including building the jig. I mounted two ¾ magnets at the very end of a piece of melamine a little less than 4 inches wide. I mounted another magnet at the other end to help hold the jig in place. I positioned the jig on the outfeed table with the magnet end lined up with centerline of the cutter head and clamped it in place. There’s just enough room left to swap the blade. Once the new blade and the wedge are back in place, position the cutter head so the blade is at the very end of the gage and the blade is aligned properly side to side. Adjust each leveling screw up against the blade, and tighten the wedge screws. I suspect much like adjusting valves; the secret is not so much a dead accurate adjustment, but repeatability.
Once I figured out the process on the first one, the remaining two took literally seconds each. It passes the pull a piece about 1/8th inches test. The first board I ran through slid across the cutter like glass, and came out smooth, flat and square.
There is a great article in WOOD MAGAZINE, Oct 96 pp 74 -78, "Jointer Tune-up", for 3 methods of knife setting.
The best method I have found is (low tech) to simply use a piece of 1/2" glass the size of your table width by 12 to 14 inch long. It willl work fast and produce results that will maintain .002 accross an 8" jointer, consistently. I used this method on my big jointer right out of the box and the vintage '59 SS jointer I got this fall. It works, its fast and only takes about 45 minutes. I have double checked it with a dial gage set-up a couple of times and found it reliable. Sure, you can take painstaking care for .0005" precison , but at the end of the day you haven't made a chip.
Align the infeed and outfeed table height, find the centerline of the cutterhead and mark on your fence. Rotate cutterhead so leading edge of knife aligns with mark, immobilze cutterhead froom turning, and lossen the gib screws just enough to move the blade with firm hand pressure. Raise the blade slightly above tables. Lay the glass on the outfeed table and extend to rest slightly on the raised blade and press down until glass is flat on table. Lightly tighten gib sccrews from ends in (barely snug). Resequence tightening pattern a little at a time until tight. Rotate cutterhead to next balde and repeat. Finally, check perpendicularirty from fence with triangle or engineers square at centerline mark across blades.
I've been looking for this post for days and days. I used the advanced search and found tons of stuff but I was unable to find this one until I added rare earth magnets to the mix. Now I will make some of the notes I should have made the first time I found it
Now that some of my parts are back to working order maybe I can get back in the shop and move some chaos around:eek:
I used the advanced search and found tons of stuff but I was unable to find this one until I added rare earth magnets to the mix. Now I will make some of the notes I should have made the first time I found it 
