I have a small shop with both metal and woodworking machines. One machine I've had for a few years is a modern, made in Taiwan, direct drive 6 in. jointer. The total table length is 36 in. I've never "bonded" with this machine for a few reasons. Even though the bed is cast iron, the fence is aluminium and won't keep it's setting. At best it's somewhere around 90 degrees but can never be trusted to keep a setting.
I made a wooden wheeled stand for it that locks down when stationary and only lifts the jointer about an inch off the ground. However the metal stand the jointer came with is too high and makes the machine a bit top heavy particularly when jointing heavy boards. A photo of the offending machine.
I recently decided to replace this jointer with a better 6 in. model - a bit longer if possible and with a better fence. My old friend was selling a delta however it was 32 in. (shortbed) and I didn't want to go down in length. Looking at local ads online I found a 42 in. x 6 in. jointer. The photos were horrible and I couldn't make out what it was. It took a few days but I eventually got in touch with the owner and was informed that he and his son could not find a make on it. The description sounded like an older rockwell or delta so I went down to see it.
It seems that the jointer was made in taiwan? and is a direct copy of an older delta 6 in. jointer. It appeared to be in reasonable shape except that one of the table raising wheels had a bent axle and the rod and knob that locks the fence position and angle was missing. The owner advised that a pipe wrench worked well as one didn't need the knob.
I would much rather have purchased a longbed delta 6 in. jointer but they are few and far between in my area. The price of this one was pretty reasonable so I dissembled it and brought it home in my car.
I don't have any "before" pictures however here are a couple showing the stage I'm at now:
And the base with an extension of the chip chute almost complete:
I put a mobile base under it as it's the only way I can use machinery in my small shop.
The easiest repair was replacing the switch. The original had died so the owner wired it direct - to turn it on plug it in and to turn off unplug it. I wasn't too keen on the safety aspects (or lack) of this so replaced the switch immediately.
The next repair was the bent shaft upon which the handwheel was situated:
I removed the handwheel however could not remove the shaft because of the bend. I was able to use vice grips and bend it back a bit straighter however when i put the wheel on it it broke. This was not unexpected as the shaft had a long hole drilled down it's length and then a cross hole for a pin that the wheel sat against - very poor design and not necessary.
After removing the shaft (it's got an acme or similar thread used to raise and lower the table) the broken end was cut off and a 23/64 hole was drilled about 1.5 in. deep in it's end. A 3/8 in. rod was chucked in the lathe and turned down so that it would be a press fit into the shaft. Unfortunately I got it to a very nice sliding fit - pulling it out of the hole in the shaft resulted in a nice "pop" sound. My knurler wouldn't go small enough so I ended up using a centre punch and putting a few dozen punch marks on the rod. Added a bit of locktite and used my small hydraulic press to press the rod into the hole in the shaft. (Sorry no photos of this). After that is was fairly simple to cross drill the rod for a pin and then drill a shallow hole in it's end and thread it for a screw to hold the handwheel in place.
I could not see using a pipe wrench or dedicated vice grips as a handle for the fence adjustment. Instead I took a long shouldered bolt and drilled the fence adjuster and tapped it. The existing hole was threaded but the threads were quite messed up and I couldn't tell what they were originally. The head of the bolt was cut off and a few grooves were made in the end opposite the thread (with the lathe). It was then epoxied into a fairly large piece of wood and left to harden. Once the glue was hard I used my metal lathe to cut the wood to rough shape and then used rasps and files to get it close to spherical. A bit of black paint and a day in the sun and it was done.
The adjuster was left with the original hole so I drilled it out and made a press fit plug in the lathe. Once again the small hydraulic press (I really like having this) was used to press the plug into the adjuster and it was cut off and then turned down on the lathe.
At this point I figured that everything was ok and all I needed to do was wait till the blades were sharpened and it would be ready to go. However when I put a straightedge down the length of the tables I noted some droop at the ends. Also the gib screws didn't seem to make a lot of difference in adjusting the smoothness of travel of the tables. It was time to take the tables off and clean up the gibs and dovetail surfaces. Good thing I did that as I found that the manufacturer had used aluminium stips as gibs and they were quite deformed.
Not having any suitable brass or bronze available to me I decided to use some 1/8 in. steel plate to make two gibs about 7 in. long. My 4x6 bandsaw was just able to cut the strips and I was able to fine tune them a bit with my taig mill and then a lot of filing and sanding on a plate glass surface. It took several hours work however then the new gibs were put in place it made a huge difference to how easy it was to make adjustments. With no effort the two tables are almost perfectly co planar.
I am now awaiting my blades as they are in for sharpening. Once they arrive it won't be long before I can try out this machine and find out if I've managed to make a silk purse.
John.
