It's been a few years since I dusted off the old Ryobi JM82K biscuit joiner, mostly because I haven't had a project that needed biscuits. Well warm up the gravy here come the biscuits!
I discovered a couple of things when trying to use it again after all these years though,
#1. I really don't understand the markings on the JM82K's fence height gauge. And if online reviews and videos are any indication, I am far from alone. And last night while fiddling around with it, I discovered something.
With the fence down low, there is a horizontal mark much larger than any of the others in the scale, that appears to fall right at the half inch mark. This is, and I can't repeat this strongly enough, an optical illusion. I have discovered through use / experimenting, that setting your fence height to this point will indeed place your biscuit right in the middle of 3/4" stock. Raising the fence to the full height where you can see the scale between 0 and 1" and the scale becomes obvious. Live and learn, Move on...
#2. Ryobi attaches a small piece of specially cut sandpaper to the front / outside of the blade slot. I assume to help the tool keep from slipping while in use. This sandpaper is bonded on with just some sort of self stick stuff. Which on mine in the Texas heat, has dried up. A quick spray of 3M 77 spray adhesive on the back side and pushed back into place all appears good, except you need to be extra careful with overspray from this stuff....
Having re learned what I apparently forgot, it is now time to get back out into the shop, and cut to cutting, slotting for biscuits and gluing up my quick glue up...
I discovered a couple of things when trying to use it again after all these years though,
#1. I really don't understand the markings on the JM82K's fence height gauge. And if online reviews and videos are any indication, I am far from alone. And last night while fiddling around with it, I discovered something.
With the fence down low, there is a horizontal mark much larger than any of the others in the scale, that appears to fall right at the half inch mark. This is, and I can't repeat this strongly enough, an optical illusion. I have discovered through use / experimenting, that setting your fence height to this point will indeed place your biscuit right in the middle of 3/4" stock. Raising the fence to the full height where you can see the scale between 0 and 1" and the scale becomes obvious. Live and learn, Move on...
#2. Ryobi attaches a small piece of specially cut sandpaper to the front / outside of the blade slot. I assume to help the tool keep from slipping while in use. This sandpaper is bonded on with just some sort of self stick stuff. Which on mine in the Texas heat, has dried up. A quick spray of 3M 77 spray adhesive on the back side and pushed back into place all appears good, except you need to be extra careful with overspray from this stuff....
Having re learned what I apparently forgot, it is now time to get back out into the shop, and cut to cutting, slotting for biscuits and gluing up my quick glue up...
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