Palmgren joiner

[rcp612]

My infeed table has a tilt front to rear (start of table to cutterhead) of .023". How will this affect my jointing efforts? Does anyone know of a "fix" for this?
This seems like a pretty good unit but after a couple hours of checking and re-checking the tables, I'm wondering if I'm just too anal about perfection.
Any help is appreciated and I thank all with advice in advance.

[LJR]

I have a Palmgren benchtop jointer. When I first bought it the infeed and outfeed tables aligned with each other perfectly. I mounted it on a rotary work stand with my thickness planer. When the planer was "up" and in use the jointer was hanging upside down.

After several months of this I notice that I can't joint a straight edge. My boards are always high in the middle and the more I run across the jointer the worse it is. I check that tables and find an alignment problem just as you report.

I cleaned the jointer as thoroughly as I could. Then I went through the process outlined in the manual to get the infeed table back into alignment. It worked and has stayed aligned. I blamed it on hanging the tool upside down and allowing dirt and sawdust to get into places they wouldn't normally go. I took it off the rotary tool stand and put it on it's own dedicated stand and we'll see how long that goes.

[rcp612]

Then I went through the process outlined in the manual to get the infeed table back into alignment.

The manual that came with my jointer does not have any procedures listed for anything other than blade or belt replacement. The only mention of the infeed table is how to set depth of cut. Maybe it was short-packed??
I guess I'll dis-assemble it and see what I can find.

[eddy merckx]

You have to adjust the tables internally. What you do is turn the jointer over, remove the plate and locate the four allen bolts which control the parallelism (is that a word?) of the tables. It is pretty easy to do, but it does require trial and error. You basically have to adjust the screws, turn the jointer over, measure, turn back over, readjust, repeat. It's a pretty good workout. One good thing is that you only have to do it for the infeed table, since the outfeed table is fixed.

Eddy

[Anna]

I had the same problem. It didn't really occur to me to turn it over because it's more than 100 lbs (too heavy!). What I did was I suspended the jointer between its base and a ladder to get to the space under it where the screws are. It was kind of precarious and I was nervous as heck. I used clamps all over the place because I was paranoid the whole thing was going to come tumbling on top of my head.

The most difficult part for me was determining just when it was level with the outfeed table. I think a Wixey angle gauge might come in handy if you have one.