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Just finished changing my jointer knives for the 2nd time. The first time I used a dial indicator mounted on a stand. It took a few hours. Part of it was definitely because it was my first time. Also it was an older jointer and the only way to raise and lower the blades was the manually lift them up. My newer Ridgid has two screws that the blades rest on so adjusting them is much more precise. But a third reason wasit required finding top dead center for each blade, twice (once for the back and once for the front). Very time consuming and frustrating. I considered buying one of those expensive One way jigs but decided to try a low tech (and cheap) method I'd read about. The stick method. It worked great. Knives were set 2-3 thou above the outfield table and it took me about 30 minutes. Most of which was screwing and unscrewing the knives. Here's a link of how it works. A couple of tips I would suggest is making sure the stick is as flat as possible and make it sure it has some weight. I used a 2.5 inch thick hard maple. If it's not perfectly flat the knives might miss it. And if not enough weight, the knives may slip off due to not enough friction.
I found a mathematical formula (using simple geometry) somewhere before to find how much the stick moves correlates to how high the knives are but I forgot the link. Plus it assumes is perfectly dead flat. In the end I set my kives so the stick moved around 3/16.
Because I couldn't help it I used the dial indicator to check my results and it was 2-3 thou.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/s...terknives.aspxw
I found a mathematical formula (using simple geometry) somewhere before to find how much the stick moves correlates to how high the knives are but I forgot the link. Plus it assumes is perfectly dead flat. In the end I set my kives so the stick moved around 3/16.
Because I couldn't help it I used the dial indicator to check my results and it was 2-3 thou.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/s...terknives.aspxw
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