# Joinery problems



## pete1256 (May 10, 2013)

I have a craftsman 6"joiner...... For some reason I can never get a tight joint... And it's not consistent either the gaps will be in different places on both boards..... It's driving me crazy cause I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...... Any help would be greatly appreciated......


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

First check the machine. 
Are the beds parallel?
Are the knives aligned with the outfeed bed?

It does not take much mis-alignment to contribute to such problems.

You need a good straight edge. I purchased one, but a piece of heavy angle iron should be good or e.g., 3ft level.

When you have the straight edge on the outfeed bed overhanging the knives and you rotate the head, the knives should be felt to just kiss the straight edge, but not lift it. Need to check at both outside edges.


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## pete1256 (May 10, 2013)

Thanks Dave..... Had no idea how badly miss aligned the knives were... Joiner is working great... Thanks for your help...


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## rrich (Jun 24, 2009)

One other trick.

For a wide glue up like a table top of such.

Lay the boards out on the bench and choose the most aesthetic grain arrangement. Then draw a line across the boards. Number the boards sequentially. Where the boards will be joined, mark an "I" on the left side of the joint and an "O" on the right side of the joint. Do this for all boards.

At the jointer you'll need to joint all the edges square to the fence of the jointer. Here is the trick.

When you are jointing each edge, put the "I" against the fence and the "O" away from the fence. What this does is to remove any fence squaring error form the joints. (Yes, it really makes a difference.)


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## firemedic (Dec 26, 2010)

rrich said:


> One other trick.
> 
> For a wide glue up like a table top of such.
> 
> ...


This is very true, it makes a complimentary angle and can be done with the fence set at any angle you like. It's exactly what's going on when you use hand planes and fold an edge to be jointed.

You may wonder why you would want it set at anything buy 90 buy I've done this in the past (with a hand plane) when jointing extremely thin stock to give more glue surface area.


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