Putting a shelix in a jointer

Putting a shelix in a jointer · 06-08-2009, 11:36 PM

FredP came by Saturday and after sanding a board I think he wanted to destroy my jointer.

All in all he did a good job.

It took us about 45 minutes to figure out how to get the fence off the thing. Not a lot of fun there. It has 4 bolts holding it and it took a LONG time to figure out how to get to those last two bolts....

Once we got the fence off, we took the belts off, and then we set about trying to figure out how to get the head out of the thing. The head assembly is a bearing on each side mounted into a removable cast iron enclosure. You couldn't lift the enclosure straight out as it would hit the tables. You couldn't slide the enclosure out as it had alignment pins.

I suggested removing one of the tables, but Fred didn't like that idea. After figuring it up, we decided each of the tables weighed between 250 and 300 lbs, so I agreed that was probably not a good idea. Fred finally came up with the idea of removing the alignment pins on the back side and we managed to get the head out.

Now the head on this jointer is a bit heavier than I would have expected. It is about 18" long, around 4 to 5 inches in diameter, is a fairly solid piece of steel and weighs 85 pounds. How do I know it weighs 85 lbs? Because the shelix had an overweight UPS sticker on it saying it weighed 85 lbs and they are very close in weight.

After all this, we got the bearings off of it with no issues. It was easy. Then we quit. Fred and my friend Tommy who came over commented that I should really go ahead and replace the bearings since I have it down so far and I agreed and we called it a day.

Now comes Monday. I could have ordered some bearings online for around 10 or 20 dollars each, but decided I would go to Applied Industrial Technologies. $60 worth of sticker shock later I have two made in USA bearings.

I do not have a bearing press so I stop by Kroger and got some dry ice. I figure I will shrink the shaft and the bearings will slide right on.

My thanks to Bernhard for the suggestion. Worked like a champ.

Unfortunately, there is a problem. Can you recognize it?

I mounted the frame upside down.

Here it is correct.

Here it is back in the jointer. This turned out to be pretty easy. At first I thought I was going to need to wait to get Fred to come back over, but it slid in sooooo pretty.

I did get the belts put back on and tightened up, but that is about it for tonight.

Fred, did you use the ball peen hammer and if you did do you remember where you put it or did Tommy "clean it up"???

Once again, my thanks to Fred. I think we spent 3 or 4 hours on this beast.