Part way through making the Planer Sled I got a note from a friend who follows this blog. He had a barely used Delta 6” jointer on a mobile base that he gifted to me. After picking it up I stored it in the garage until I had the time to rearrange the shop a bit to give it a home, which is now. While the jointer is in almost brand-new shape after setting unused for a few years there were a few things I wanted to address before using it. One was some rust on the machined tables and fence. The other was that while it had an enclosed dust chute to direct the chips to the floor there was no way to hook it up to my shop-vac to capture the dust and for chip collection.
The first thing to tackle is the rust. One benefit of living in the desert is the
low humidity which minimizes the accumulation of rust on unfinished machined
cast iron surfaces. Most of the rust was
just a light bit on the machined tables and the fence. There was a bit more rust where the fence sat
on the infeed and outfeed tables due to the accumulation of chips that were
stuck there. Not bad, but it did take a
little more elbow grease to clean up.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the jointer before starting
work so the first photos are after it was already disassembled and the rust had
been removed. Below the top image is of
whole jointer. The middle image is of
the outfeed table and the bottom image is the infeed table.
Cleaning up the fence is next. Below is what I use to use clean all the
machined cast iron surfaces. I start
with mineral spirits (left bottle) to remove sap and the like. Given the amount of pitch I am guessing that
mostly pine or maybe cypress was jointed.
Sanding with 180 grit silicon carbide sandpaper mounted a red rubber
block using WD-40 as a lubricant gets the rust off. Once the rust is off the 180-grit paper gets
changed out to 220 grit for finish sanding.
Next is to lightly spray it with the CRC 3-36 which is a lubricant and
corrosion inhibitor. It’s allowed to set
a bit then wiped off. Last is to use the
Bostik GlideCote which is a high-molecular weight polymer that reduces friction. All told it probably took about 30 to 40
minutes of work to clean and treat the surfaces.
Last bit of work is to check everything for squareness
and to no surprise given the jostling during the move a couple of minor
adjustments are needed. First, is to
square the fence to the table using a small steel square.
The other adjustment is to set the outfeed table so it is
dead in line with the top of the knives.
This is so once the knives have made their cut the surface of the piece
being cut continues in the same plane onto the outfeed table. If they are out of alignment, it will cause
problems and not give a true flat surface.
Process starts with a knife set at top dead center and a straight edge
set on the outfeed table running across the cutter head. Next the table is raised or lowered until the
cutter head just touches the straight edge. The photos below show what this
looks like.
Here the jointer is all put back together with all the
adjustments made ready to go. With that
done I made a couple of test cuts and it works great – smooth, square and
even. However, it does generate a whole
lot of chips that end up on the floor so before putting it into regular use I
need to make an adapter that will divert the chips coming out of the chute and
allow me to connect the vacuum to collect them.
First, is to fit a base piece of ¾ plywood to cover the
chute then glue another piece of ¾” plywood on top of that for the vacuum hose
to connect to. Here is what that looks
like glued up. In the center of the top
piece, you can see a couple of screws.
They were located and temporarily run in before gluing the two pieces
together to assure that the two pieces would not slide out of alignment when
clamped. They then get removed, glue
applied, the screws run in and the clamps added.
As you can see in the glued-up photo above the top block
corners are clipped to get rid of sharp corners. That was done using a jig on
the table saw. In the top photo the
setup is being done with a 45-degree triangle.
The bottom photo shows how the cut is made. Once the four corners are cut the top edge
gets rounded over using the router and a small roundover bit.
After the glue dries the clamps and the screws get
removed. Next using the drill press a
hole is drilled through both pieces which will provide a place to attach the
vacuum hose. Here you can see the
drilled hole along with three concentric lines.
They are there to guide the hole enlargement and its tapering because
the bit used is too small but it's the closest I have to what’s needed without making the hole too
big. 
The oscillating drum sander is used to enlarge and taper
the hole. The taper is accomplished by
tilting the table a couple of degrees and rotating the workpiece so the sanded
face is always toward the front. When
getting close to final size the inside of the hole is marked using a pencil to
confirm the full length of the hole gets a taper. Now it’s just gradually sanding to enlarge
the hole until the hose has a friction fit.
Last bit of woodworking is using the big disk sander clip the base’s
corners knocking off the sharp corner then hand sand the remaining hard edges
to soften them. After that the adapter
gets finished with three coats of lacquer sprayed on.
Next Up – Finishing Dust Collector Adapter & Starting Push Blocks
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