Jacob’s Refurbished Jointer

Viewer Project - By Jacob Heffelfinger from Monterey, CA
Added on January 7, 2014

I’m relatively new to woodworking and am finding that about 85-90% of my projects revolve around the shop just to get setup. I’m sure this was and is true for most woodworkers who are just getting started. This is obviously one such project. I bought this ~30 year old jointer for $250 through an ad on Craigslist. I probably could have used it with a little fine tuning straight from the storage unit, but I wanted that “new” feeling one gets when purchasing a brand new tool!

It’s an 8” Enlon jointer that many will recognize as almost exactly the same as an original Grizzly G1018 or several other makes of about the same period. Apparently, all of these jointers came from the same factory with slight differences (paint, switch location, etc.) as specified by the commissioning companies.
When I picked the jointer up, it had been sitting in storage for about 15 years and was still covered in the sawdust and pitch from the one and only project it had been used on. As you can see, it also had a decent amount of rust on the tables, fence, stand, and mobile base.

I started by disassembling the entire jointer. I then used a combination of chemical paint remover, wire brushes, and elbow grease to remove paint and rust from the stand. Then I discovered the joy of sand blasting…I sandblasted the remaining paint from the cast iron pieces, making sure to protect the tables and fence. This saved A LOT of time. Each piece, including the motor, with rust inhibiting primer, three coats of paint, and three more of clear coat. I removed the rust from the tables using Bioshield T-9 and a scouring pad for the top layers. Though there was no pitting, I unfortunately had to move to sand paper to get the most stubborn bits off. I started with 220 grit and worked my way up to 3000 grit automotive paper using a MDF board to make sure pressure was evenly distributed so I would keep the tables as flat as possible. I cleaned the cutter head, had the knives sharpened, and used Marc’s jointer setup video and a newly acquired OneWay Multi-Gauge to align everything. I’m getting great results, but think I’m going to get a spiral cutter head to replace the current one. Setting the knives on this thing is not fun!

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