16" jointer

ken lutes

Member
Messages
98
Location
Winchester Ky.
I just returned from picking up my latest purchase. A 16" jointer made in Cinn Ohio around 1918 by F.A. JAY Mfg. Company. Is actually in pretty good shape. A little cleaning,adjusting, painting and installing a motor and it will be ready to go. Finally I will be able to square up 10" and 12 ' boards. I currently have a delta 8" jointer. It is babbit bearings but they are in great shape. I was expecting to have to repour the babbit bearings or retrofit them with ball bearings. Which would be hard to do due to the way it was made but no need now. Cant wait to get it running !
 
Jeff I just finished looking at your jointer. Great job you did on retro. I havent took mine apart yet. Probably will start tomorrow night after work hugggg!!! I havent seen that type of babbitt bearings yours had. (thrust) Cant wait to see mine. I am lucky that mine has a round cutter head even if it only has two blades. I guess I will leave them that way. Just wondering a couple of things? Do you still have and use yours. If so how well is it doing for you? What rpm are you running the cutter head. By the way I liked the vintage motor you used. I assume it was an 1800 rpm. It looked like you was running 6" to 3" pulleys? Any suggestions before I get started? I will post pictures of the process if you want.
 
OH yea, I still have it. No intentions of letting that one go!! I use it regular. I have a 6" long bed that is single phase. So it gets used a lot of smaller stuff since I don't have to fire up the phase converter. Any face jointing of any size goes across it.

I am not getting the finish off mine I would like. It leaves some minor scallops but it cuts the board flat and thats the main thing. Being an old square head I am not convinced I have the blades set exactly right. I can't index off the head to find TDC with an indicator. I am still looking for the best method to set the blade height. I may be cutting with 1 blade?

I too assume that old motor is 1750 RPM. I don't have a tachometer but I know it's not 3000+ RPM motor. The motor came off a Greeves Cluesman 12" jointer with a similar size pulley so I knew it was close to what it needs to be. But thats another thing I need to check. It may be running too slow and that would explain the surface I get. Just haven't found a tachometer to check it with yet.
 
I thought the cutter speed on these things was around 2000 rpm? That was what the old timers generally tried to gear their leather belt machines too anyway: Anyway that was the rpm speed I was headed for whether I power it with a electric motor, or power it the pto on my tractor. with a dunno:

I am not familiar with square head cutter heads Jeff, but it would seem to me you could still use a dial indicator to ensure all your cutting edges are an equal distance from the centerline of the square head block? Assuming there is no discernible play in your babbitt bearings, you could use the diameter of those bearings as your centerline? At the same time, a rotating square flying through space makes a circle. Once you figure out what that radius is, you merely have to adjust your cutting edge so it extends the same amount. I know maybe easier said then done?:dunno::dunno::dunno:

I would think a magnetic base with a rigid arm to hold the dial indicator would come into use here. You really are not trying to get any real measurement, but really just want to make sure the two blades are set at the same pareellel height with the tables. Well assuming that distance doesnot take toomuch ofa bite out of your wood. Since you say the board is flat, you have got to be close. :dunno::dunno::dunno:

I am not criticizing you at all here Jeff, just trying to figure something out that works. The problem is I am not familiar with square heads and can only picture my machine which may be somewhat different then yours.

Still I love these threads. It gives me a kick in the butt to get mine rebuilt. I see Travers has their A2 tool steel on sale this month so that I can get cutting some new edges machined out. Other then finding a five horse single phase electric motor to power this thing, or some unique tractor pto gearing, I'll be golden. (Like that is going to happen) :)
 
Ken, I am not sure if this helps or not, but I have a webpage on my website dedicated to the rebuild of my jointer. Its quite different from the model you and Jeff have, but the babbitt bearings are unique as well. Whoever did them, dis so in 1938 and used a felt type wick at the bottom of the babbit bearing. This was cast right in, so when you oil the bearings, the oil pools at the bottom of the bearing and acts as a felt wiper, adding oil to the shaft where it bears down the most. I thought that was kind of cool.

My jointer is a touch bigger then yours at 18 inches,but was in roughly the same shape. Everything appeared to be seized up, but a bit of wd-40, some never-seize and a bit or persuasion here and there and the thing was fixed up. I did add some paint, but regret that now. White paint just does not look good on this aircraft carrier :)

I still have to power it somehow, either by pto shaft from my tractor (mid-sized Kubota) or an electrical motor. The most important thing right now though is machining out some new knives for it. The old set were ground back into the gib bolt slots. Way to much power on those knives for this guy to be around when the thing is whirling at 2000 rpm. :)

Anyway here is the webpage in case you are interested. You certainly picked up a great machine, and came to a great place to talk about it. There are some real good old iron buffs on here that you can really get some good information from. (Jeff, Paul, Stu and many others...)

18 inch Jointer Webpage
 
rpm

Jeff what size are the two pulleys that you are using. The new machines are running around 5000 rpm. I am not sure if the babbitt can handle that due to heat buildup?
Correct me if I am missing something here but I thought you would set the blades with a magnetic base dial indicator set on the table to ensure the blades were parallel to the table??
 
I try to answer both you at once. Yes I typicaly use a dial indicator. On my round head I just to to one end, slid it across the head till Ifind the high point, Top Dead Center. The I can lock it in place and rotate the head and check he knife height to the table.

Problem with a square head is finding TDC since the thing isn't round. (Travis, it's basically a square block with knives bolted on two sides) You can do it but it would take forever. Since you would have to move the base and rotate the head. Note the reading, move the base, rotate the head and note the reading. Repeating this till you found the highest point. I can't just slide the indicator it over the head to find the highest point as you can with a round head.

Now if I could lock the head in place. Set the blades, then rotate it 180 degree and lock it, it would be simple. Wouldn't matter where TDC was. But I have no way of doing that either. I use the straight edge method and a lot of trial and error. I have read about a stick method that I am going to try. Need to sharpen the blades again before long.

As for cutter speeds your looking for Surface Feet per Minute. Also have to be careful on these not to go two fast so they don't sling a knife out. They are just held in with 4 bolts. No wedge locks.

Here is a useful link. http://www.owwm.com/math/default.aspx
 
info

I just realized that I listed the name incorrectly. The jointer is J. A. FAY & Com. Cinn Ohio. It appears that it was made prior 1900 probably between 1860 to 1880. It also has a tag on it that I suppose represents the com. that sold it C. H. Gosiger Com. Dayton Ohio. It appears that the cutter head was replaced by #749 Stutzman pat. Sept 2 1918 by Fischer Mfg. Co. Williamsport Pa. Any comments or information??
 
Just got word that OWWM.org is back on line. If you haven't, check there and see what they have on it. Might help date it. Looked a little newer than that to me. But I am no expert.
 
It looks similar in design to mine, that is it has a central pedestal and the two tables look to be dovetailed in up and down fashion. Even the bearings and pulley arrangement looks about similar to mine. Another area that looks quite similar is the fence system. It looks just like mine.

I would hazard a guess as to say my Williamson, Ruggs and Richards Jointer, since it was not patented, probably was a clone of this jointer. I know my jointer dates from 1865 thereabouts, so I would not be surprised if this jointer is of similar vintage. I think what throws the age off on this is the electrical panel add on. They tossed it on then covered the whole thing with paint so it looks as if it came with the jointer.

The one thing that has not been mentioned is that you have a ship wrights jointer. With its short tables, wide blades, these jointers were made to square up the heavy framing on wooden vessels built at the time. As everyone knows, if you make a straight line on a boat...you messed up, so that was the reason these tables were so short. They often trued up the knees and other curved heavy beams of the vessels.

I did a lot of research on my jointer, which I felt was the best part of the rebuild. I did have one guy from Boston contact me saying he had one just like mine, so I know the company made a few of these bad boys. Now I know where they cloned them from.
 
J A Fay photo page

Looks like there are two photos of your jointer on there or very similar models. After looking at those photos I would say yours could be older that I was thinking.

Was hoping there was some old Dirty Paper (documentation) on there but nothing on the jointer's. I found a catalog with mine it in it.
 
I checked out OWWM last night. Some real good reading and pictures. I was amazed that one of the pictures had the exact same base added to the bottom for the electric motor to sit on. Makes you wonder if both may have went thur the same shop to be retrofitted for electric and then resold?? I agree the history is just as exciting as having and rebuilding it. I really appreciate your comments and interest. I will try to post some better pictures later tonight.
 
pictures

The infeed and outfeed beds are 42" long each. The cutter head is two blades and 4" dia. Five bolts hold a plate on that holds each blade in place. Fence is 48" by 6" tall. There is two steel plates machined into the table by the cutter head?? So far everthing is free and not broke. I will start taking it apart this weekend if I can wait that long.
I threw in a picture of my last project. Lets try the pictures again on next post.
 
Last edited:
Pretty interesting, though its apparent someone has been tinkering with this thing quite heavily in the last 30 years or so. (The hex headed bolts on the babbitt bearings give that away.) Mine had the same thing on a few bolts, but I was able to take some 3/4 stock at work, turn down the shoulders and re-thread these into square headed bolts. My efforts at trying to find ½ inch, 1-½" long square headed bolts with a British thread (12 threads per inch instead of 13 threads per inch) came up dry. In a way, that is a stealth warning for you, before driving any bolt down a tapped hole, be sure you are using the right threaded bolt. Threads back in 1865 or whatever were hardly standard. In my case, they used the Bristish thread system.

No matter, you did well to find a jointer of that size and class with fence on it. Most fences on Ship Wright models were tossed into the garbage as there was really no need for them. They merely wanted to flatten a big chunk of wood. Consider yourself very lucky there, that certainly increases the value of your machine. By all accounts too,that fence looks original. Mine is again identical in design which leads me to further believe my jointer was cloned from the Fay model.

As for the rebuilding companies. They are quite common here in the Northeast,especially in Massachusetts. These companies buy up foreclosed businesses or have warehouses full of this old iron. They tweak with the bearings here and there, clean them up a bit, stick their name plate on the side of them, and then sell them. Mine had the same thing done to it via a company in North Billerica, MA. They are still in business, but never answered my email back...apparently they don't keep much information on individual machines. I think I will tear off their name plate and have my own nameplate added since they had nothing to do with the true history of the machine. They did it, so I figure why can't I?:dunno:

(more later, headed to work right now, but thanks for sharing. I really love this old iron stuff, as I know Paul and Jeff do as well).
 
..... Five bolts hold a plate on that holds each blade in place.....

Can you get a photo of that cutter head? Sounds like an old Clam Shell head your describing. I don't know much about them but they are not highly thought of. Supposed to be notorious for slinging knifes out.
 
Last edited:
I am not knowledgeable to know if that is of the clam shell design or not, but I know its the same design as mine. Mine has more then four slots for bolts though. I know mine has six to eight bolts holding it on. Good luck getting them off too though Ken. I had to take the whole cutter head off mine, take it to work and heat the bolts with a cutting torch to get them broke free. :doh::doh:
 
Top