I was handed down a 4/1/2 Montgomery Wards Model 15fd250 Jointer. I am
65 so this is old. Works like new, and I use it for hobby to make
picture frames. Manual says use rabbeting arm on front table. I have no
idea what the arm looks like, or how or where to obtain one. Any help or
suggestions would be appreciated. Probably obsolete. Thanks for any
reply.
If you look closely at your jointer you will see a piece of the feed table
casting that wraps around the end of the blades on the front side of the
jointer. This is known as the rabbeting arm. It serves as a table for your
board when you want to cut a rabbet along an edge of the board. To use it
you move your fence way over to cover all of the knives except for a small
amount of the front end (the width of the rabbet that you want). You pass
your board over this remaining area of the knives while holding it up
against the fence. When you do this you will see that the board rides on
this wrap-around piece of casting. If you keep lowering the feed table in
small increments and making passes over the exposed portion of the jointer
blades you will cut a rabbet in the board's edge.
This used to be a cabinet maker's preferred way of quickly making a rabbet
in the edge of a board, but we seem to have shifted over to router bits and
dado blades now. It still works just as good as it always did and I find
myself still using it as a method of choice whenever I only want to make a
rabbet in the edge of a solid wood board. I don't like the results that it
gives on plywood or end grain, so I always do these with a router or dado
blade and will likely do the whole project this way if it involves any cross
grain rabbets. There are always several ways to do each cut in a woodworking
project and this is just another one of them.
--
Charley
"Undisclosed Recipient" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I was handed down a 4/1/2 Montgomery Wards Model 15fd250 Jointer. I am
> 65 so this is old. Works like new, and I use it for hobby to make
> picture frames. Manual says use rabbeting arm on front table. I have no
> idea what the arm looks like, or how or where to obtain one. Any help or
> suggestions would be appreciated. Probably obsolete. Thanks for any
> reply.
>
In article <[email protected]>,
Undisclosed Recipient <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thank you for your reply. Tried this way before and the problem was once
> the board passed the knives. it would slide under the cut out part of
> the fence. Any suggestions. Appreciate your time for the reply.
The flat of the board goes against the fence, with the edge down
against the rabbet ledge.
Kevin
On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 20:23:52 -0600, [email protected] (Undisclosed
Recipient) wrote:
>I was handed down a 4/1/2 Montgomery Wards Model 15fd250 Jointer. I am
>65 so this is old. Works like new, and I use it for hobby to make
>picture frames. Manual says use rabbeting arm on front table. I have no
>idea what the arm looks like, or how or where to obtain one. Any help or
>suggestions would be appreciated. Probably obsolete. Thanks for any
>reply.
Probably just a ledge to the left of the infeed table, and coplanar to
it, just before and perhaps extending beyond the axis of the
cutterhead. Usually you have to remove the guard to use it.
Given the age (the tool's, not yours), I'd say the instrument has yet
to be devised that can measure the possibility of getting one.
Furthermore, of the 13 known methods of cutting rabbets, 12 are
superior to using the jointer.
--
LRod
Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite
Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999
http://www.woodbutcher.net
Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997