Never thought I would write this...
but I have to sing the praises of the Oneway Multi Gauge. I bought a Jet JJ-6CSX about a year ago off craigslist. I brought it home, and did a complete disassembly/cleaning/waxing. Everything went well until I tried to set blades and get this thing to cut. A lot of good LJ's tried to help me last year and I thought I was ok. I tried it again after winter hibernation and my jointer cut was significantly out of straight. I had tried every method I could find on das Internets to no avail. (John White's magnet boards, the move the stick method, the joint a board 4 inches and stop method, the Harbor Freight Dial indicator and base method). I was laying a foundation with SWMBO to upgrade to a 8" Grizzly Parallelogram with a helix cutterhead next year.
Out of desperation, I bought a Oneway Multi Gauge. Frankly my thought was that if I didn't get any better results, it was going back, I wasn't going to spend over $100 (with tax) on a fairly simple chunk of iron if it didn't work.
I spent about 3 hours checking the tables to make sure they were within 1 thou of being coplanar (I used HF dial gauges to shim my outfeed table.) I then started the process of setting the knives with the OMG. It was quite an education. I quickly learned that setting each knife is an iterative process where an adjustment on one end would throw off the other end. The second thing I learned is that it is harder than you think to keep the knife at top dead center while adjusting. The last thing I learned is that generally knives will rise up if allowed to do so when tightening the jam bolts. Also tighten the outside bolts first, then the middle ones.
After all my education, I was able to get the knives adjusted so they were less than 1 thou proud of the outfeed. It's amazing to me how much better this thing cuts now, and where I was getting 28thou of bow over a 3ft board, now I get less than 2.
I am a little bit conflicted on how to rate this. I think it's overpriced by about $15 compared to what it should cost, but I got results with this when nothing else worked for me. In the end, working is more important than price. 5 stars.
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