Just picked up an new Incra fence system for my tablesaw.  With such a precision fence, it’s a must that the saw top be aligned with the blade.  Since I’ve not been doing any precision cutting yet, I had never bothered to check the alignment yet, the saw seemed to be OK as it came from the factory.  But since we’re getting serious now, it’s time to do it right.

So I milled up a chunk of red oak, attached my dial indicator to it, and clamped it to the mitre gauge.  I’m happy to report that the deviation from the blade to the left mitre slot was less than .001 inches from front to back.  The right slot was less than .002.  Pretty darn good job of adjusting at the factory, Grizzly!

One complaint I heard incessantly while researching jointers was that Grizzly’s G0490′s stand design made it extremely tough to adjust the motor alignment and belt tension.  Well, apparently they agree, because my stand has a new design with a completely removable back panel.  Access to the pulleys is a piece of cake.

Fired up my new jointer.  Very smooth, good power.  However, I’m getting ridges in my test pieces.  I think the knives came pre-nicked for my convenience

Just took delivery of a new Grizzly 8″ jointer, the one with the 76″ parallelogram tables.  Getting it into the shop and up onto sawhorses was a trial (thank goodness for my pallet jack and engine hoist).  Looks nice so far, the stand is surprisingly heavy-gauge.  A few fit/finish issues I’ve noticed so far, but pretty darn nice for $900.

Wow, it’s been a while.  Progress was very slow during the spring, my day job was consuming a lot of hours.  But, I’m happy to report that the basic shop area is complete!  All the wall sheathing is up and painted.  Half the lights have been installed, I just need to move some stuff around so I can get to the ceiling where the remaining lights go.

Best of all, I’ve started buying more machinery!  More on that soon.