This is definitely a project I have been putting off for quite some time. I cant wait any longer, I must change the knives in my 6″ jointer.
I started out by making a simple knife alignment jig using some white oak. I cut it into strips and drilled some shallow holes at the ends to hold some 3/4″ rare earth magnets, which I epoxied into those holes. After rounding the corners and chamfering the edges (purely aesthetic and not necessary) my jig is complete. Its really simple and doesn’t take long to make.
Now on to the fun part. I unplugged the jointer. This is important because we’ll be working with the knives and don’t want any accidents to happen. Using an 8mm wrench, I loosened the knife retainer and removed it along with the knife. A couple of these bolts were very tight and I had to persuade them with some pliers. After all the knives were removed, I cleaned the slots of any sawdust and began the re-installation process. I dropped in the new knife followed by the retainer. Now, I could grab the magnetic jig and with the magnet over the knife at TDC, the magnet pulled the knife exactly to the height of the outfeed table. All I needed to do was snug up the retaining bolts, and repeat this process for each of the 3 knives.
I did end up having some trouble with this process though. It seems as though I didn’t get all the knives at the correct height the first time. I attribute this to working around the camera as well as the cold weather we had while I was trying to change these knives. I put the camera aside and gave my complete attention to this process and reset all of the knives. Success. The cut was now smooth as glass, and I was happy.
So, you don’t need a super fancy commercially available version of a jointer knife jig. Would it be easier with one? Possibly, but if you don’t want to spend that kind of money, a jig like this works pretty well if you take your time. You can check out the process video below. Thanks for visiting.

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