How to Set Depth of a Cut on a Jointer

Although you might not initially think about it. I believe that calibrating a jointer is really as important as calibrating any other tool in the shop. I wanna know that when I come to this pointer and I set it for a specific depth of cut and I make a pass that's exactly how much material it's taken off. One example of where that's really important is inset drawer fronts. If I have a measurement for an inset drawer which means the drawer front is gonna be inside the face frame of the cabinet, when I make a jointer pass and go back and insert that front into the opening I wanna make sure it's a perfect fit. So that means knowing exactly how much material I'm gonna take off here. It's very easy to make this happen. Have a look here at my setup. What I'm gonna do is using a square. I'm gonna mark a specific location on this board. This is so that when I take measurements I always take those measurements in exactly the same spot. The key now is in knowing exactly how wide that board is? So I could take this measurement with a tape measure with my trusty stick rule, the best way to get accuracy out of this, without question is a pair of digital calipers. So I'm gonna span the board at that point and take a reading. I'm gonna write that reading right here on the board. I'm not too concerned yet what my pass is. I'll go ahead and make a cut. Then we'll come back and measure that again. Now again, using my digital calipers I'll measure again. And now I have four and 1330 seconds. So if I make this talk in 60 fourths I can take this fraction up. 1330 seconds is 2660 fourths. So I have removed one 64 fourth of an inch. Now, if I look at my pointer here every one of these lines is a 32nd of an inch because this total is an eighth. So one fourth of one eighth is a 32nd. Good thing I'm checking this because what that shows me is that they had pointers actually an accurate right now it's pointing to the first line. That's a 32nd of an inch. So it's very easy to adjust these typically, I can loosen that pointer get it in the right spot. Tighten it back up. From here I would do a test cut, make sure that that actually confirms that you've got the setting, right. Once you know, that's accurate. You're good to go know exactly how much you're taking off, every time you use your jointer