interesting tool. any comments?

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I watched a recorded episode of The New Yankee Woodshop the other day and Norm was using a tabletop joiner for the project. He was working with wood that wasn't over 36x3/4" and it was working really well for him. I'm not sure of the make of the device though.
 
ok, up front I know nothing about this tool, but I do know a thing or two about jointers and planers. For starters both use a rotating drum with knives or square blades mounted parallel to the axis of rotation to remove a thin slice of material as it passes by them. The major difference is in the purpose the tool is designed to meet. A jointer is designed to produce a smooth flat face on a piece of wood regardless of what the other faces of the workpiece look like. IE, you can take an irregular chunk of wood, run one side of it over a jointer a time or two, and produce a flat, smooth face on one side. If you need or want too, you can use the adjustable fence on a jointer to produce a second smooth flat face on the workpiece at a specific, adacent, angle (usually 90 degrees) to the first one.

A planer is designed to produce a second flat, parallel face on the workpiece OPPOSITE (or directly opposed) to the first one. That's all it's designed to do. If you don't have a flat, true and smooth face on one side of the wood, a planer is probably not going to give you a second one, or therefore do what you want it to do.

The primary tenet of flat woodwork, is that you have to have one truly flat, even and true face to work from. The planer is the only tool that will give you that reference plane or surface to work from (for the most part). The limiting factor of how large a workpiece a jointer will give you that face on is the length of the infeed table. In general your jointer will produce that true flat surface on a workpiece that is twice the lenght of it's infeed table. That can be modified with extra work, or the use of infeed jigs or other aids, but that's the bottom line. You will only be able to easily flatten and true a piece of wood that is about twice the length of the infeed table of your jointer. Longer than that and you run the risk of just narrowing the workpiece while copying the warp, arc or twist you are trying to remove.

Just how usefull is this to somebody that is looking to produce 6 inch pen blanks? Not very, really, but if you are only looking to make pen blanks you really don't need a jointer and planer in the first place.

I hope this rather rambling explanation makes sense, and maybe even helps someone. If so please let me know.

I really gotta quit drinking mountain dew at midnight :-)
 
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That concept design has been available here (Japan) for some time and can be found only industry tool stores, not home center/hardware stores. I almost bought a Hitachi model like the Jet in the link - about 10 years ago, but passed on the price - yen equivalent to about $800. The Hitachi model was well thought of and solidly built.
 
Ive had a planer/thicknesser(as we call them in the UK) in my workshop for many years and its paid for itself many times over,
Initial set up and adjustmnet is very precise but when done they give an excellent finish.
A 3 cutter block is obviously better than a two cutter block and two speeds are pretty standard.
Once you get used to managing the snipe issues they really are great additions to the workshop.
Dont know about the Jet model, mine is DeWalt.
I would say a must have if you do a lot of flat work.
Regards, Bill
 
The big question for me is whether this machine will work as good or better than similarly-sized separate machines. If not, I would never ever buy it.
 
sbell111 said:
The big question for me is whether this machine will work as good or better than similarly-sized separate machines. If not, I would never ever buy it.
Click to expand...
Often a question that causes great debate.
In the typical workshop,people like us that is, its more a question of space availability. You would get a longer jointer bed maybe in stand alone but probably no real difference in quality of finish, as that's down to 2 or 3 cutters,,and their sharpness.Feed speed also affects finish.
Stand alone units would stay sharper longer as they're only performing one function.
Thicknesser units are pretty similar in both formats and dont be swayed by width as its not really a major factor. How often do you buy rough timber that's 12" wide. And if you do occasionally. its probably better to rip it into narrower size anyway..
It all came down to space for me and single or combi didnt matter much to me.
The quality of finish I achieve from my combi is excellent and short of fitting new blades I dont think it could be improved much.
regards, Bill
 
I'll point out that Grizzly has had similar machines for several years at least. While Griz lathe are a matter of debate, their planers and jointers are regarded highly by most.

While not as cheap as the Jet above, the 10 incher they have looks to have longer Cast Iron tables (important in jointing) and the fence is adjustable allowing you to compensate for a nicked blade. And I don't think anyone will have an issue with the rigidity of that stand. :biggrin: Oh, and a 4" dust port as any planer should have.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/10-Jointer-Planer-Combo/G0675
http://www.grizzly.com/products/12-Jointer-Planer/G0633
http://www.grizzly.com/outlet/16-Jointer-Planer/G0660X
 
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