Posted: 12/2/2024 1:46:47 PM EDT
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Time to get a jointer so I can buy less expensive wood and do some of that milling at home. I never buy boards larger than 6" (generally never larger than 4"-5"). There's not much size difference in a 6" vs. 8" benchtop jointer but there is in the cost. HF's new Bauer 12amp 6" has potential. |
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The length of a jointer's infeed table is more important than the width. The longer the infeed table, the longer the board you can straighten. ETA: Infeed not indeed, damn autocorrect |
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Robert E. Howard
| If you get the 6" you will soon want the 8", if you get the 8" you will soon want the 12". Most of the rough lumber I buy is in the 6"-8" range. I recently sold my DJ-20 (8") and picked up a nice DJ-30 (12"). If you are patient you can find nice used tools. I would go no smaller than 8". |
| If they take up the same size, get the 8". I don't use my 6" often enough to be willing to dedicate any more space for a bigger one. But if a bigger one was available that took up the same space, I'd take it. The extra capacity will pay for itself the first time you need to use it. |
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I don't have any experience with the HF Bauer 6" jointer, but I did buy one that is very similar to it - a Wen 6" jointer. I also usually don't work with wood pieces wider than 6" but I do buy a lot of 8" width boards that I always end up ripping down under 6" - I wish I had an 8" jointer but the cost, weight, and size were non-starters for me so I get by with the 6". Mine works very well given that it is a pretty cheap machine. I like the segmented cutting heads that are easily replaced (or even just rotated if one gets a nick in it). I don't know if the HF jointer has a steel bed or if it is aluminum like my Wen, that is the only thing I wish was different as the aluminum bed is pretty easy to gouge up with rough hardwoods. The 6" jointer is light and easily stored away. Here's what mine looks like: Attached File Attached File |
“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
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Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I don't have any experience with the HF Bauer 6" jointer, but I did buy one that is very similar to it - a Wen 6" jointer. I also usually don't work with wood pieces wider than 6" but I do buy a lot of 8" width boards that I always end up ripping down under 6" - I wish I had an 8" jointer but the cost, weight, and size were non-starters for me so I get by with the 6". Mine works very well given that it is a pretty cheap machine. I like the segmented cutting heads that are easily replaced (or even just rotated if one gets a nick in it). I don't know if the HF jointer has a steel bed or if it is aluminum like my Wen, that is the only thing I wish was different as the aluminum bed is pretty easy to gouge up with rough hardwoods. The 6" jointer is light and easily stored away. Here's what mine looks like: https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/20962/Jointer-1_jpg-3396282.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/20962/Jointer-2_jpg-3396283.JPG I have the 6" WEN and mine has the cast iron beds. |
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Originally Posted By giantpune: I have the 6" WEN and mine has the cast iron beds. Originally Posted By giantpune: Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I don't have any experience with the HF Bauer 6" jointer, but I did buy one that is very similar to it - a Wen 6" jointer. I also usually don't work with wood pieces wider than 6" but I do buy a lot of 8" width boards that I always end up ripping down under 6" - I wish I had an 8" jointer but the cost, weight, and size were non-starters for me so I get by with the 6". Mine works very well given that it is a pretty cheap machine. I like the segmented cutting heads that are easily replaced (or even just rotated if one gets a nick in it). I don't know if the HF jointer has a steel bed or if it is aluminum like my Wen, that is the only thing I wish was different as the aluminum bed is pretty easy to gouge up with rough hardwoods. The 6" jointer is light and easily stored away. Here's what mine looks like: https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/20962/Jointer-1_jpg-3396282.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/20962/Jointer-2_jpg-3396283.JPG I have the 6" WEN and mine has the cast iron beds. I might check and see if the cast iron bed is available as an upgrade option for mine.... |
“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
| Get the largest jointer you can pay for. If it is only a 6 incher, get the 6 incher with the longest bed you can find and pay for. If you are straightening a board on the jointer, you are doing 2 things wrong. 1. Don't work with long lengths of warped lumberr. 2. If you must straighten a curved piece of wood, use your table saw and a shooting board to do the job, regardless how big of jointer you have. |
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Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: Hmmm, that wasn't an option when I bought mine. I might check and see if the cast iron bed is available as an upgrade option for mine.... My model is discontinued. This is the one their website lists as its replacement. Cast iron for the honizontal and vertical parts of the bed. https://wenproducts.com/products/10-amp-6-inch-corded-benchtop-jointer-with-cast-iron-base |
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Originally Posted By Mindless: Get the largest jointer you can pay for. If it is only a 6 incher, get the 6 incher with the longest bed you can find and pay for. If you are straightening a board on the jointer, you are doing 2 things wrong. 1. Don't work with long lengths of warped lumberr. 2. If you must straighten a curved piece of wood, use your table saw and a shooting board to do the job, regardless how big of jointer you have. Never use a table saw with a bowed, twisted, or cupped board first. That is just asking for kickback or at least the blade to bind. Just an all around bad idea and terrible and dangerous advice. If you need to resize an unruly board before jounting or planing, use a bandsaw, or saber saw to rip it narrower for cup, or cut shorter for twist or bow. a good sharp handsaw will do that too. You put board on a jointer first, never a table saw, and a shooting board is not for a table saw anyways, they are for hand planes. Joint/plane one side flat and true, then do one edge square to the flattened face. At that point you could rip the board to width, or put it on a miter sled to cut down to length, then plane it to thickness (you could do that before sawing if you want). Before power tools this was done the same way and the same order with hand planes (usually by apprentices or indentured servants). If the board is bowed, twisted, or cupped that bad, don't buy it unless its got some crazy figure and you only need short lengths. Because you will waste an awful lot of wood on the way to flat if you try to do a full 6' or 8' loength of a shitty board. |
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Originally Posted By Covertness: I have a 6” Rikon but will be upgrading to an 8” one in the next year or so. Probably go with Jet. If the 8" jet is a close copy of the delta DJ-20, you will need to open up the cabinet, and close off the chip chute top so its enclosed. Mine would clog up constantly, and start throwing chips back. Didnt matter how fine a pass I was making. I found this solution on some woodworking website a number of years ago. I wasn't that difficult to do, i just used some aluminum sheet from HD, I think I riveted those sheets on the chute. It never clogs now, even with my little delta 1/2 HP delta dust collector. Eventually I will upgrade that to an Onieda I think. Seems counterintuitive that you are restricting the size of that chute, but as it was designed it must be trying to pull in air from the entire cabinet and all the cooling vent slots for the motor. |
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I would not recommend a benchtop model. The motors are gutless and the beds are too short. If you only need to occasionally straighten a board edge you can do that with a 1/2 straight bit and a router table setup. |
It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.
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Originally Posted By BFskinner: I would not recommend a benchtop model. The motors are gutless and the beds are too short. If you only need to occasionally straighten a board edge you can do that with a 1/2 straight bit and a router table setup. I think it really depends upon what you need it for. For my wood CNC projects, I rarely need a board longer than 20" or wider than 6" and the board face is more important than the edge so I can get a nice parallel when running it through my thickness planer - my benchtop jointer works well for the purpose. The benchtop works excellent for me - but may not for others. |
“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
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Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I think it really depends upon what you need it for. For my wood CNC projects, I rarely need a board longer than 20" or wider than 6" and the board face is more important than the edge so I can get a nice parallel when running it through my thickness planer - my benchtop jointer works well for the purpose. The benchtop works excellent for me - but may not for others. Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: Originally Posted By BFskinner: I would not recommend a benchtop model. The motors are gutless and the beds are too short. If you only need to occasionally straighten a board edge you can do that with a 1/2 straight bit and a router table setup. I think it really depends upon what you need it for. For my wood CNC projects, I rarely need a board longer than 20" or wider than 6" and the board face is more important than the edge so I can get a nice parallel when running it through my thickness planer - my benchtop jointer works well for the purpose. The benchtop works excellent for me - but may not for others. Will not disagree that it depends upon your needs. I have a 8” long bed with a carbide insert cutter head and I there are times I wished I had bought a 10”. |
It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.
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Originally Posted By JQ66: Never use a table saw with a bowed, twisted, or cupped board first. That is just asking for kickback or at least the blade to bind. Just an all around bad idea and terrible and dangerous advice. If you need to resize an unruly board before jounting or planing, use a bandsaw, or saber saw to rip it narrower for cup, or cut shorter for twist or bow. a good sharp handsaw will do that too. You put board on a jointer first, never a table saw, and a shooting board is not for a table saw anyways, they are for hand planes. Joint/plane one side flat and true, then do one edge square to the flattened face. At that point you could rip the board to width, or put it on a miter sled to cut down to length, then plane it to thickness (you could do that before sawing if you want). Before power tools this was done the same way and the same order with hand planes (usually by apprentices or indentured servants). If the board is bowed, twisted, or cupped that bad, don't buy it unless its got some crazy figure and you only need short lengths. Because you will waste an awful lot of wood on the way to flat if you try to do a full 6' or 8' loength of a shitty board. Originally Posted By JQ66: Originally Posted By Mindless: Get the largest jointer you can pay for. If it is only a 6 incher, get the 6 incher with the longest bed you can find and pay for. If you are straightening a board on the jointer, you are doing 2 things wrong. 1. Don't work with long lengths of warped lumberr. 2. If you must straighten a curved piece of wood, use your table saw and a shooting board to do the job, regardless how big of jointer you have. Never use a table saw with a bowed, twisted, or cupped board first. That is just asking for kickback or at least the blade to bind. Just an all around bad idea and terrible and dangerous advice. If you need to resize an unruly board before jounting or planing, use a bandsaw, or saber saw to rip it narrower for cup, or cut shorter for twist or bow. a good sharp handsaw will do that too. You put board on a jointer first, never a table saw, and a shooting board is not for a table saw anyways, they are for hand planes. Joint/plane one side flat and true, then do one edge square to the flattened face. At that point you could rip the board to width, or put it on a miter sled to cut down to length, then plane it to thickness (you could do that before sawing if you want). Before power tools this was done the same way and the same order with hand planes (usually by apprentices or indentured servants). If the board is bowed, twisted, or cupped that bad, don't buy it unless its got some crazy figure and you only need short lengths. Because you will waste an awful lot of wood on the way to flat if you try to do a full 6' or 8' loength of a shitty board. I do a lot of "firewood rescue" and other stuff using shorter pieces, usually 6' or less. You can clean up some pretty ugly material by hot gluing it to a piece of sacrificial plywood or MDF for a couple of straight planes to work from. Bandsaw works best, but this way works with a table saw too if the piece isn't too thick. |
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It all depends on your needs. I started with a 6" Grizzly 25+ years ago. Eventually, I graduated to an 8" Delta, then eventually sold that and got a 16" Felder jointer/planer combo. Small jointers are capable of excellent results as long as your stock isn't too large for them. Get what works for you. |
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Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I think it really depends upon what you need it for. For my wood CNC projects, I rarely need a board longer than 20" or wider than 6" and the board face is more important than the edge so I can get a nice parallel when running it through my thickness planer - my benchtop jointer works well for the purpose. The benchtop works excellent for me - but may not for others. Yep. The longest piece I work with is 36", while I routinely work with pieces between 6" and 8" wide. An 8" benchtop jointer works just fine for me. A 6" is far too limiting, and a full-size jointer takes up significantly more space (of which I don't have a lot) without giving much, if any, benefit in my particular use case. Somebody who regularly works with 6' boards less than 6" wide would find the opposite to be true. |
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I had a benchtop jointer, I returned it. Next year I might get an 8" or larger, we will see. |
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Originally Posted By Whamo: The length of a jointer's infeed table is more important than the width. The longer the infeed table, the longer the board you can straighten. ETA: Infeed not indeed, damn autocorrect This helps alot. You can get a board straight with a short table but its more work. I pretty much only start with rough cut lumber that is crooked, cupped and or twisted. I cut it to rough size on a table saw first. I use a 8ft straight edge clamped to the fence to rip these boards. On the jointer I put the board on a flat surface to check flatness and reveiw the high spots. Using playing cards and multiple short passes on high spots I get roughly flat till I can run it all the way thru. Check for flatness and adjust by shimming with cards and or taking cuts only from the high spot. Technique on how you feeding boards thru jointer makes a big difference too. If I had to do it over I'd get a bigger jointer just for the longer table. Right now I have a planner/jointer that does both, its a 12" model, I'd go with the same model but in 16". I need the space in my shop so that made a large part of the descion to get what I got. |
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I have an old INCA brand 8" jointer/planer. 8" is as narrow as I thought makes sense. The picture below is not my machine but is representative of the unit (unit shown is too rusty for my liking). In the picture, the planer fixture is shown on the left. It is not properly placed but is there just to show it. It is a conventional jointer with all the features you'd ever want in an 8" jointer. If you want to thickness plane, it has a fixture that goes on top of the jointer which controls thickness. It is very well made. To be honest, I rarely use it. After equipping myself to make furniture, I ended up spending all my efforts on what is probably called carpentry - not by choice but out of the necessity as the owner of an old house. 
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Originally Posted By Trollslayer: I have an old INCA brand 8" jointer/planer. 8" is as narrow as I thought makes sense. The picture below is not my machine but is representative of the unit (unit shown is too rusty for my liking). In the picture, the planer fixture is shown on the left. It is not properly placed but is there just to show it. It is a conventional jointer with all the features you'd ever want in an 8" jointer. If you want to thickness plane, it has a fixture that goes on top of the jointer which controls thickness. It is very well made. To be honest, I rarely use it. After equipping myself to make furniture, I ended up spending all my efforts on what is probably called carpentry - not by choice but out of the necessity as the owner of an old house. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Febth-com-production.imgix.net%2F2022%2F11%2F01%2F14%2F23%2F07%2F77729c04-4a13-4e88-8903-2e9a7797474e%2F1667326836246-22bb59b5063a54b459f3ad2d2576ebf04118edf6b2c93e0d9f40eed596a96d30.JPG%3Fixlib%3Drb-3.1.0%26w%3D1400%26h%3D2100%26fit%3Dmax%26crop%3D%26auto%3Dformat&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=2cb035b350d42bd61e9485da8b34b908ccd6de111553365eacf6a219011324fc&ipo=images That thing looks awesome!!! My understanding is everything INCA made was very well done. |
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A year and a half ago I bought a Hammer A3-31 jointer planer combination machine. It was "on sale" and all in was about six grand. Of course soon after I said to myself I'd have loved to get the A3-41. That was over two grand more. 12" vs 16" respectively. I went from a 6" conventional jointer and 12.5" lunch box planer to a 12" jointer planer. The 12" jointer is absolutely worth it. The 1/2" loss of the planer sucks, yes, even 1/2" but double the jointer width makes up for it. The helical cutterhead is phenomenal though the finish on regular, unfigured wood isn't as good, but still excellent. The Hammer is an entry level machine even at its price and not without disappointments. Still, for a hobbyist, it's a good machine. Get the largest and best quality tools and machines you can afford. |
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Originally Posted By JQ66: Never use a table saw with a bowed, twisted, or cupped board first. That is just asking for kickback or at least the blade to bind. Just an all around bad idea and terrible and dangerous advice. That member had it EXACTLY correct and knows what he is doing. Hint - It is not a safety hazard when you know what you are doing and have a proper table saw (with a proper blade) + It is going to be a thousand times faster and easier than a dinky little joiner 99% of the time... No saying a good joiner is not nice to have but unless the boards are massively thick or heavy a (proper) table saw is going to get the job done faster and easier the majority of the time. Those big ass industrial straight line rip saws are not joiners for good reason. They are essentially track fed, big ass table saws that true those random boards up all day long regardless of how twisted, bowed or warped the stock being fed into them is.  That stuff you are calling 'dangerous advice' might apply to YOU but there are plenty of other people with experience that do those tasks every single day safely and without issue. |