Minimax 14" J/P vs. Grizzly 20" Planer & 8" Jointer

[Jason Yeager]

Hello,

I have a quick opinion survey......Got a chance to buy a slightly used 14" Minimax J/P. I was planning on a new Grizzly 20" spiral head planer and a new Grizzly 8" jointer. The Minimax seems to be in great condition, although I have not seen it. I have read a ton of the past posts on combos vs. separates, but was wanting to see what the fellas out there would be thinking. I love the 14" jointer, but would be missing the 20" planer........They would be very similar in cost. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. I have lots of room, space is not really a consideration, and am involved in general woodworking and cabinetry

[Larry Edgerton]

I thought there was a law against saying MiniMax and Grizzly in the same sentence?

[Kevin Looker]

If you're going to do much face jointing, I think a 14" jointer & planer would be more useful than a 20" planer & 8" jointer.

[Mike Heidrick]

I have a 12" jointer and 20" planer. I would not trade two extra inches added to my jointer to have a 6" reduction in planer AND have them both in one machine that I have to change over to use each one. I am not good enough yet in my workflow to have combo machines.

You could buy the combo and still buy a 15" or 20" planer latter on though if it does not work out.

[Jim Becker]

I have an MM FS350 (350mm/14"...actually 13.68 inches or something like that!) and love it. This was the precursor to the current FS35 Smart J/P combo. I like the combo format and the capacities it brings and rarely find a need for a wider planer...especially now that I know how to use hand planes to surface something really large.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Minimax. Not really comparing apples to apples in machine quality I don't think. Just my opinion though, others will disagree.

[Narayan Nayar]

Though I agree with a previous comment about machine quality, nevermind the brand names for a bit.

Functionally, I suspect you'd be a lot better off with a wider jointer, or at least a jointer and planer that more or less match. Do you dimension a lot of stock more than 14" wide? If so, would you be happy ripping it to 8" widths to joint it? I guess what I'm asking is if you did have a 20" planer but only an 8" jointer, what would the combination of the two get for you?

Another important question--since you're already involved in general woodworking and cabinetry, what machines are you considering the upgrade from? In what ways are they not working for you?

[Robert LaPlaca]

I find that a matched jointer and planer works better for the type of work that I do (18th century furniture). Then again, I don't like to rip lumber to fit the machinery at hand..

I find with most of the lumber that I buy, that a 8 inch jointer is only effectively be able to effectively face joint less than 35 to 40 percent of the time..

[Rich Enders]

I have the 13 inch MiniMax combo because of space limitations, but if I needed 20 inch capability, I would consider the planer only, and build a wide jointer sled for it.

[Charlie Plesums]

I have the 16 inch MiniMax combo and love it. Even sprang for the carbide Tersa blades (and haven't yet felt the need to switch back to the HSS, even though I can do it in under 3 minutes).

If I am making a raised panel door wider than 20 inches, the panel gets above my 16 inch max. My practice is to glue up each half, then joint and plane to close to final thickness, then VERY carefully do the final joint to put the two halves together. When the halves are joined, then do the final sanding with ROS or drum sander.

My previous 6 inch jointer was basically useless for face jointing "good" wood (to be rated FAS or S&B, it must finish to over 6 inches wide). I was thinking of going to 8 inches, but watching the wood I was using for a while, 8 inches was only partially going to solve the problem. So I am pretty happy with 16 + 16

[John Sanford]

Speaking as someone who only has a 6" jointer and 12.5" lunchbox planer, I'll toss my two cents in here and you can make what you will of it.

The significant plus that the 8" jointer gives you is longer beds vs. the combo machine. The question is, will you really, really need the extra length? If not, then I would go with the combo machine. The extra 6" of width for face jointing is far, far more valuable than either the extra bed length, or the 6" inches of planer width.

If I had my druthers, I'd have a 16" Hammer or Felder jointer/planer. However, since my givens are unemployment and no 240v power in the shop, I'll keep on pokin along with my current setup.

[Rod Sheridan]

Having recently changed from an 8" General jointer and 14" General planer to a 12" Hammer jointer/planer combo, I can tell you that I'm very pleased to have a wider jointer.

I find the wider jointer to be valuable when I have wide stock, or to be able to skew the stock on the jointer for difficult grain situations.

If you purchase the combo unit, I think you'll appreciate the increase in performance as well as the increase in jointer capacity.

regards, Rod.

[Roy Wall]

I use a MM FS35 (14") JP -

The extra width of the Jointing capability is terrific. I would not want it any less as it has surfaced many a 10-14" board that I would NOT have wanted to rip in half.

Any project that has a top up to 27" wide will only need 1 glue line.......that was my motivation for getting one.

[Jim Becker]

The significant plus that the 8" jointer gives you is longer beds vs. the combo machine. The question is, will you really, really need the extra length?

A very good point. Outside of skimming to test for grain and color, I rarely will work a "long" board through the complete milling process. 5-6' would be a max component length for most furniture and cabinetry work so the so-called "short" beds of typical combos don't really affect matters. It's also very easy to provide extensions for that rare need to "go long". For me the "wide" is the important part since it allows me to do all kind of things that just will not fly on a narrow machine, including skewing the workpiece for a better cut on highly figured material and cleaning edges on odd-shaped items.

Like Charley, I'm also a fan of the Tersa knife system on my Minimax J/P. I had an unfortunate nick the other day. It took less than 30 second to deal with it merely by moving one of the three knives to the left a skoosh and one to the right a skoosh.

[Rod Sheridan]

by moving one of the three knives to the left a skoosh and one to the right a skoosh.

Jim, time to start practising metric measurements for the future.

In the Metric system it's a "smidgen" for a small amount, a milli-smidgen for a very small amount, and a micro-smidgen for times when you want to appear as if you really can see as well as a twenty year old.....LOL.

Regards, Rod.

[Larry Edgerton]

In the Metric system it's a "smidgen" for a small amount, a milli-smidgen for a very small amount, and a micro-smidgen for times when you want to appear as if you really can see as well as a twenty year old.....LOL.

Regards, Rod.

Thats in the SCMI manual, but no one reads the manual........

[Jason Yeager]

Many thanks for the replies and the time and thought they reflect. It would seem to be a "no brainer" kind of question that I had posed, but I thought I would throw it out there anyway to see what I could learn. Kind of like fishing, throw it out there and see what happens, there is always something new to learn.
As it turns out, my calculations were not quite on target, the minimax is a fair amount more than the g-----y (thats for Larry), but seems to be more that worth it for those who have one.

Cheers:)

[Rick Fisher]

If the Mini-Max is used, its likely worth what your paying for it. If you regret the purchase, you can just sell it off..

Buy new and you dont have that luxury.

The one thing I dont like about the Euro machinery is the lack of a Helical cutterhead. I have a helical head on my planer and dont think I could go back to straight knives.

[Charlie Plesums]

If the Mini-Max is used, its likely worth what your paying for it. If you regret the purchase, you can just sell it off..
...


Good point, often overlooked.



....
The one thing I dont like about the Euro machinery is the lack of a Helical cutterhead. I have a helical head on my planer and dont think I could go back to straight knives.

I would have agreed with you until I got the Tersa knives in my MiniMax. The ease of changing the Tersa knives is amazing, and alignment is automatic, allowing me to change knives (shared with both jointer and planer) to meet the needs of the project in less than three minutes. It doesn't have the small distributed cutters of the spiral heads like Grizzly or the shear cut of the Byrd Shelix, but it is a LOT better than a conventional straight knife. I even have a set of carbide knives for the Tersa cutter head.

[Steve Sowden]

I also have an older FS350 and love it. Wide is better.

Question. Having recently moved to central California I am looking for a source for Tersa blades for my MM FS350. Suggestions?

[Thomas S Stockton]

I order mine from www.simantechinc.com best prices I've found. There is also a machinery dealer in Tracy that I believe carries them Professional machinery group but I know nothing about them.
Tom

[Ed Calkins]

Jim, time to start practising metric measurements for the future.

In the Metric system it's a "smidgen" for a small amount, a milli-smidgen for a very small amount, and a micro-smidgen for times when you want to appear as if you really can see as well as a twenty year old.....LOL.

Regards, Rod.

When I was in the Air Force (oops 45 years ago) a micro smidgen was refered to as a "RCH" -- no questions please, it either makes perfect sense or it should be dropped.

[John Thompson]

I would love to have a 14" or 16" jointer... I simply have a 8" jointer and 20" planer. But.. I would personally give up jointer width before I gave up planer width. I ask myself what is the normal width I get with random from my supplier? The answer is 5 1/2" - 7 1/2".

There are some species I can get that go 9" -17" but.. I can run a double pass on a jointer to go as wide as 16" and clean the ridge line with a few passes of a planer. But.. I simply run to many panels through the planer to give it up. There are occasions I need to plane over 20" glued up and wished I had a +30" planer.

So... everyone has there preferences and I don't really feel there is a cut and dry anwser withoout the person in need asking themselves what size carcasses they tend to work frequently.. what widths are they getting raw from the supplier and it is already S1..S2.. etc. .. what widths does their work find them needing to plane... etc. etc.

What's good for Joe Goose is not always necessarily good for Mike Gander.

Sarge..

[Steve Rozmiarek]

When I was in the Air Force (oops 45 years ago) a micro smidgen was refered to as a "RCH" -- no questions please, it either makes perfect sense or it should be dropped.

Ed, I believe that the Army terminology for a "RCH" is a "RPH".

[Jim Becker]

Umm....'careful folks... ;)

Jim
SMC Moderator

[Leigh Betsch]

One benefit of a larger jointer not mentioned is, you can just move over a bit when the knives get dull or chipped. I find that I do most of my jointing on the side closest to me, leaving the other end of the knives almost new. One disadvantage of the j/p combo is if you chip a jointer knife you've also chipped a planer knife, but the quick change terssa make it easy to replace them. I have a MM FS41 and I would never go back to a smaller or lesser quality machine. I would go to separates instead of the combo but only if they were MM or Felder.
I just jointed some nine inch curly cherry drawer fronts, I would hate to have a glue joint down the middle just to make them fit a 8 inch jointer.