Hey, it just appeared in my garage (gloat)

[Fred Voorhees]

Yeppers.....I haven't had the opportunity to post a gloat in a while so I'm taking advantage of this one. Took off Friday from work 'cause I got a phone call Wednesday after work that something was being delivered for the last day of the work week. Now what could that be:rolleyes:? Just before noon, the Estes truck pulled into the driveway and there it was.... a box from Jet Industries. Signed off and sent the driver on his way and proceeded to open'er up. What do you know.......a Jet 12" Jointer/Planer combo machine. Didn't have much time to do anything besides uncrate it and clean off the cosmoline that was on the beds of both the planer and jointer. I did make a quick run to pick up the electrical supplies and managed to add the plug to the machines power cord. A planned trip to Cape May, NJ for the weekend stopped any further work cold until I came home Sunday late morning and I got to running the dedicated 240 volt circuit to service the machine. Still waiting on the mobile base to sit the thing on once I get it up in the shop.

[frank shic]

very nice! no more struggling with trying to joint something wider than 6"!

[Larry Anderson]

Man am I jealous. Still on the fence about which combo to buy.

[Fred Voorhees]

Man am I jealous. Still on the fence about which combo to buy.

Larry, I was on the fence about even getting a combo machine. I certainly wanted to upgrade from my old Delta 6" open stand jointer that has faithfully served me for what must be almost fifteen years now, but I had thoughts of simply going to a wider jointer, possibly with a helix head or something similar. Jim Becker was always there coaxing me towards the combo direction. Jim has a MiniMax combo unit that is ultra sweet. Then I thought, I have a DeWalt 13" planer built into my bench and while it has been working fine and I expect it to work fine for quite a while longer, reality is, it's still a lunchbox planer and sooner or later, it will give up the ghost. How long that is....is anyones guess. Until it does though, I will use it instead of the planer on the Jet. The Jet planer will be there waiting for me when the time comes to put it into play. But yeah, it sure is nice having all of that width to plane with. I've been looking forward to this purchase, no matter what it was, for about a year now. Christmas monetary gifts from both my mother and my employer put me over the top as far as the shop "kitty" went and I got right to work at spending it.:D

[Larry Anderson]

But yeah, it sure is nice having all of that width to plane with.

I've been thinking I don't need 12" and have been looking at the Grizzly 10' and Rikon. Downside of the Griz is two knives and fence removal for changeover.

[Dick Mahany]

Fred,

Congrats on the new tool ! I'd be interested to know if yours has the helical head or straight knives.

I've had mine for nearly a year and am VERY happy with it. Mine has the 3-knive cutter head and is excellent. I think you will really enjoy this tool.

I added a mobile base and upgraded the casters to ball bearing urethane wheels and also added a DRO to the thickness planer which have been great.

The only problem with it was due to operator error. On new years eve day I fed a board with too much taper into the planer. It caused the feed rollers to jam and instantly fried a custom flat belt inside the unit. The belts were only $2, but put me out of commission for a week and a half due to the holidays. I now have a spare conveniently stored inside for the next time I do something stupid !

[Brian Effinger]

Congrats on the J/P Fred. Be sure to post a review once you've had a chance to play with it.

And I hope you enjoyed CM this weekend. It is one of my favorite places - I find it relaxing, but I must admit, I've never been there in the winter.

[Larry Anderson]

You guys just about have me convinced. Not that I have to scrimp and save to buy it, just don't want to spend more than I need to.

[Bruce Page]

Congrats Fred. Sweet machine!

[Bruce Page]

I just noticed that it is your birthday today.
Happy Birthday!

[Van Huskey]

Congrats! I am watching the reviews of the combo machines trying to decide which to get. Jet is 1st on my life now.

Did you get knives or HH cutters?

[Fred Voorhees]

Unfortunately, I didn't want to wait the amount of time that it would have taken me to scrape up another $1,000 for the helical head. So, obviously, I have the plain straight line knives. Will post a review when I can. Bit of a busy life right now and need to get it up into my shop before even setting it up.

[Rod Sheridan]

Congratulations Fred, I really like my combo, I'm sure you will like yours.

I'll go out on limb here and predict that once you use the planer on your new combo, your bench top planer won't see much use.

Regards, Rod.

[alex grams]

Very nice. A combo machine is on my list to get this year, and (like many others) I am up in the air on the Grizzly vs Jet, though I have already decided (to the detriment of my wallet) to get the helical head on whichever brand i decide.

Please post on which mobile base you get and how it works.