Fred Voorhees
02-06-2010, 9:48 PM
Although I pretty much only have two days on this new jointer/planer combo unit, I guess I can throw a few observations out there.
First of all, it definitely is quieter than a lunchbox planer and is pretty much at the noise level as my old Delta 6" jointer was in the jointing mode. I was surprised at the bed surface "texture" that the machine had when I first got a look at it at Curt Harms shop. At first glance, it sort of seemed as if it had very shallow "flutes" running the length of both the infeed and outfeed tables. I thought that this would hinder the sliding of stock as you ran it through the jointer. Upon some initial use in my shop, I can verify that that worry is non-existant. One of my main fears of purchasing the machine was the lack of infeed and outfeed bed length. Again, while I have only maybe a half hours time on the planer portion of the machine, I did note that the machine seemed to pin down the material quite rigidly once it was captured by the infeed roller. One thing though that will take a bit of getting used to. Due to the short length of the infeed table for the planer, if you don't introduce the stock to the machine fairly horizontal and on the same plane as the bed, the infeed roller has a tendancy to slap the stock down onto the bed. Not a fear or concern, just something that I noticed and will have to learn how to avoid. Just introduce the stock relative to the table. I am used to having much more infeed table on my DeWalt planer that is built into my one workbench.
I would like to point out that I have an upstairs workshop and I needed to remove the beds for getting it up the stairs. This thing is solidly built and after putting the machine back together, it needed no adjustments as far as keeping the jointer tables co-planer. I did need to fuss a bit with a small switch that enables when you lift the jointer tables and go into the planer mode. I beleive Curt Harms told me that this switch enables the infeed roller on the planer. Anyway, it was a very simple adjustment and pretty much entailed just the tightening of a set screw to align a detente on a cog.
The jointer came completely assembled in a well constructed crate which had a meter attached to it that told whether the crate had been tipped or not. Apparently, it permanently signals if it had and thankfully, the meter was still intact. Had never seen one of these before but like the idea.
The change over from jointing to planing and the other way around is very easy and very quick.
A couple of subtractions in my opinion. First of all, the scale for determining the depth of cut in the jointer mode is rather difficult to be precise with. Only once in a while do I deviate from the depth of 1/32nd, but still, my cheap old Delta 6" jointer made it easy to dial in the scale and then use it to determine how much the machine was cutting away at the stock running through it. I just used a piece of scrap wood at a pre-determined width, made a pass through the jointer and snuck up on a setting of 1/32 and plan on leaving it there for now.
Another thing that I don't like about the machine is that fact that it doesn't have any presets for depth of cut in the planer mode. My lunchbox DeWalt has presets for a number of depths and I have found this very helpful in the past for a number of applications. The Jet JJP-12 does not allow this. As I stated in another post, I plan on using my DeWalt until it decides to kick the bucket on me. Then I will go with regular use of the Jet. Curt Harms has a digital readout set up on his JJ/P combo unit and I had never seen one before and is perfect for this application, so I think one of those is in my future sometime down the road.
The DeWalt automatically locks the mechanism when I have set a depth for the planer. On the JJ/P you have to crank a lever to manually set and loosen the mechanism. You also have to engage and disengage the feed rollers when you enter and exit planer mode. Again, not a big deal, but something that I am going to have to work into the routine of using the machine.
The fence on the JJ/P is tall....another nice feature, but the entire thing could have been engineered just a bit nicer. It seems a bit chinsy and flimsy for the amount of machine that it's mounted to.
The machine is a heavy dog! All the better for fighting vibration and it is beefy. Good things. It didn't come with a plug, but that is pretty much the common anyhow with bigger machines such as this.
All in all, so far in my limited experience with it, I am quite happy with it. I am just going to have to get used to the inherent idiosyncrasies with it.
First of all, it definitely is quieter than a lunchbox planer and is pretty much at the noise level as my old Delta 6" jointer was in the jointing mode. I was surprised at the bed surface "texture" that the machine had when I first got a look at it at Curt Harms shop. At first glance, it sort of seemed as if it had very shallow "flutes" running the length of both the infeed and outfeed tables. I thought that this would hinder the sliding of stock as you ran it through the jointer. Upon some initial use in my shop, I can verify that that worry is non-existant. One of my main fears of purchasing the machine was the lack of infeed and outfeed bed length. Again, while I have only maybe a half hours time on the planer portion of the machine, I did note that the machine seemed to pin down the material quite rigidly once it was captured by the infeed roller. One thing though that will take a bit of getting used to. Due to the short length of the infeed table for the planer, if you don't introduce the stock to the machine fairly horizontal and on the same plane as the bed, the infeed roller has a tendancy to slap the stock down onto the bed. Not a fear or concern, just something that I noticed and will have to learn how to avoid. Just introduce the stock relative to the table. I am used to having much more infeed table on my DeWalt planer that is built into my one workbench.
I would like to point out that I have an upstairs workshop and I needed to remove the beds for getting it up the stairs. This thing is solidly built and after putting the machine back together, it needed no adjustments as far as keeping the jointer tables co-planer. I did need to fuss a bit with a small switch that enables when you lift the jointer tables and go into the planer mode. I beleive Curt Harms told me that this switch enables the infeed roller on the planer. Anyway, it was a very simple adjustment and pretty much entailed just the tightening of a set screw to align a detente on a cog.
The jointer came completely assembled in a well constructed crate which had a meter attached to it that told whether the crate had been tipped or not. Apparently, it permanently signals if it had and thankfully, the meter was still intact. Had never seen one of these before but like the idea.
The change over from jointing to planing and the other way around is very easy and very quick.
A couple of subtractions in my opinion. First of all, the scale for determining the depth of cut in the jointer mode is rather difficult to be precise with. Only once in a while do I deviate from the depth of 1/32nd, but still, my cheap old Delta 6" jointer made it easy to dial in the scale and then use it to determine how much the machine was cutting away at the stock running through it. I just used a piece of scrap wood at a pre-determined width, made a pass through the jointer and snuck up on a setting of 1/32 and plan on leaving it there for now.
Another thing that I don't like about the machine is that fact that it doesn't have any presets for depth of cut in the planer mode. My lunchbox DeWalt has presets for a number of depths and I have found this very helpful in the past for a number of applications. The Jet JJP-12 does not allow this. As I stated in another post, I plan on using my DeWalt until it decides to kick the bucket on me. Then I will go with regular use of the Jet. Curt Harms has a digital readout set up on his JJ/P combo unit and I had never seen one before and is perfect for this application, so I think one of those is in my future sometime down the road.
The DeWalt automatically locks the mechanism when I have set a depth for the planer. On the JJ/P you have to crank a lever to manually set and loosen the mechanism. You also have to engage and disengage the feed rollers when you enter and exit planer mode. Again, not a big deal, but something that I am going to have to work into the routine of using the machine.
The fence on the JJ/P is tall....another nice feature, but the entire thing could have been engineered just a bit nicer. It seems a bit chinsy and flimsy for the amount of machine that it's mounted to.
The machine is a heavy dog! All the better for fighting vibration and it is beefy. Good things. It didn't come with a plug, but that is pretty much the common anyhow with bigger machines such as this.
All in all, so far in my limited experience with it, I am quite happy with it. I am just going to have to get used to the inherent idiosyncrasies with it.