Mike Reinholtz
02-25-2010, 11:40 PM
I know some people have given their thoughts on this machine, just thought I would throw my impressions out there.
I bought this Jointer/Planer about a month ago, using it on a variety of materials including oak, maple, walnut, and pine. I had been looking for a wide jointer and thought I would give it a shot but found it's really made for smaller boards, not the 8' pieces I work with. My neighbor hung out for most of the initial setup and testing, which made it fun. After setting up enough horses and cutting up some melamine we had enough support to do a couple 1x6 pine 6' sticks. The finish was better than I expected, although it wasn't like glass. After jointing and planing all marks quickly disappeared with a quick swipe of the ROS. Dust collection was handled by a Grizzly 2HP machine running a cartridge filter. The fence proved more sturdy than I had expected, although it's only aluminum it held it's own against our testing.
Where this machine worked best was when we tested it out on some smaller pieces I am using for cabinet doors. To compare the jointing quality, my neighbor grabbed a pile of pieces under 4' that came out very straight, just as nice as his Ridgid 6" would do.
Time to try out the planer. I have a Dewalt 735 (with a shelix on order), so that's what I have to compare the finish to. Snipe was apparent on the last 2" until we came up with in-feed and out-feed tables, again using the horses and pieces of melamine. Once we got those adjusted snipe was minimal, again quickly going away after cleanup with the ROS. Depth of cut gets limited quickly as boards get wider. Although we did plane 10" walnut and pine successfully (again, a shallow cut) the maple at that width stressed it more than I liked. Backing off more on the depth helped, but I think they could improve this machine by following Dewalt and adding dual feed speeds. Pine and oak both came out nice even at 10" wide. We checked how uniform the cuts were across each board with calipers and found across 10" boards <.010" variance.
Pros were as expected. Very portable, I move it around by myself without a mobile base- just pick it up and go. Noise was substantially less than the 735, most likely due to the absence of a chip ejector. Dust collection gets a 7 out of 10. The fittings are only 2-1/2", restricting my dust collector. On short boards it did a nice job. Dust collection could easily be handled by a shop vac, as we proved with my neighbor's Ridgid vac. Worked just as well as the Grizzly.
Cons start with the obvious short tables, which were remedied with the horses and melamine. Set up and adjusting the extensions took some time, probably longer than the actual time spent planing and jointing. Even with the tables though, you will need 2 people to work any long pieces. Depth of cut is limited, especially when using anything hard or wider than 6". Walnut was a no-go at 10" wide, and that was with a depth set at <1/32". We didn't want to test out the limits and trip the breaker so we tried to err on the side of caution. One complaint I have on delivery was the original blades arrived defective, leaving multiple ridges as they cut. After a couple calls to customer service a new set was in the mail.
There are obvious areas they went cheap to keep the price down, but overall for $420 I can't complain too much. One thing we found that REALLY helped this machine, was putting a piece of plywood on the leg supports and adding about 80lbs. We immediately noticed an increase in stability, and we both think it got a little quieter too.
While we had a fun time testing this machine, it's not what I'm looking for. If you are limited on space and generally work with smaller projects, I don't think you can go wrong with this machine. I enjoy making larger items and really need something heavier with a larger motor and longer tables. My wife said if I make a new dining room table from Walnut as the next project, I can get the 12" Grizzly Jointer I have been drooling over. This machine will be going up for sale shortly, it will be for sale locally but will be posted in the classified section some time this weekend.
I bought this Jointer/Planer about a month ago, using it on a variety of materials including oak, maple, walnut, and pine. I had been looking for a wide jointer and thought I would give it a shot but found it's really made for smaller boards, not the 8' pieces I work with. My neighbor hung out for most of the initial setup and testing, which made it fun. After setting up enough horses and cutting up some melamine we had enough support to do a couple 1x6 pine 6' sticks. The finish was better than I expected, although it wasn't like glass. After jointing and planing all marks quickly disappeared with a quick swipe of the ROS. Dust collection was handled by a Grizzly 2HP machine running a cartridge filter. The fence proved more sturdy than I had expected, although it's only aluminum it held it's own against our testing.
Where this machine worked best was when we tested it out on some smaller pieces I am using for cabinet doors. To compare the jointing quality, my neighbor grabbed a pile of pieces under 4' that came out very straight, just as nice as his Ridgid 6" would do.
Time to try out the planer. I have a Dewalt 735 (with a shelix on order), so that's what I have to compare the finish to. Snipe was apparent on the last 2" until we came up with in-feed and out-feed tables, again using the horses and pieces of melamine. Once we got those adjusted snipe was minimal, again quickly going away after cleanup with the ROS. Depth of cut gets limited quickly as boards get wider. Although we did plane 10" walnut and pine successfully (again, a shallow cut) the maple at that width stressed it more than I liked. Backing off more on the depth helped, but I think they could improve this machine by following Dewalt and adding dual feed speeds. Pine and oak both came out nice even at 10" wide. We checked how uniform the cuts were across each board with calipers and found across 10" boards <.010" variance.
Pros were as expected. Very portable, I move it around by myself without a mobile base- just pick it up and go. Noise was substantially less than the 735, most likely due to the absence of a chip ejector. Dust collection gets a 7 out of 10. The fittings are only 2-1/2", restricting my dust collector. On short boards it did a nice job. Dust collection could easily be handled by a shop vac, as we proved with my neighbor's Ridgid vac. Worked just as well as the Grizzly.
Cons start with the obvious short tables, which were remedied with the horses and melamine. Set up and adjusting the extensions took some time, probably longer than the actual time spent planing and jointing. Even with the tables though, you will need 2 people to work any long pieces. Depth of cut is limited, especially when using anything hard or wider than 6". Walnut was a no-go at 10" wide, and that was with a depth set at <1/32". We didn't want to test out the limits and trip the breaker so we tried to err on the side of caution. One complaint I have on delivery was the original blades arrived defective, leaving multiple ridges as they cut. After a couple calls to customer service a new set was in the mail.
There are obvious areas they went cheap to keep the price down, but overall for $420 I can't complain too much. One thing we found that REALLY helped this machine, was putting a piece of plywood on the leg supports and adding about 80lbs. We immediately noticed an increase in stability, and we both think it got a little quieter too.
While we had a fun time testing this machine, it's not what I'm looking for. If you are limited on space and generally work with smaller projects, I don't think you can go wrong with this machine. I enjoy making larger items and really need something heavier with a larger motor and longer tables. My wife said if I make a new dining room table from Walnut as the next project, I can get the 12" Grizzly Jointer I have been drooling over. This machine will be going up for sale shortly, it will be for sale locally but will be posted in the classified section some time this weekend.