Plainer/Jointer Combo Help and feedback

[matt pool]

I need to buy a jointer. I am looking at either the Laguna or the Hammer. All the reviews of the Hammer have been great. Not a lot of feedback about the Laguna. The price of the Hammer is about 800.00 more than the Laguna. I really don't want to spend this much if possible. Does anyone out there have a Laguna and have feedback either way. There really are not a lot of reviews on this machine and it is 3000.00 which is quite a bit, I am nervous about putting that much down on a machine that will disappoint. Advice anyone?

[Jeff Monson]

There really are not a lot of reviews on this machine and it is 3000.00 which is quite a bit, I am nervous about putting that much down on a machine that will disappoint. Advice anyone?

My advice then would be to go with the Hammer, the reviews and opinions on the A3-31 speak volumes about the quality of this machine, not to mention the customer service you will recieve if necessary. I owned a A3-31, it is a great machine and well thought out. The new table design and fence are really nice additions to the machine.

Sorry I cant give you information on the Laguna as I have no experience with it....but I can attest to the Hammer line being top notch, well worth the extra money if you are looking for a tool that you will own for several years.

[Ralph Butts]

Hi Matt, I can second Jeff's thoughts on the Hammer. I considered the Laguna 16" model when I purchased in mid 2012. I purchased the 16" Hammer model and have no regrets. I am very happy with the purchase and yes I spent more money than I may have originally wanted to with options but they were "creature comforts" I wanted to have. Without opening pandora's box I would suggest that you search this forum pertaining to Laguna customer service and quality. You will obviously need to make decisions that you are comfortable with but you will want to get as much pertinent information as possible when making your choice.

[Peter Kelly]

Someone selling a Laguna (Robland) XSD B 310 on CL in Brooklyn NY. Looks decent. Less than a new one too.


http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/tls/3570145816.html

[Nick Lazz]

Matt,

I have the Hammer and love it. I know nothing about the Laguna except for my experiences with their band saw. With that said, I would go for the Hammer again, no question. (mom said if you don't have anything nice to say...)

Anyway, depending on where you are at I might be persuaded to sell mine, which is in perfect shape and moderately used over the past 2-3 years. I have considered upgrading to the newer model.

[Alan Lightstone]

I own the Laguna. It is solidly built, has a powerful motor and produces good surface quality.

But chip collection is poor in jointer mode (despite my 5HP dust collector and enlarging the DC to 6in entering the machine), and the fence design is annoying and out of parallel on mine (slightly skewed, so infeed and outfeed will never be coplanar). If I had it to do over again, I'd buy the Hammer.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Matt, I assume you're talking about the Platinum Series 12" machine?

I have the 10" spiral cutterhead version of that machine. I believe it's nearly identical, just smaller and has a 2HP motor vs. 3HP.

For me, I really wanted a spiral cutterheads more jointer capacity than my 6" machine. So I sold my planer and jointer and bought this machine. This was actually the most budget-concious way to accomplish my goals. I chose the laguna over the Grizzly and Jet 12" machines because of the slot mortiser attachment available on the Laguna.

As for quality, I did run into some issues. The motor burned out on me after doing a small batch of slot mortises, and the feeding on the planer was pretty choppy, even after waxing the beds. Laguna's customer support was initially difficult to get ahold of, but after I posted about my gripes on this forum, they were extremely helpful and responsive. They sent me a new machine with liftgate service free of charge. Probably the coolest thing they did was sending a new machine before getting the broken machine back. This was a huge advantage because it cut my downtime quite a bit, and it didn't force me to take time off of work. From what I understand, when you have a defective Grizzly machine, they won't send you the new machine until they've received the old one. This means you have to schedule two appointments- one for pickup and one for delivery. So in the long run, from a CS perspective, Laguna was good to me.

My replacement machine is fine, although I no longer use the slot mortiser out of fear that the 2HP motor can't keep up. This may not be an issue with the 3HP 12" machine. The slot mortiser attachment has quite a bit of slop/play in it... I'm think about just taking it off of the machine and never using it again.

As for performance, it's fine. The tables have stayed relatively coplanar, with only a recent adjustment to handle some snipe (just had to raise the outfeed table a bit-easy enough). As long as I keep the table waxed, the planer works well- the table does shift on me a bit when the feed rollers engage, but since the post supporting the table is centered on the cutterhead, it doesn't impact the accuracy at all.

Probably my biggest gripe is the way you have to move the fence out of the way to switch over to planer mode. This means that you have to re-square the fence every time you convert back to jointer mode. The positive stops, which should return the fence to a square position, aren't terribly reliable... so I pull the square out each time. It's so annoying to me that I've started looking for a 6" jointer to handle my edge-jointing. The aluminum fence has a fair amount of flex to it, so I never feel completely confident that it's staying put during a cut. But I haven't noticed any issues when doing glue-ups, so maybe I'm just being picky.

My gripe with re-squaring the fence seems to be addressed by the latest design of the Hammer A3-31- the fence and both tables raise as one unit... So you shouldn't need to re-square the fence each time you switch between operations.

So, if you have $3k to spend, would I buy the Laguna 12" over the A3-31? No I wouldn't. To I hate my machine? Nope, it does the job. It's hardly torture to use! It met my checklist of features and budgets. The slot mortiser is pretty crumby quality and the fence system could be better. But overall, it's okay.

I also have a Sawstop PCS, which wasn't cheap at all. The difference between my laguna and sawstop is, I have no regrets whatsoever on my Sawstop purchase. Using it makes me happy. For the laguna, I wish I had saved a while longer and bought a Grizzly, Jet, or Hammer.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: I second Alan's complain about dust collection in jointer mode. After a batch of jointing, I have to take the shopvac out. There's a huge mound of chips on the planer bed below.

[mreza Salav]

Since a few have said dust collection issues: this is universal with all combo J/P's (I have a minimax); dust collection is fair (at best) in planer mode and poor in jointer mode, period.
This is not a flaw of a particular brand, it's because you cannot get close enough to the cutter head for dust collection due to the nature of the machine.

[Jamie Buxton]

Since a few have said dust collection issues: this is universal with all combo J/P's (I have a minimax); dust collection is fair (at best) in planer mode and poor in jointer mode, period.
This is not a flaw of a particular brand, it's because you cannot get close enough to the cutter head for dust collection due to the nature of the machine.

I have a first-generation A3-31. I'd say the chip collection is pretty darn good. It is certainly better at collecting the chips than my Unisaw or Laguna bandsaw do at collecting sawdust.

[Don Welch]

You asked a specific question and even though it can sometimes be frustrating to see chiming in w/ a comment not addressing exactly what was stated - I've enjoyed the quality & customer service support [Thanks Erik!] on our 16 in Minimax J/P to the point that I wanted to jump in w/ a recommendation for their consideration as well

[Chris Fournier]

Honestly, check out the MiniMax Smart FS 30 if you are even considering the Hammer. Look at the castings and the construction of the sheet metal bases on the two machines. The MM is much more robust. I had the FS 30 and it was genius. I have since moved on to a MM CU 410 Elite S because I needed a 16" jointer and the combo machine saved valuable space in my shop. Again I looked at Hammer and Felder and again I chose the MM because it is built like a tank and represents a fantastic value. Get a Tersa cutter head, it's well worth it.

Take a close look at the sheet metal bases and the castings!

[Alan Lightstone]

Peter explained the issues of the fence far better than I did, and I couldn't agree more. I actually just built a wood box to sit on the planer bed during jointing which is hooked up to the dust collector. It's not powerful enough to suck up the chips in real time, but I can suck them up after jointing. Crazy that I had to go to those lengths to get a huge mound of chips to not go all over the place.

The fence is annoying. And flexes. And I also have to get out the square every time I switch over.

I have the 12" SCH Platinum version of the Laguna. The spiral cutterheads made it for two years of use until I just rotated them for the first time. And I probably could have waited a little longer, so great longevity on the cutter heads. Snipe is virtually non-existent when the beds are dialed in.

I would much prefer a porkchop (American) style guard to the European style.

[Chris Fournier]

I must add that the chip/dust collection on the SCM machines has not been lacking in any respect.

[matt pool]

Thank you for the feedback everyone, I was considering the Laguna 12" Platinum Series vs. the Hammer 12". I chainsaw mill my own lumber and I have 4 trees of Black Locust to joint, and the fact that the Laguna motor tends to overheat makes me nervous as well as the fence not being true. My current planer is on the fritz and I need the capacity of a 12 " jointer. I have 16 ft slabs, has anyone with the Hammer had good results with wood of this length? to Nick Lazz who has the Hammer, I am in Northern California, thanks.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I've owned an A-31 for 5 years, great machine.

I can't imagine jointing a 16 foot piece of wood, the 32 feet required is bigger than my shop.

I've jointed 8 foot pieces, for 16 you're going to need a real industrial machine, which is going to consume your budget on shipping charges..................Rod.

[Peter Kelly]

I think for 16' slabs, you're in the world of straight line rip saws and multi-head planers. If you can't cut anything down and need to work with really big pieces, you might look around for a nearby millwork shop that can dimension larger stuff easily.

I second the line of MiniMax jointer planers. I recently acquired an FS41 Elite and am very impressed with it.

[Jim Becker]

Of the two brands you mention, I'd personally opt for the Hammer...I just have a better feeling about them. That said, I have a MiniMax J/P and couldn't be happier.

Regardless of what brand and model you choose, I will tell you that I feel that these J/P combos offer a LOT of bang for the buck, giving you wider capacities for both surfacing and thicknessing in a very reasonable floor space. Do note that if you plan on buying or considering later a mortising attachment for the J/P Combo, be sure you understand where it attaches (front or back) so that it will be usable in your shop in the location you intend to put the machine. I also cheerfully endorse using a Euro-type guard on these wide machines for jointing as they work a lot better than "very large" pork-chop guards.
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That all said...16' long stock is going to be challenging for even stand-alone machines to accurately process. I've done 12' board on mine, but it's not something I would prefer to do very often due to the support needs, especially for face-jointing.

[David Kumm]

16' slabs is asking a lot of any machine with moveable tables. I run a 16" jointer and 24" planer but would take 16' stuff 8/4 or more to a planing mill and have it double side planed and straight lined one edge. Dave

[Rich Tomassetti]

Hi Matt, I have the Robland X-31 Combo (Laguna) machine. It has the 12" J/P w/ a 3hp motor and it has done everything that I threw at it! The dust and chip collection is about 85% which I consider is pretty good for a J/P.

[Nick Lazz]

Thank you for the feedback everyone, I was considering the Laguna 12" Platinum Series vs. the Hammer 12". I chainsaw mill my own lumber and I have 4 trees of Black Locust to joint, and the fact that the Laguna motor tends to overheat makes me nervous as well as the fence not being true. My current planer is on the fritz and I need the capacity of a 12 " jointer. I have 16 ft slabs, has anyone with the Hammer had good results with wood of this length? to Nick Lazz who has the Hammer, I am in Northern California, thanks.

Matt,
The beds on the combo machines aren't very long, however you can buy extensions which add about 2-3 feet total (cant remember if they're 12" or 18"). Personally I don't use the extensions on the jointer though I do have one on the outfeed side of the planer. I'm not sure there is a jointer around that will make it easier to face joint (or edge) 16' long boards. I have never had a problem or been limited with the bed length, but I have never tried anything that long.
BTW, the dust collection on the Hammer has been great for me. Also I'm in the Portland area.

[Derek Stockley]

I have a Hammer A3-26 and while it isn't perfect, it at least matches the dust collection performance of the lunchbox planer and typical 6" jointer it replaced. I would not call the dust collection poor in either mode. I would definitely buy hammer again.

[Mike Wilkins]

I currently have a different branded machine which is exactly like the Laguna Platinum 12" machine. If I were to do this over again I would give a serious look at the Hammer machines. I like that fact that the jointer tables both lift up at the same time and tilt toward the wall. This feature makes it easier to walk around the machine when in the planing mode. The Laguna Platinum machine has the tables that tilt individually and to the front of the machine. And the Hammer is just a different Felder made to a different price point, with the Felder name/reputation/quality to go along with it.