6" Craftsman jointer - thinking of buying

[Chris Barrett]

Hey all,
I'm new to woodworking but I'm gearing up to do a lot of custom work in our victorian house. Cabinets, vanities, built ins and furniture (This is a very long term project). I'm looking at finding a jointer that will help keep the cost of lumber down, I already have a 16" planer. The jointer in question is a Craftsman 2hp 6 1/8" jointer which I believe is model 351.227240.
It's belt driven, and appears to have both in and out feed table adjustment. 45" bed length.

Does anyone have opinions on this jointer? I know that a lot of the craftsman jointers were kind of crappy, and I've passed up opportunities to buy other ones. However, this one appears to be the best that craftsman made. He's asking about $200 for it.

Thanks so much!
Chris

[John Donhowe]

I don't have any experience with that specific jointer, but it looks comparable to a lot of "a step up" jointers- Grizzly, Delta, Ridgid, etc. They have, as you noted, a decently long bed length with adjustment of both infeed and outfeed tables. Also, they have center mounted fences, which I think is crucial. My first jointer was one of those crappy C'man ones, with the fence mounted at the end of the outfeed table and cantilevered over the bed. I really hated the fence in particular- hard to keep in adjustment and not nearly as robust as the Ridgid I bought on CL as a replacement.

$200 sounds like a reasonable price for the jointer you're considering- you might be able to bargain a few buck off, esp. if the knives are kinda dull. I'm sure others will recommend jumping up to an 8" jointer. Personally, I've never found my 6" jointer limiting, but it depends on what projects you have in mind. I'd say start with a 6", and use the price difference for other tools in your shop. If 6" meets your needs, no problem; you might even want to trick it out with a helical cutter head. If you need to go bigger down the road, you can always sell your 6" on CL.

[Mike Henderson]

For $200 I'd grab it. But then I'd keep my eyes open for an 8" jointer. The 6" will serve you well until you decide you need a bigger one. And for $200 you can probably sell it for that much.

Mike

[Chris Barrett]

I bought it for 175. :) There is ALOT of surface rust on there to clean off, but it ran really nice. Blades were sharp but there was a nick in one of them. Yeah I'm not sure if I'll end up needing 8" or larger. I wouldn't be able to get anything larger than an 8" down the stairs into my basement shop, that's for sure :)

[Phil Thien]

I agree w/ the others, the 6" units are abundant and will sell for what you paid (sometimes more if you fix them up nicely) if and when you upgrade to an 8" model.

I think you'll enjoy that unit.

I actually have a tiny 6" Ryobi benchtop. These are from the era when Ryobi was made in Japan, they're crazy high quality compared to what can be had these days. I may be the only guy in the world that downgraded from an 8" (I had an Inca 8-5/8"). The Inca was a combination machine. What I've found is that I'm happier with the dedicated machines (I also now have a Dewalt planer) than I was with the combination machine even though I lost 2" in face jointing.

When I need to face joint something wider than 6", I just use a planer sled.