Anyone ever seen a jointer / planer like this before?

[Dennis Aspö]

On a local board for sale for 550 euros, made in Finland I think, 50s or 60s perhaps. It planes in an odd way, the jointer tables are also used for planing, you can see a roller for planing work on it. You swing out the contraption in the middle and use it to press down the work piece, then you feed it in like in an ordinary planer.

http://i.imgur.com/BgIMGY5.jpg

Thought it looked interesting and I'd be curious to know if this system was used in the US any, and if anyone here has used one if so?

[John Spitters]

Looks like it has a feed roller on the infeed table, and that the portion that swings out over the jointer would simply press down on the board enabling it to work similar to a power feeder for a jointer but not as a planer..

[Dennis Aspö]

This is 100% guaranteed a planer and not a power feed. I am not guessing at the function. I was told this by local woodworkers with knowhow of old machines, including one who owns a similar machine in his business, a Stenberg KEV 600 from the 50s which planes in this exact manner.

edit: Example of somebody elses KEV 600:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_SfnCvFsYU

[Peter Aeschliman]

That is fascinating. I've never seen a machine like that, but now that I see it in the video, I think I understand how it works... the key seems to be that you lower the infeed table significantly so that the feed roller can press the workpiece upward against the flat reference surface/"table" on that overhead contraption. It's just an upside down planer.

Very cool and quite simple.

[Erik Loza]

It is indeed cool but can you imagine the chips if you were planing a full-width board? LOL.

Erik

[Peter Quinn]

I feel like its missing some of the stuff a decent planner would include, like anti kick back fingers, chip breaker, pressure bar, outside roller, and dust collection. Oh...and gravity. When planing a big long board the one feed roller no has to do a 100% effort to fight the force of gravity, with a standard head over planer, gravity is one force that helps hold the boards down. Got any close ups of surface quality or vids of wide stock being processed?

[Mike Cutler]

I want one!!

Very cool, that video sows how it's used.

[Phil Thien]

Well there have been plans for little contraptions to turn jointers into planers. And of course Inca had the 8-5/8" jointer which converted into a planer with a contraption that clamped on (though it was not power fed, you had to push the stock through).

[Bill Leonard]

I Believe I saw something similar to this in 1968 on the Dong Nai River south of Saigon. I landed my helicopter on it picked up a SEAL Team.

[Phil Thien]

Oh, and a similar style (albeit smaller) is picture in one of James Krenov's books.

[Andrew Hughes]

I was going to post the same as Phil,reminds me of the Inca jointer planer James K used, I like all the leavers and knobs it uses if I had it I would feel like a mad scientist woodworker.Very cool plus. I also like jointers of any style.Thanks for sharing.

[Phil Thien]

I was going to post the same as Phil,reminds me of the Inca jointer planer James K used, I like all the leavers and knobs it uses if I had it I would feel like a mad scientist woodworker.Very cool plus. I also like jointers of any style.Thanks for sharing.

Well Krenov had an Inca later but in one of the books it shows him in a shop back in Europe somewhere using a larger cast-iron unit with the features of the unit above.

[Andrew Hughes]

My mistake I thought it was a early style machine.Oh well wrong again.🐔

[Kent Adams]

I believe that is the USS Robert F. Kennedy. :)

[Jim Wheeler]

Well there have been plans for little contraptions to turn jointers into planers. And of course Inca had the 8-5/8" jointer which converted into a planer with a contraption that clamped on (though it was not power fed, you had to push the stock through).

Back in the 70's, before I could afford some kind of thickness planer, I bought one of those Inca thicknessing "contraptions" and adapted it to work on my Rockwell Delta 8 inch jointer. It wasn''t difficult to do, but I can't say I thought much of the planing results I got with it. Being hand fed and gravity taking its toll, it was difficult to get smooth even cuts. It used a spring to hold the work up against the plate, with pressure being controlled by adjusting the height of the infeed table. For long heavy boards it was more or less useless.

I got the idea from James Krenov's books which showed his jointer with a thicknessing attachment. I had also seen one in a British woodworking magazine in the early 70's; apparently they were quite common in Europe. I have also seen plans for something similar but shop-built in an old woodworking book on the web, but I dis-remember where.

I think the idea has merit for occasional thicknessing - especially with a powered infeed roller like the one in the youtube video - but not for extensive milling of rough stock. I used mine occasionally for getting a parallel thickness after first sawing to thickness on the bandsaw; I wasn't removing much material. I still have the attachment, but haven't used it in about 30 years.

Jim

He who welds steel with flaming pine cones may accomplish anything!

[Phil Thien]

Back in the 70's, before I could afford some kind of thickness planer, I bought one of those Inca thicknessing "contraptions" and adapted it to work on my Rockwell Delta 8 inch jointer. It wasn''t difficult to do, but I can't say I thought much of the planing results I got with it. Being hand fed and gravity taking its toll, it was difficult to get smooth even cuts. It used a spring to hold the work up against the plate, with pressure being controlled by adjusting the height of the infeed table. For long heavy boards it was more or less useless.

I got the idea from James Krenov's books which showed his jointer with a thicknessing attachment. I had also seen one in a British woodworking magazine in the early 70's; apparently they were quite common in Europe. I have also seen plans for something similar but shop-built in an old woodworking book on the web, but I dis-remember where.

I think the idea has merit for occasional thicknessing - especially with a powered infeed roller like the one in the youtube video - but not for extensive milling of rough stock. I used mine occasionally for getting a parallel thickness after first sawing to thickness on the bandsaw; I wasn't removing much material. I still have the attachment, but haven't used it in about 30 years.

Jim

He who welds steel with flaming pine cones may accomplish anything!

I had the same one. And I thought that while it worked well, it was rather difficult to feed stock through the thing. Longer stock was easier than shorter stock because it was easier to get an advantage on the stock.

I ultimately sold it and got a Dewalt DW734 planer, figuring I'd use a sled with the thing. My thought was I was going to need to consolidate my shop due to a problem we were having at the storefront I rent (non woodworking business). The planer could be made easily portable so it would help out in that regard.

Ultimately, the DW734 planer and sled worked very well, but I did stumble upon a Ryobi JP155 jointer. This is a tiny 6" benchtop model, made in Japan. Don't confuse it with today's benchtop jointers, these were made 20 years ago and have an amazingly well thought-out fence and they're just crazy good. They still make them though I believe production moved to China at some point (I'm not positive on that, though). They still sell them with the Ryobi label in Japan, though, but they don't export them to the US. Ryobi-Japan tools (cordless tools, etc.) are still produced, you just can't normally get them here. They're very fine tools, though.

So anyway the little benchtop jointer comes in very handy for smaller pieces. Anything over 6" wide or very long gets the planer sled.

Now that I've had discreet machines, I don't think I'd go back to a combination machine. I time to switch functions back/forth is just too much for me.

[Peter Kelly]

550 seems like a decent deal. Could just use it in jointer mode and buy a separate planer later on.

[Dennis Aspö]

I have a smaller 8" combo jointer/planer of the brand emco, it's a hobby machine, but it fits my shop much better. Someday I'd like something a little larger but I can wait for the perfect deal to pop up.

I asked the guy here with the KEV and he said his planer works OK, but the last 15cm tend to have .3mm of snipe, he said it joints better than almost any other machine he has used in compensation, and the shaper is invaluable. Still my little emco has no snipe that I can detect, either on the planer or jointer. Used to get snipe on the jointer but adjusting the blades fixed that.

[Michael Weber]

Watch one on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S_SfnCvFsYU&feature=youtu.be