Jet Jointer Planer - JJP 12HH

[Prashun Patel]

Does anyone own the Jet Jointer/planer combo? I'm strongly considering this machine for its quick change over. I like have the helical head on both jointer and planer.

Reviews?

[Billy Elliott]

I have one and really like it. I like the helical head - rally smooth finish. It is easy to convert. I have a 13" and 20" planer, but use the Jet. It is easier to convert than get to the others and a much smoother finish. It is heavy, especially top heavy - 600 lbs in shipping crate. Be sure to have some help and be sure to get a mobile base.
Wish I had got it sooner.

[Kenneth Walton]

I have it. Works well, relatively quiet. Quick changeover. 12" jointing is awesome.

The motor runs a bit hot so I replaced the cover panel with steel mesh. The jointer tables are a bear to set up, but have held their flatness well. I'd like an extra foot or two of jointer tables on each end for longer pieces, but it's OK. Some weird noises occasionally but nothing's failed yet. The euro guard takes a while to get used to.

Good machine, especially if you can get it during the 15% off sale.

[Prashun Patel]

15% off sale? Do tell!!!

[Kenneth Walton]

A couple times a year Jet runs a 15% off sale. Usually spring and fall I believe? I'm not sure the exact timing though. Quite nice for the expensive stuff if you can wait!

[mreza Salav]

Prashun, there was a member here (forgot his name but is making guitars, had a sawstop too) that was very unhappy with his JJP-12 saying the jointer goes out of alignment after several change overs (I can't find the specific threads). I don't have that machine but it might be worth checking if that was an isolated instance or is more common.

[Curt Harms]

15% off sale? Do tell!!!

Like this weekend! Actually July 24 & 25th. 15% off Jet & Powermatic. I don't know where in Jersey you're located but there's a Woodcraft in Wilmington,Delaware. I forget - what's the sales tax in Delaware again:confused:.

http://mobile.epaperflip.com/?docid=3bdffd2f-cb59-41d5-bfc5-a4db00f4fc75&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1#{%22page%22:1}

[Peter Kelly]

Prashun, there was a member here (forgot his name but is making guitars, had a sawstop too) that was very unhappy with his JJP-12 saying the jointer goes out of alignment after several change overs (I can't find the specific threads). I don't have that machine but it might be worth checking if that was an isolated instance or is more common.http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?225154-Easily-adjustable-jointer-NOT-the-JJP-12HH

[mreza Salav]

Thanks Peter, it was John Coloccia (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?48084-John-Coloccia).
I remember he had complained about this issue a few times over different threads.

[Prashun Patel]

Oooh, thanks for this. I did not consider the ease of alignment. This machine got high marks from FWW for quick switchover.

I'm tempted to step up to the Hammer A3-31...

[mreza Salav]

Oooh, thanks for this. I did not consider the ease of alignment. This machine got high marks from FWW for quick switchover.

I'm tempted to step up to the Hammer A3-31...


I would if I were you.

[Peter Kelly]

You're really not far from the Felder showroom in Delaware so it's worth a look.

Just difficut going in there and seeing the AD 741 sitting next to the A3-31...

[Earl Rumans]

If you can swing the cost of the A3, then that is definitely the way to go. That's the machine I wanted, just couldn't afford it.

[John Coloccia]

It's not so bad anymore, Prashun. I finally got it under control. It's a real PITA, though, when it goes out of alignment. At least, it CAN be a real PITA if you're not really familiar with the unit.

Personally, I would get the Hammer. The Jet isn't a bad unit. It performs well. Now that I finally have a reasonable way to get it aligned, even that is not so terrible. For a little more money, though, you can have a Hammer, so why not?

[Rod Sheridan]

Oooh, thanks for this. I did not consider the ease of alignment. This machine got high marks from FWW for quick switchover.

I'm tempted to step up to the Hammer A3-31...

I would, and did..............Rod.

[Victor Robinson]

Oooh, thanks for this. I did not consider the ease of alignment. This machine got high marks from FWW for quick switchover.

I'm tempted to step up to the Hammer A3-31...

C'mon, we all know this is what will happen. Just do it. :p

[Lewis Justis]

I have had mine since last September. I will admit that it took longer than I expected to get the tables dialed in, but the results were well worth the effort. It has stayed in adjustment despite frequent changeover. The changover is fast and easy. Yes, i would like to have the Hammer, but with the insert head, you are looking at double the price. No regrets.

[Prashun Patel]

Actually, the A3-31 Hammer is $3850 right now WITH the spiral cutter head if you pick it up; the JJP12-HH is $3400, so they're in shooting range of each other.

I've read some reports of out-of-flat tables on the Hammer, though.

[Cliff Polubinsky]

Prashun,

I've got the Hammer and like it a lot. It's built like a tank. There are a couple of additions to plan on, if not right away, then down the line.

I think the digital gauge is a definite. If you want it mobile and don't need to go through doors, the mobile kit is another one. I first put mine on a regular mobile base but trying to push it around without dragging by the tables was a problem. The Hammer mobile base works much better. Only caveat is that you are moving the machine along it's wide dimension, not the narrow one.

If you want to keep the purchase price as low as possible these can be added later. There doesn't seem to be any price advantage buying accessories with the machine.

Cliff

[John Coloccia]

Actually, the A3-31 Hammer is $3850 right now WITH the spiral cutter head if you pick it up; the JJP12-HH is $3400, so they're in shooting range of each other.

I've read some reports of out-of-flat tables on the Hammer, though.

My original Jet tables weren't flat either. They had to send me a new machine.

[mreza Salav]

At that price difference Hammer is a clear winner IMO.

[Curt Harms]

Actually, the A3-31 Hammer is $3850 right now WITH the spiral cutter head if you pick it up; the JJP12-HH is $3400, so they're in shooting range of each other.

I've read some reports of out-of-flat tables on the Hammer, though.

Check Jet's web site. I did just now and they're doing a "price too low to advertise click here" thing. When I clicked there it came up $2860. I presume 15% would come off that but I'm not certain. If the Jet were $3400 and the Hammer were $3800 it'd be a no brainer. If it really is $2860-15%($429)=$2431 that'd require some thought. It's also ship direct from the manufacturer so no having to haul.

[Prashun Patel]

Curt-
As luck would have it, Woodcraft has it for $2850 - Helical head and all. Free shipping. I mean, it's really hard to pass up at that price.

I've been drooling over the Hammer and now even the FS30 Minimax... One more day to decide...

[Peter Kelly]

One more day? This is a big decision, why rush it?

Would recommend the FS30 over any of the aforementioned machines.

[Prashun Patel]

I mean one day for the Woodcraft Sale.

[John Coloccia]

Curt-
As luck would have it, Woodcraft has it for $2850 - Helical head and all. Free shipping. I mean, it's really hard to pass up at that price.

I've been drooling over the Hammer and now even the FS30 Minimax... One more day to decide...

FWIW, I spent less than $2000 for my Jet JJP12 when I bought it new several years ago. If someone bought a new one for less than $2000, it wouldn't be a bad deal...you'd get your money's worth out of it. Used, they're probably a steal because the performance is really quite good once it's all squared away. That Jet you're looking at, even with the helical head, is not worth $3400, or even the $2850 you can get it for on sale. It's just not. That's my big problem with it. To be worth $3000, or more, it just needs to be better.

Anyhow, when you're out at a bar and you ask your drinking buddies if you should have another scotch, what are they going to say? If you ask your woodworking buddies how to spend your money, what do you think we're going to say? I will tell you that I wish I had bought the Hammer. In the long run, the price difference is just not all that meaningful. What is it? Maybe a couple of projects worth of wood and hardware? There's nothing particularly wrong with the Jet. The Hammer is simply a better machine.

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks for some fantastic insight, John.

[Cliff Polubinsky]

Prashun,

I agonized over the same choice. The Hammer seemed the better machine but the Jet was less money. After going back and forth so many times my wife told me that if I bought the Jet I would always wonder if I should have bought the Hammer. If I bought the Hammer I wouldn't wonder if I should have bought the jet.

She knows me too well.

Cliff

[Curt Harms]

Curt-
As luck would have it, Woodcraft has it for $2850 - Helical head and all. Free shipping. I mean, it's really hard to pass up at that price.

I've been drooling over the Hammer and now even the FS30 Minimax... One more day to decide...

Does the $2850 include the 15% off? I paid around $1850 for the straight bladed version from sales and surplus in Auburn WA. but that was in probably 2006 or so. What costs the same today as it did in 2006? I expect the list is pretty short.

[Paul McGaha]

If it were me, I think I'd go with the Hammer.

In fact, If I was ever to do another shop, it might have quite a bit of Hammer in it.

My $.02.

PHM

[Prashun Patel]

Just an update:

Both the FS30 and the A3-31 seem to be easy to use and changeover.

The critical differences for me are:

FS30: Has a Tersa head which users seem to love for its ease of blade change. I do mill a lot of from-the-woods lumber so having a beater and fine set of knives is appealing.

A3-31: The spiral cutter block seems to be a little quieter. Also, the digital gauge gets good marks. It also has the sliding fence which allows it to stay in place when flipping up the tables. I am not sure if that's good or bad because it seems like it'd require more space behind the unit. Hammer is also having a summer promotion right now, so the price is competitive with the Jet I was considering.

[Matt Winterowd]

Prashun, I've weighed in on the Tersa vs. spiral head issue before and I would take the spiral every time. Tersa is really easy to change, and when they're fresh, they leave a sweet surface. But at the end of the day they still get nicked up easily, aren't cheap to replace, and don't handle figured woods as well. As a hobby woodworker, it will be a long time before you every even think about rotating the cutters on a spiral head unless you run a rock or a nail through the machine.

I would also say that I've gotten amazing service from Felder and that's worth a lot. We got a bandsaw with a bad motor starter and they sent a tech out and upgraded the whole electrical system including the motor to avoid a small chance of a future warranty issue. Really good working with them.

[Erik Loza]

....But at the end of the day they still get nicked up easily, aren't cheap to replace, and don't handle figured woods as well....

Matt, I have to disagree with those statements. In my experience, Tersa knives don't get knicked more easily than any other knife and if that truly is a concern for guys, carbide Tersas are available. Regarding cost, my favorite dealer for Tersa is W. Moore Profiles and according to their site, a single 300mm HS/S Tersa knife (my favorite alloy) is $17.25...

http://www.wmooreprofiles.com/c-1007-hss.aspx

.... Which means that it would cost the owner $52 to change the entire set of knives on an FS30 Classic, giving him six cutting edges, since the knives are double-sided. No clue what competitors sell their insert teeth for but I have hard time believing it could be much more competitive that that.

Also, I don't know where this got started but Tersa knives do just as good a job on figured wood. In fact, I would argue that a set of sharp HS/S Tersa knives gives a better finish on 95% of the wood a guy would ever run than any spiral will. For conversation's sake, I took this photo many years ago, on our (then) shop FS30 Smart. El-Cheapo chrome steel Tersa knives that already had a ton of board-feet on them, on this piece of African Mohagany. The photo is obviously staged (I cleaned up the machine) but that board was run through that machine...

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/erikloza/Mini%20Max%20Combo%20Seminars/FS30Smartplaningoutfeed.jpg

The projection and rake angle of a Tersa knife is essentially the same as any of the spirals, which also means that it's equally quiet. 70db at idle, in fact. To put it into perspective, I have sold literally hundreds of Minimax jointer/planers over the last decade and can count on less than one hand the number of owners who told me they wanted a spiral head after using the Tersa.

Some of the reasons I like Tersa:

1.) Obviously, the speed of knife change but more importantly, the options it gives you: HS/S, carbide, Chromium steel, M42 Cobalt, and also these new coated knives from Kanefusa (which I haven't tried yet). Just like bandsaws: Would you want to be able to use only one blade?
2.) As Prashun mentioned, the fact that you can keep some dull or beater knives around for general-purpose thicknessing, then swap in the HS/S ones for the super-fine finish.
3.) "If" the knives ever get knicked, you just loosen the gib bars and scooch one of the knives over a mm or so, which will solve any streaking on the board.
4.) The fact that you can mix and match knives on the same head. For example, mix HS/S and carbide, so that you get the durability as well as finish quality. This is a common trick in pro shops. In fact, Martin even supplies owners with a pair of dummy knives for their jointers and planers.

One a jobsite/contractor-level machine, where you might be on 110V, then spiral makes more sense. Or, if you have a big industrial planer where you are running tons of board-feet of flooring, then the spiral makes more sense but for the home or one-man shop, Tersa, hands-down. No doubt about it. Just my 2-cents, as always.

Erik

[Matt Winterowd]

Erik, I totally respect your experience and position, and of course you are correct that many shops are indeed extremely well served by Tersa heads. There's no question that it's a very nice system and they are far and away superior to any other straight knife system that I'm aware of. And the surface quality off of a sharp set of knives is second to none. I should also be clear that I did not mean to say that Tersa knives handle figured woods any worse or get nicked any more easily than any other straight knife system. Again, on the whole I think they do better than any other straight knife. But I do mean to say that it has not been my experience that they match the performance of a high quality carbide insert spiral head in those regards.

I will just say that I came to my position based on me and my crew having run tens of thousands of board feet of everything from spruce to wenge and bubinga through both types of heads. We use a lot of highly figured woods, woods with interlocking grain, and woods that are hard on cutters. After about 4 years of using both styles of cutters side-by-side, often sequentially on the same piece of wood, our shop found it to be worth the expense and effort to actually replace the Tersa heads on our Martin machines with Byrd shelix heads due to both better performance as well as lower cost to operate.

Obviously that speaks more to the commercial scenario that you concede to the spiral head, but I guess I still don't understand the logic of why the Tersa head would be the clear preference for the home shop. One of the more lightly used machines in our shop, which still outstrips the volume of the typical home user by an order of magnitude, finally had to have it's inserts rotated to a sharp edge after 2 1/2 years. We never touched a single insert before that. As I stated in my previous post, a hobby user will most likely not have to even think about their cutters again for literally years barring some unfortunate mishap. Will it pay for itself? Probably not. And I would never tell anyone that they need a spiral head, so break the bank. But if the option is realistic, would I rather spend my time in my hobby shop doing just about anything else besides touching my jointer/planer knives? Absolutely. For me, it moves those machines closer to the appliance model. You turn the machine on, it does it's job really well, you turn it off and you walk away. Clean the sawdust off and wax the tables from time to time. That's it.

If that doesn't fit anyone's thought process or pocketbook, great! I will be happy to congratulate them on their new machine regardless of how it's configured! :)

[Bill McNiel]

Prashun,
Please post your final decision and reasoning. I've been considering selling my vintage Makita and getting a spiral head Hammer for a while now and would appreciate your input.
Mahalo-Bill

[Erik Loza]

Matt, I can't disagree with any of your experiences, particularly in a shop setting where the priority is running as many board-feet as possible in a hurry, except to say that IMHO, A fresh set of HS/S Tersa knives beats the finish on spiral any day of the week. That's based on personal experience. One thing I have seen is that as the carbide inserts wear (and they all do...), the degradation in finish is gradual, so we may tend not to notice it. It's like the suspension in an older vehicle: You didn't realize how sloppy it was until new bushing got installed, then "Oh, wow!". Just my 2-cents as always.

Erik

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks for all the help, everyone. A few people phoned and pm'd me with very valuable insight. Thank you.

I ended up purchasing the Hammer A3-31, with the Silent (helical) Cutter block and the depth gauge.

I can't find many bad things said about either this machine or the Minimax FS30. The noise level, durability of the spiral head, the praise for the depth gauge, and the promotional pricing tipped the scale for me. I think these features will be more important to me than the longer table and some of the reported convenience features of the FS30.

Now I just gotta sell my jointer and planer. I hate cleaning them up for photos!!!

[Dennis Aspö]

Matt, I have to disagree with those statements. In my experience, Tersa knives don't get knicked more easily than any other knife and if that truly is a concern for guys, carbide Tersas are available. Regarding cost, my favorite dealer for Tersa is W. Moore Profiles and according to their site, a single 300mm HS/S Tersa knife (my favorite alloy) is $17.25...

http://www.wmooreprofiles.com/c-1007-hss.aspx

.... Which means that it would cost the owner $52 to change the entire set of knives on an FS30 Classic, giving him six cutting edges, since the knives are double-sided. No clue what competitors sell their insert teeth for but I have hard time believing it could be much more competitive that that.

Can't believe Europe managed to beat America and Texas of all place, in prices for once. I know a german webshop that sells almost only planer blades and a HS/S 300mm tersa cutter is under 10 euros a piece.

I sorely wish my little jointer/planer was able to take tersa blades but it doesn't and I paid nearly 90 euros for a 3 piece set... At least I got two sets and they are re-sharpenable.

[Bill Adamsen]

12" (310mm) would be a little too small for my needs for either tool. But I have found a combination j/p very workable. Good luck with your purchase Prashun!

[Frank Martin]

Prashun,

Enjoy your new machine! I had an asian J/P in the past and upgraded to Minimax as part of a combo machine. These machines are so much nicer than asian ones and in my opinion well worth the price difference.



Thanks for all the help, everyone. A few people phoned and pm'd me with very valuable insight. Thank you.

I ended up purchasing the Hammer A3-31, with the Silent (helical) Cutter block and the depth gauge.

I can't find many bad things said about either this machine or the Minimax FS30. The noise level, durability of the spiral head, the praise for the depth gauge, and the promotional pricing tipped the scale for me. I think these features will be more important to me than the longer table and some of the reported convenience features of the FS30.

Now I just gotta sell my jointer and planer. I hate cleaning them up for photos!!!

[mreza Salav]

Congrat's! I think you made a good decision.

[David Nelson1]

Oooh, thanks for this. I did not consider the ease of alignment. This machine got high marks from FWW for quick switchover.

I'm tempted to step up to the Hammer A3-31...


Do it and don't look back!

[Chris Parks]

Just an update:

Both the FS30 and the A3-31 seem to be easy to use and changeover.

The critical differences for me are:

FS30: Has a Tersa head which users seem to love for its ease of blade change. I do mill a lot of from-the-woods lumber so having a beater and fine set of knives is appealing.

A3-31: The spiral cutter block seems to be a little quieter. Also, the digital gauge gets good marks. It also has the sliding fence which allows it to stay in place when flipping up the tables. I am not sure if that's good or bad because it seems like it'd require more space behind the unit. Hammer is also having a summer promotion right now, so the price is competitive with the Jet I was considering.

Exactly the dilemma I faced and a search will find a thread I started here to question it. If the MM had a spiral segmented head it would have been a shoe in but as good as the Tersa head is and I love the concept I went with the Hammer. One thing I like about the Hammer is the in handle height instrument, it is dead on and repeatable and I think is better than a digital readout as the resolution is better. I smile every time I set it to a thickness and it is spot on every time. I am going to make a few modifications to it when I get the time but they apply to any lower end combination machine, I have the stuff here to convert it to an electric lift and I would like to be able to set a target height on the lift but that may be a step to far.