Another Jointer Advice Question

[Jay Knoll]

OK everyone,

I'm confused -- everyone says that jointers are simple machines, so which 8" one should I look at?


Delta 37-365X X5 $1669
Delta 37-550A $1344 these are both supposed to be DJ20 on Amazon

Grizzly G0500 $695

Bridgewood BW-8J8" $949 Taiwan with a US Baldor motor
Yorkcraft YC 8J8" $599 China

Any thoughts from those who have actually gotten their hands on any of these machines would certainly be appreciated!

With this large a swing in prices, I'm wondering if you really are getting what you are paying for!

Jay

[Rick Lizek]

Simple is deceptive. Basically a simple machine but more sophisticated than you might think.

You are comparing the DJ20 parallelogram to dovetailed type jointers. The Parallelogram is a superior adjustment system and more expensive to make. It allows more adjustments than a dovetailed way system and should the table ever warp you can put a new table on wheras a dovetailed table, if it warps down the road the machine must be reground as a complete unit with both tables mounted on the base casting. It's not real easy to change a paralleogram table but I've had to regrind dovetailed ways models and that requires special oversize grinders.

Anyone of those units will do the job. I've seen reviews in the hobby mags covering all units mentioned. Some have four knives versus three knives. Not really a big deal. Four knives mean more time changing so that might be a bad thing if you aren't familiar with knife changing. BridgeWood is solid stuff as is the Sunhill. Grizzly is getting steadily better over the years. I work on machines and have worked on most of the brands mentioned except Yorkcraft. Best warranty service is on the Delta. I hear good things on the Sunhill and YorkCraft.

You might also look into the new insert cutterheads. Thought I heard ShopFox was coming out with a low priced insert head jointer.

[lou sansone]

hi rick

you are correct about many the dovetailed jointers made in taiwan that their tables are part of the total dovetail assembly and this makes them hard to adjust. Older american machines like the porter 16" and wider, newman 60 and larger and I believe northfield 16" and larger had the tables made seperate from the dovtailed ways and then properly fitted for parallel and coplainer. At least on the newman you can actuall slide the tables away from the cutter head for service and knife changes. In addition some of these american machines had a couple of other features that showed that the dovetailed design was not all that inferior to the parallelogram design ( oliver did use this design and it is a work of art ). Those features were the ability to tilt the infeed table to allow paternmakers to form draft angles on their work, and the ability to tilt the outfeed table to allow for a " spring joint" for jointing boards. Having said all that the DJ 20, 30 and 42 are real nice machines, especially if you can find them on the secondary market in good shape.

lou

[Rick Lizek]

Lou, I'm well aware of the machines you mentioned as I've been involved in machine repair for over 20 years. I've worked on all the machines you mentioned and then some over the years. You can slide the tables apart on the Olivers and Crescents as well. The larger machines with dovetailed ways often had four point leveling capabilities. I didn't see any point in bringing that up as none of the units he referred to had this feature. I was trying to focus on Jays particular question and felt no need to bring up too much info that wasn't necessarily relevent at the moment. I was trying to point out why there was such as price difference between the DJ20 and other units he was looking at. Lots of folks don't realize this point and only see the dollar difference. The parallelgram design would be similare to the inclined ways found on Crescent and Olivers. The parallelogram design is superior to models that only used the dovetailed ways. Take for instance the older 8" and 6" Delta jointers. If the tables warped it requires grinding the whole machine to bring the tables back into coplanar. I have shimmed simple warped tables into usability.

Dovetailed ways with independent four point leveling would be as good as paralleogram ways. Plain dovetailed ways require the whole unit to be ground if the tables ever warp. Old machines can warp. I've had a number of Olivers resurfaced over the years. Most were 50's macbines and perhaps it was a bad batch of castings or whatever but it can happen.

[lou sansone]

rick
hey no problem with all of that. I am sure you have see a lot of machines and it sound like you know your stuff. Just thought that I might provide the historical perspective.

so what is your opinion of an oliver 260D ? I have been window shopping

lou

[Michael Gabbay]

Jay -

Keep in mind that the majority of the jointers are made by the same manufacturer in Tiawan. I think its GeeTech. The Bridgewood, Grizzley, Sunhill, and Delta dovetail tabled jointers are all basically the same. Differences are the motor, levers vs. wheels for the table adjustment, and customer support. I'd look at price and customer service since they are coming from the same factory.

I have 2 Bridgewood machines (6" jointer and 17" BS). They are both very nice tools and the customer service with Wilke has been great. I've actually never had any issues with either that required more than a phone call to clarify an adjustment.

Mike

[Rick Lizek]

The Older 260 was a tilting table. I'm not especially over enthusiastic on old iron. Been through that phase and yes you can get good deals on stuff if you know how to fix it up but as far as old iron being better than new iron... Yes and no! Sometimes old iron should be left where it is.
I've seen various verions of the 260. It's ok if that's what you want. Can't really put a zero clearance insert on for certain applications.

I don't care who made the machine or how much it costs, it's the operator that really makes the difference. I've seen furniture made by guys with a mandrel and blade mounted on a piece of plywood that was better than stuff made by guys with Northfields or Martins.

[lou sansone]

The Older 260 was a tilting table. I'm not especially over enthusiastic on old iron. Been through that phase and yes you can get good deals on stuff if you know how to fix it up but as far as old iron being better than new iron... Yes and no! Sometimes old iron should be left where it is.
I've seen various verions of the 260. It's ok if that's what you want. Can't really put a zero clearance insert on for certain applications.

I don't care who made the machine or how much it costs, it's the operator that really makes the difference. I've seen furniture made by guys with a mandrel and blade mounted on a piece of plywood that was better than stuff made by guys with Northfields or Martins.

I agree with most of what you have said. the original oliver 260 was a tilt table, but I believe after the 1930's they were tilting arbor saws with dual motors. any thoughts on that machine ?

[Jay Knoll]

Thread hijack, thread hijack! Condition yellow! Back to the original topic please! :)

Sorry guys, just couldn't resist.

Thanks for the input, I'm still considering the alternatives. I guess I'll go to the woodworking show in Tampa next weekend to look at stuff in person. At least this will force me to delay my decision until then

[Jay Knoll]

Hey everyone

Well I'm embarrassed! I just dug into a pile a woodworking magazines that had accumulated while I was away and I found the Sept American Woodworker review on 8" jointers. Sorry to bother you before I did my homework

Jay

[Michael Gabbay]

No problem Jay... we just assumed that this was a future gloat notification. You've now been officially registered and will have 3 months to produce photos of the actual gloat! :D

[lou sansone]

sorry for the hijack


lou

[Dev Emch]

For the record, there were an extremely low number of tilting table 260s made. These are extreme collector saws. The bulk of 260s were tilt arbors and you will be hard pressed to find a better made unit than a red label 260. My only complaint is that the tilting flask interferes with some of the add on tables you can attach. This is not the case with the 88. Enough Said.

As for jointers. First of all, a dovetailed bed is called a wedge bed jointer. Now virtually every 6 in and 8 in wedge bed I have seen had the wedge and table cast and machined as a single unit. In time, you may have to shim and shimming is done at the ways. Mostly on the outfeed ways but at the ways nonetheless. It is also very hard to dial in a wedge & bed assembly into a machine tool to machine either the top or the ways. They are related to one another vis a vis the angle between the table and the ways. This makes the design simple but the machine work critical. If you have a hyper accurate position jig, then this is easy. But most machine shops who take on rework of jointers such as a powermatic 60 do not. You guys have been warned!

I am not intimate with the DJ jointers so I cannot say if they are a true parallogram design or not. The one I am intimate with is the Martin T-54. It would be nice if some DJ owners could post some internal photos and more gore detail as to how this system works. What I do know, is that it is NOT a wedgebed. This is neither good nor bad... just is.

In the true parallogram system, the distance between the infeed lip and the cutter head cylinder never changes. In a wedge bed, this is not true. The same applies to those jointers using independent wedge positioning such as the larger generals and the oliver 166 for example. The deeper a cut you take the farther the lip gets from the cylinder. For the most part, this is not that big a deal. On larger jointers such as the northfield HD, the oliver 166, the oliver 12, the newman 60, etc. etc., this distance can be reset by moving the infeed table in or out along its infeed wedge. I can also shim some of these by placing shims between the table and the wedgebed.

In some cases such as the northfield, this is not that easy to do. The northfield HDs (12, 16, & 24 in) have machined dovetail ways on the wedges which allow the tables to move in and out. You can shim some with these but its harder than say shimming out the tables on a porter.

In general, I am not a fan of the 6 in and 8 in wedge bed jointers. Their overly simplistic design can and often leads to frustration which owners of olivers, martins, porters and newmans, etc. will never experience.

The gist of the parallogram jointer is simple. By incorporating the movement of a geometric rombus, you obtain up and down movement of the table while maintaining a constant distance between the infeed lip and the cutter cylinder.

In practice, this is done by placing the table on four pivot bars each of which has its own set of bushings or bearings. I believe the martin actually uses encapsulated, grease packed needle bearings for this purpose. That gives you a total of eight bearings per table and two tables per jointer.

On the infeed table, the bars closest to the cutter cylinder are fixed on a single pivot shaft which is attached to the body of the jointer with two needle bearings. So when these move, they move as a fixed pair. The pivot bars farthest from the cylinder and closest to the edge of the infeed table are different. These move individually. The pivot shaft is actually machined as an eccentric. If I rotate this pivot shaft, the eccentric actually raises or lowers the pivot axis of this shaft relative to the freely moving pivot bars. Now the freely moving pivot bars will track the semi fixed pivot bars in the front. But the plane of the table will change for this to happen. This is how I can dial in and control the parallism of the jointer and its how I can obtain both concave and convex cuts.

There are two dials with needles attached to each of the pivot shafts. As the forward pivot shaft rotates, the needle indicates the depth of cut. The aft pivot shaft never rotates unless an adjustment is needed. The aft pivot bars are free floating and track the forward pivot shaft and bars. So an indicator reading aft pivot shaft rotation will tell you how much concave or convex cut you have dialed in. To quote a german engineer... "Logical, No?"

The bearings are semi sealed and do not get gummed up as wedge bed jointer ways sometimes do. Every few years, you have to break down your jointer and clean out the grease and sawdust and reset your gibs to get that nice silky movement again. This is not the case with the parallogram. They are also darn easy to dial in. The most difficult jointer to dial in is one with independent four way suspension like some of the old cresants and olivers and larger generals. What makes them difficult also provides you with opportunity to fine dial your jointer. So its a double edged sword. I get more adjustabilty but its harder to keep all that adjustability adjusted.

Now that you are all experts on the martin parallogram design, how about someone giving us a lecture on how the DJ is built. In particular, the DJ-20 as it seems to be one of the more popular jointers these days. I have a feeling that you will find many simularities between the martin design and the delta design if the delta design is a true parallogram jointer.

If that is indeed the case, then I would go so far as to say that the only jointer you should consider is the DJ-20 although I would not dink around with all this X-5 jazz. I would prefer a grey paint job with a standard Delta nameplate. Costs less and your not the victem of this X-5 marketing campaign. Put your money where the iron is... not the publicy.

Hope this helps...

[Rick Lizek]

Dev, I would have to say the DJ series is a true paralleogram. Similar to SCMI and others that use the parallelogram mechanism. I've taken a few apart to replace the tables in my days of a service tech for a dealer.

I would have to consider the dovetailed jointers as dovetailed. I would call the Oliver and Crescent jointer system a wedgebed like the Rockwell 18" wedgebed planer and featured on the larger Buss Planers. Four wedges under each table for the jointers.
We always referred to the wedges as inclines. Have to say you are the first I've heard refer to dovetailed ways as wedge bed.
http://www.owwm.com/PhotoIndex/detail.asp?id=1030

http://www.owwm.com/Crescent/Jointers/Jointers-General.asp

[Christopher Stahl]

Jay,
Back on topic...

I've had both the DJ20 and the Grizzly 0500, and they are both fine machines. While I believe the DJ20 is a better jointer, I don't think it's worth the difference in price. I sold the DJ20 and kept the 0500, and have been happy with my choice.

I'll have to say the Grizzly 0500 is probably the best jointer for the money, plus it's onsale for $695. I'd order it immediately before the sale is over.

chris

[Dev Emch]

O.K. Kiddies, some antomomy lessons are in store.

The term "WEDGE-BED JOINTER" refers to a jointer whose bed is supported by a wedge shaped structure. Most 6 and 8 inch jointers are wedge beds. Some of these will have dovetail shaped ways while others will not. Of the ones that have dovetail ways, most will have gibs.

One of the finest jointers ever made by US based companies is the porter 300. The first photo shows a restored belt driver belonging to my buddy Russ. I had a chance to buy this machine but it was so ugly and beat up that I declined and Russ and his Dad wound up buying it and restoring it. A historical photo of this jointer can be seen here at this URL...

http://www.owwm.com/PhotoIndex/detail.asp?id=2311

This jointer has wedges that use dovetail ways but it also has a front wedge that is split. Just infront of the cutter cylinder is a 1 inch pin. This supports the upper portion of the wege from the lower portion of the wedge. An incline raising system at the front of the jointer pushes the upper wedge portion up or down thus changing the concave and convex nature of the cut. This jointer has no tilt on the fence and is a belt driver. My porter 300 is a direct drive and has a tilting fence. Both are 1961. The porter 300 is one of those designs that just deserves an excellence in engineering award. I could write a masters degree on the engineering details of this jointer! That is why it is my main line jointer!

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Not all wedge bed jointers have dovetail ways. The most famous of these would be the northfield HD jointers. Definitely a wedge bed but no dovetails in sight. Here is a URL showing a restored northfield HD in a 16 inch width.

http://www.owwm.com/PhotoIndex/detail.asp?id=2527

The way system used by both the front and aft wedge is a flat way. There are actually four indpendendent ways on each portion of the wedge. As the wedge only has to travel a few inches, it is not needed to machine a way all the way up the length of the wedge. Northfield used an exterior bracket to contain the wedge thus completeing the way system. The insides of these ways are actually finished in babbit which makes the northfields very smooth in their actions. But because of how they did convex and concave cuts, northfields had a tendency to wear divots into the lower two ways of the outfeed wedge, thus, this feature was eliminated.


One of the oldest ways of supporting jointers tables was through the use of Four Point Independent Inclines or Ways. Again, some of these were dovetailed and some were not. It depends on which model you find. For many of the really old jointers, you will find that this was a very popular design. It has its advantages. Is this a parallogram design? No Way! The most famous jointer to use this system would be the oliver 166 and its brother, the oliver #12. The latest produced jointer to use this design must be the two larger generals made in canada. I beleive these are the last jointers currently being made that incorporate this form of table suspension. Here is a URL to a brand new, 12 inch general. The oliver design is hard to work with as it has two pedestals. This means you have to start at the floor and work you way up with a machinists level to get everything just right. The general design as is the case with earlier, pre 300 porters, was a bit easier to deal with. It had a single pedestal. My complaint with this system is that you need some clever straight edges and machine levels and some skill and patience to get it dialed in. Once dialed in, these jointers are dead nuts accurate. I know as my big jointer is like this. It is a 1949 oliver 166 with a 24 inch head sporting 4 knives and a 10 HP delta wound Louis Allis motor. I do not recommend a newcommer to this jointer! It takes some fiddling to get it to work just right. But once dialed in, Oh Boy, can it work!
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http://www.owwm.com/PhotoIndex/detail.asp?id=2269

So, who has photos of the guts of the delta DJ-20?

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