buying a jointer

[jeff oldham]

i am leaning to buy a jointer but there is so many reviews on them its hard to decide,,i was leaning to the benchtop type,,but for not much more you can get the ridgid one,,, even the grizzly that's not too bad in price,,im just a retired woodworker so an advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated,,and which do you thing would be the easiest to change knives,,the one with straight blades or the helical inserts,,,,thank you

[Stewart Lang]

i am leaning to buy a jointer but there is so many reviews on them its hard to decide,,i was leaning to the benchtop type,,but for not much more you can get the ridgid one,,, even the grizzly that's not too bad in price,,im just a retired woodworker so an advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated,,and which do you thing would be the easiest to change knives,,the one with straight blades or the helical inserts,,,,thank you

Unless you really need the space, a floor-standing jointer will be much better built than a benchtop one, in general. Jointers are somewhat finicky machines that rely on tight tolerances and an ability to hold their settings, so a more robust jointer that doesn't get moved much will be better.

My preference has always been helical heads. The carbide knives will last you at least a year on one side (you mentioned you're a retired woodworker), and changing them, although it might take a little longer, it's almost foolproof and super easy to do. I'd definitely vote for the helical head.

[David Kumm]

Watch for a used floor standing jointer. I would not spend the extra 400-500 for an insert head on a jointer unless money is no issue. Otherwise buy a decent size machine, learn to set knives ( easy on a jointer ) and use the money for other stuff. You will find plenty of need for tools more important to your budget. Dave

[Alex Zeller]

This past summer I finally bought a jointer. It really should be based on what length wood you work with. As for width that's simple. If you work with 6" or less width boards then a 6" will work. If you build small stuff then a bench top jointer would probably work just fine. But for longer boards you'll struggle. If you have room and the funds I would get an 8" long bed floor model. My plan was to get straight blades simply because my planer is almost always used so it'll clean up any damage from the blades. But I ended up finding a used one with inserts. To me the inserts last longer but as far as replacing the blades vs inserts go I think the blades require a bit more thought process but no more time than the inserts.

If a 6" jointer will work for you then search for a used one. Both craig's list and fackbook market place always seam to have them. Once you get into the 8" range the number of used ones seams to drop down.

[Matt Day]

6”,,,,floor,,jointer

[Ron Selzer]

i am leaning to buy a jointer but there is so many reviews on them its hard to decide,,i was leaning to the benchtop type,,but for not much more you can get the ridgid one,,, even the grizzly that's not too bad in price,,im just a retired woodworker so an advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated,,and which do you thing would be the easiest to change knives,,the one with straight blades or the helical inserts,,,,thank you
I believe the helical inserts would be easier to change. I have always had straight knives and find them easy to change.
As to what jointer to buy, you need to list out what is important to you and what isn't. What length and width of wood do you work with, how much room are you willing to set aside for the jointer. How much money are you able and willing to spend. This will determine which one is best for you.
Good luck
Ron

[glenn bradley]

Think about your requirements. A benchtop jointer is good for small work if well setup. You can do more on one but, it depends on your patience (low power) and add-on fixtures for support.

A jointer is generally the second step in stock preparation once we pull some material out of the racks; the first being to cut blanks to a manageable size with the bandsaw. What size parts will you deal with . . . mostly? If you will only face joint a 7" wide board a few times a year go with a 6" and a planer sled can get you through the exceptions. If you will regularly joint sub-8" blanks then an 8" machine makes sense.

I never found benchtop machines to really save me any room except for small and light machines like a lightweight bench grinder, a CMS or a small sander. Heavier machines like planers, jointers, serious grinders and sanders proved heavy enough that although they could be moved I really avoided it. Sometimes I would not even use the machine I had spent good money on because it was easier to just do something by hand than to get the machine out for use and return it to its place. This got worse as I got . . . er . . . older.

A benchtop bandsaw or drill press for instance takes up just as much room as their (often better) floor standing cousins. Jointers take up a bit of space especially if you require long infeed and outfeed space. If you require room to feed larger stock it goes hand in hand with benefiting from a larger machine.

Knives versus CARBIDE inserts is no contest. The insert head pays for itself pretty quickly and the benefits run on long after the initial cost is forgotten. I don't really get the whole HSS inserts idea other than for marketing. Most important is what is going to work for you.

[Bill Dufour]

Can you get straight knives sharpened locally? My shop went out of business several years ago so mail order or buy new inserts if I had an insert head are my choices. I found I was making drawer fronts between 6-8 inches wide. So I upgraded to an 8" machine. A floor standing model has no real improvements in the last 60 years except a center mounted fence and now insert heads can be had. I bought a used delta 8" model and switched in a single phase motor.
Bil lD

[jeff oldham]

I was actually looking at the ridged floor model,,,,it had alot of good reviews,,,,but actually I didn't want the straight knives,,,so I have been looking at the grizzly g0893,,,,i know the ridged has got a longer table,,,but I just want the insert style head and a full size jointer with that type of head is pretty expensive,,unless one of you know of one of about 700.00

[Don Stephan]

Absolutely a long bed 8" jointer is expensive. But if you want to be able to flatten wider boards, longer boards, and heavy boards are becoming a handful, ...

[Andrew Hughes]

The most common path to owning a jointer is to buy a small bench top. One that’s very loud and has short tables.
After you have tried every trick on YouTube to get straight flat boards and lost many hours of sleep. A light bulb will appear over your head and you’ll sell the cursed machine or set out near the curb.
This might seem cruel unfortunately it’s the only to appreciate a long bed jointer with at least 8 inch wide head.
Good Luck

[Stan Calow]

I have a 6" bench top, and I've managed just fine. I think it depends on what you're going to make. If you need to joint long boards, then no question a long floor model will work best. The deciding factor for me was being able to get it down to my basement shop easily, and to be able to move it around without help. If I need to do a long edge on a board too long to manage on it, I'll use a jointer hand plane to deal with it.

[Devin Brenan]

i am leaning to buy a jointer but there is so many reviews on them its hard to decide,,i was leaning to the benchtop type,,but for not much more you can get the ridgid one,,, even the grizzly that's not too bad in price,,im just a retired woodworker so an advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated,,and which do you thing would be the easiest to change knives,,the one with straight blades or the helical inserts,,,,thank you

If you're considering a benchtop type, I would recommend a 6" floor standing instead. And I would vote for a helical/segmented head if you buy new...WAY easier to change knives. Just unscrew the offending insert (or multiple if needed), turn to a new side, retighten, done. Learning to sharpen and set traditional knives is a skill in-and-of itself and a more involved process. The insert heads require almost no skill to tend to, one less thing to worry about.

A few years ago I bought a new Powermatic 6" import with a HH and I had low expectations for it, but boards coming off of it are still perfectly flat years later. I have yet to rotate the inserts, but I only use it once or twice a week. The outfeed table has held its place and I still use it for small stuff and 2x4 projects.

[Julie Moriarty]

i am leaning to buy a jointer but there is so many reviews on them its hard to decide,,i was leaning to the benchtop type,,but for not much more you can get the ridgid one,,, even the grizzly that's not too bad in price,,im just a retired woodworker so an advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated,,and which do you thing would be the easiest to change knives,,the one with straight blades or the helical inserts,,,,thank you

I had a 6" Crafstman jointer that came with steel legs but could be used as a benchtop. It worked fine for a while but soon needed adjustment. I did that routine for a while and then came sharpening the knives. I could not break them loose, and I tried everything short of risking stripping the screws. I finally gave the thing away.

Years later I went to a hand planer for jointing. I used a combination of a #62 and a #7 low angle to joint edges. The results were great and the satisfaction of doing it by hand added to the enjoyment.

A little more than a year ago I bit the bullet and bought a jointer-planer. Since moving to Florida, good wood is scarce and the only decent source I can find sells it like it rough cut. It has a spiral cutterhead and cuts glass smooth. I love it. I still use hand planes for small work but the larger stuff goes to the J/P.

[Alex Zeller]

A jointer is one of those things that you can easily creep up in price on. My personal opinion is if I was going to spend over $800 for the ridgid I would probably go up $300 and get a long bed straight knife 8" jointer from Grizzly (they have 10% off sales semi-regularly). I would do it not just for the added capacity of the wider head and longer bed but because it will have more power and it's resale value (let's face it none of us are getting any younger and sooner or later our 'toys' are going to move on to a new home) will be much better. If you're not happy with the knives you can upgrade it to inserts down the road. With an 8" long bed I would be much less likely to wish I had bought a larger jointer.

[Randall J Cox]

I bought a used 6" Sears jointer years ago, used it probably 15 years. Then I bought a used Powermatic 8" jointer in almost perfect condition Holy cow what a difference. I guess I didn't realize how much difference a good jointer made until I started using one. Took me a day to carefully dial it in, but its been dead on for the last 5 years. It has straight knives, I've had them sharpened once. Very happy with it. Randy

[Bill Dufour]

I realize I made a mistake some jointers have changed since the 1950's. Some went to a parallelogram table mount system starting in the 1970's or maybe even more modern then that.
Bil lD

[Jim Matthews]

https://charlotte.craigslist.org/tls/d/charlotte-jet-jointer-jj-6csx/7199764641.html

Straight knives work just fine.

[Scott Bernstein]

1+ on the phenomenon of "price creep"! I started with a Grizzly 6" wide floor-standing jointer. I purchased because it was relatively inexpensive, had never owned a jointer before (or any hand planes), and I had only 120V outlets at the time. I never gave a thought to a small bench-top jointer - that just didn't seem like it would be useful except for building very small things like cutting boards, models, or boxes. I wanted to make larger furniture items...so I obtained the 6" jointer. The machine worked great and gave excellent results; I built many, may projects successfully. Stiil, I outgrew it in a couple years. I wanted to use boards with wider faces for my larger projects...and I wanted to be able to buy larger pieces of rough lumber and mill it myself. So I used a combination of Makita handheld power plane, various hand planes, and a router plane jig. All these things worked, but were quite slow and frustrating for me. Eventually I started looking at the 8" Grizzly jointers. From there the price creep started... "8 inches is only 2 inches bigger...what about 10? or 12?" At that size you start talking real money...but then going from 12 to 16 inch isn't all that much more...but then my planer was only 13 inches...so what about a 16" combo machine... Well in the end I ended up with a 16" jointer-planer combo which costs more than what I'd ever thought I'd spend. But it's the last jointer I'll ever buy!!

If I had to do it all again I never would have bothered with a 6" jointer. I would have instead, in retrospect, learned how to use hand planes for jointing edges and utilized a face-jointing sled for my 13" lunchbox planer. I would have ended up with the machine I have now that much sooner.

[Mark Gibney]

Depending on where you live you can get 8" jointers, used, very reasonably.

Right now there is a Powermatic 8" straight knife jointer for sale locally to me for $500.
A few months back there was a 1980's model Transpower jointer for $300, practically unused. Transpower is not a sexy name, but as long as the tables and the fence are flat it was probably a really good deal. It sold fast.

You can then, if you want, spend the extra money on a helical head. In the future.
Installing a new head on an 8" jointer is one of the easier machine maintenance procedures you can undertake, don't let the idea of it put you off.

[Andrew Hughes]

Mark and I are lucky in sense that we have lots of used woodworking machines to choose from. Good ones made in
America. There’s a Oliver 144 bd in our local Craigslist for 2250. It’s direct drive 3ph. Oliver made the finest jointers in the world. The 144 is reported to be one of the quietest smoothest running jointer every made.
But like I posted earlier your probably not ready yet. Or a fine machine is appreciated as much until you had to settle with a Asian made screamer.

[Neil Gaskin]

The jointer is the one tool I wish I had bought bigger last time. I have a Powermatic 8" Helical Head and it performs well for edge jointing. It does fine on flat surfacing as well up to it's 8" capacity. I wish I would have bought a 16".

As mentioned above it really depends on the size of material your projects require. I don't do a lot that is bigger than 8" but at least a few times a month I wish I could flatten a wider board.

I had the thought today of posting mine for sale and looking for a 16" model but I will likely end up keeping the 8" a while because it is great for edge jointing. I haven't used a larger jointer so I'm a little concerned about the ergonomics of running a board on edge on the wider one.

[Phil Gaudio]

I would check craigslist for a nice 6" floor standing jointer. I started out with a 6" Jet and it was a very nice machine. A lot of very nice furniture has been made on 6" jointers over the years: you can always go bigger later, it that is what is needed.