J/P combo owners...do you long for longer tables???

[Jason Morgan]

I am all over the word pay today.

I've notices that when you upgrade to a J/P combo unit you generally get shorter tables. The MM for instance has somwhere around 45" in bed length and a 12" griz can have over 80". Is this that big of a deal from an every day use side? I made a glue-up for a 6 foot table once with my little ridgid jointer and it was a PITA, but managable. I dont know how much 6' edge jointing I'll do in the future either?

[Norb Schmidt]

I going to go with no. The tables on my 12" J/P (older MM) is about 45" - 50", the tables on my 14" J/P (newer MM combo) is about 75". I don't typically do a lot of long stuff - about 6 feet or under, with the lions share of my jointing coming with stock under 4 feet. Your technique will improve over the smaller Ridged, as the J/P is a much more solid and industrial grade machine. Weight alone is a major factor plus the cutterhead diameter.

If you want a longer table in a J/P combo - Felder has extension table that can be bolted on and likely retro'd to another manufacturer. Very pricey though.

BTW: I love Tersa knives - the new one has it - the old one is "old school". Both leave an excellent finish but the Tersa can be changed in under 5 minutes - yes all three of them.

[Wilbur Pan]

No.

I have a 10" J/P machine, with tables that are about 40" long. I can joint 6' long boards on them without problems.

I think that the short table issue is really a minor issue. Conventional wisdom says that you can joint a board that is twice as long as your table, which "limits" me to a 6' 8" board. There aren't many projects that require boards that long.

Also, you can always set up an infeed and/or outfeed stand.

[Jamie Buxton]

No. I have a Hammer 12" J/P. The tables are 54", IIRC. They work fine for furniture work. If I need to joint something longer than 8' or so, I set up a roller stand to catch the outfeed end, but that is very rare.

[Jim Becker]

No problem with the table length on my MM FS350. I generally mill components after they are sectioned out so I'm working with smaller stock most of the time. Those times that I have jointed (face jointing in particular) longer boards, I've not had any issue with table length.

[Steven Wilson]

The problem with a lot of 6" jointers is the length of the tables combined with the fairly light weight of the machine make them fairly tippy with longer stock, typical 8" jointers (i.e. PM60) have enough mass to be stable and the longer tables make jointing longer boards easier. As for the euro combo machines, they're very heavy to begin with and thus stable. They may have somewhat shorter beds (although not short) which may make jointing a very long board a PIA but for 95% of the work I do it isn't an issue. If I need to joint long boards I get my wife to help me.

[Robert LaPlaca]

Short answer is no.

My MM FS-41 Elite has 16" width with 80" long bed length. I fine having the capacity in width, far outweights the any compromise in bed length from a J/P combo.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I have the Hammer 12" JP and I have not found the sock tables to be an issue. It's a great machine.

[Rob Russell]

The tables on my Felder j/p are 84" and can be extended to 12'. I'd say that's long enough for pretty much anything I'd ever need to handle.

[Chris Jenkins]

I think it makes sense that the tables are short. If you think about it, Long tables, that's an American thing. Euro WW-ing has short tables on everything.

Another major point to these is that they are combo units. Mostly to save space in more compact shops. Also keep in mind you have to lift these tables in most configurations and you don't want them too big - you won't get them up.

Chris