Great Sale, but is it any good?

[Jerome Hanby]

You know one advantage to having more time and less money, you could haunt the CLs for several hundred miles around you. Big jointers don't show up often, but they do make an occasional appearance...

[Justin Bukoski]

So I'm in the process of getting back into woodworking after a long break due to some RL issues. I had to pretty much start from scratch (except for my small hoard of Festools) and I didn't have a large budget to work with. So after buying my bandsaw and tablesaw and wood to make a bench I had very little left over to buy a planer/jointer so I decided to give one of these things a whirl. Now I knew it was going to be a piece of junk going in but pretty much anything that I could get for $400 was going to be junk and having the lumber supplier surface stock for me would have been waste of time. (for you neanders that have gotten lost and came into this forum, yes, I know, jointer plane would be about the same amount of $$. I don't have that much time to work wood. ) Considering my last jointer/planer was on a euro combo machine I had very low expectations.

I wasn't disappointed. It really is a piece of junk but after several hours of tinkering and a few new parts (ie new, unwarped tables) from Jet I finally have it working to acceptable tolerances. There is zero chance I'll ever run anything heavy on it but the one project I used it for it was fine. Its going up on CL as soon as I can afford a proper one but in the mean time it works fine for smaller parts.

I think this would be something nice to have if I were using construction lumber at a jobsite since it is pretty mobile. Its really a PITA to get setup for furniture. All in all it was worth $300 but not a penny more.

[Joe Spear]

The Amazon reviews are not always reliable, but you should read them anyway. The nine reviews for this machine, even the somewhat favorable ones, are not particularly enthusiastic.

[Stew Hagerty]

You know one advantage to having more time and less money, you could haunt the CLs for several hundred miles around you. Big jointers don't show up often, but they do make an occasional appearance...

Unfortunately, my disability also left me unable to drive. LOML works long hours, and when she is not working she is doing housework that I am unable to do and taking care of me in other ways. I am just not prepared to ask her to then take additional time to drive me a hundred miles out into the boonies on a tool hunt. That is time I spend on her.

I actually do look locally at least a couple times a week. My brother has a truck and could help me pick it up around town. He has two young boys at home that are busy in all kinds of activities, so he's busy with them after work and weekends.

Besides... For some reason, I seem to live in a woodworking tool "dead zone" on CL. It seems that most everything is either obviously junk, or somebody selling some rediculous small item like a rusty sears crescent wrench for $2.95, or something that looks like it would be decent but that the seller wants 98% of the price for a new one and replies with "Well then go buy the new one!" when you ask them why.

[Chad Bender]

I went through the same thought process earlier in the summer, with the goal of acquiring a small benchtop jointer that would suffice for the next couple of years until I can upgrade into a full-sized 8" model. I ended up with the Geetech 6" benchtop from woodworkers supply for $140. Like all benchtop units, the tables are short so jointing long boards requires care. But the tables are cast iron and were aligned perfectly out of the box. The fence is difficult to adjust but once locked down seems to be staying square. I haven't tried adjusting the fence to cut bevels since getting it square initially took about an hour.

The unit has worked well for both face and edge jointing. The jointed surface is flat and also very smooth. I have face jointed almost up to 6". Wider than that goes through my planer using my planer sled. I've gotten around the bed length problem by not trying to joint long boards. Instead, I rough cut all pieces down almost to final size (plus an inch or so), and then joint the small pieces.

I just looked and woodworkers supply doesn't list these on their website anymore. Might be worth a call - otherwise, maybe you can find one somewhere else. After having used the unit for ~3 months I'm confident that it will suffice until I can afford a 8" full sized jointer, and will allow me to avoid the typical $400 6" full length bed step.

[Stew Hagerty]

Be cool to see a real review of one of those newer S/N models...

I've been wondering what, if anything, could be done to retrofit better tables to these gadgets. At those prices, a little tinkering would be a small price to pay for 8 or 10 inch jointing!

I was thinking the same thing...

[michael case]

Rod said it right. Run away! Maybe he could loan you his bike? Seriously this machine has received terrible reviews. Its junk. Just look and see Toolcritic: Jet JJP-8BT Jointer/ Planer (8")

[Jim Chan]

Hi, I own the 10" model, it was one of the first pieces of equipment I bought, and actually, still my only powered jointer. I don't have a whole lot of space for a big jointer.

There are very few cases where I use this machine anymore though. It's extremely loud, especially with good dust collection, and it's really hard to get setup just right. It doesn't have very much power, and gets bogged down really easily. More often than not, I find that it takes a straight board and puts a cup into it. I now use it purely to joint wide, rough material that is badly bowed/twisted. I do all my final jointing by hand using a LN no. 7 these days.

For planing, I found the 10" width too small for many use cases. I upgraded to an 18" woodmaster w/ spiral head for planing. it's 2 orders of magnitude quieter, and the finish is much better, and less/no snipe.

I keep it around for rough jobs since it's so cheap, but for any sort of precision milling, I would consider other options. A 6" jointer/13" lunchbox planer is probably a better bet.

[Jim Chan]

I just looked up the Rikon and you're right it is more money. It's $858 on Amazon which is almost 3 times as much. I could get two separate machines for that. It does look like a better machine, but the price would put it back into the "can't afford it" category.

I'm not so worried about the lack of power. First of all, it's not going to get a lot of use, and second, I don't mind making several small passes.

I'd love to get a Gizzly Jointer and a Dewalt 735. It's just that $1000 is what I have available to spend. And if I wait until I can save up that amount, there are a lot of things I just can't do in the mean time.
I'm disabled so my income is not what it used to be. Ironically though, I now have the time to do stuff I want to do. Funny how that works huh. I guess my point is this: I can afford the $300, and for that amount I get the functionality of two machines. If they truely have changed and improved the design, then maybe it's not such a "RUN AWAY" kind of deal.

Stew - if money is very tight, I think you would be better served getting a planner and a decent used handplane for jointing. It's not very hard at all to joint by hand. I can joint an 8 foot board in a matter of a few minutes. You do get a workout though. Thicknessing is more of a pain, so a powered tool is helpful for that. I do not think you will be happy for very long with just the jjp machines though.

And don't bother modding it. It's just not worth it.

[Paul Johnstone]

I think you'd be better served buying a regular lunchbox planer for about $300

You can get buy without a jointer. Not saying it is easy, but it is possible.
You may have to set aside some boards as unusable until you get a jointer, but a lot of quality kiln dried wood can be just ran through the planer and it is "good enough".

[Stew Hagerty]

Rod said it right. Run away! Maybe he could loan you his bike? Seriously this machine has received terrible reviews. Its junk. Just look and see Toolcritic: Jet JJP-8BT Jointer/ Planer (8")

I have looked there. It also got some good reviews. It averaged 4 out of 5 hammers.

[Stew Hagerty]

Stew - if money is very tight, I think you would be better served getting a planner and a decent used handplane for jointing. It's not very hard at all to joint by hand. I can joint an 8 foot board in a matter of a few minutes. You do get a workout though.

I have a couple of planes, but they don't get much use. I don't have much strength in my right arm (figures I'm right handed huh) and stamina is something I have very little of.

My workshop is my therapy. I enjoy actually being able to do something again after being unable to do much of anything for almost 3 years. I do ok with power tools, but not so much with hand tools. Never gonna be a Neanderthal...LOL

[Trent Shirley]

I had the 10" version for a while. I found to to be cheaply made.
The table on my seemed to be pretty flat but I could never quite get the cheap aluminum fence set correctly for edge jointing and had a lot of problems with snipe trying to use it as a planer.
Someone with a lot more patience and experience than I could probably make do with it but I sold it on CL and bought a lunch box planer which is wonderful and a 6" jointer with a 55" bed. Been happy ever since.