New Woodshop

[Steven Fowler]

Dear Fellow Woodworkers,

I am planning on getting serious with my woodworking and starting to consider my first serious investments in my shop: A 17" Grizzly Band G0513X2BF and their 8" jointer G0490X. I have read up on their reviews and I think I will be quite happy with the quality for the price. The reason I am buying a bandsaw and would like to center my shop around that, is to resaw some of the thicker pieces of wood that I receive and not have a bunch of waste in terms of sizing the thickness down. I have also chosen the 8" jointer with a spiral head as I like working with some of the more exotic and figured woods.
I will be building things from small boxes to some decent sized furniture(Bookshelves, Tables).

As this is quite a large purchase and I would not want to upgrade either of those machines for quite a while(already considering a wider jointer as I like the look of wide boards), I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on my potential future purchases. I need to get a decent planer still. I have a 12" miter saw for cuts and then I can use the bandsaw to rip wood to the proper width. Everyone else here is probably way more experienced than me and I would like to use that experience to my advantage before I make any serious purchases.

Thanks for the help,

Steven Fowler

[Malcolm McLeod]

Welcome! I'd reconsider the 8" jointer, especially if you're interested in wider boards. I made-do for years with my dad's 6" jointer & 12" planer, always wishing I could joint the same width I could plane (he did too). Yes, there are ways to 'joint' on the planer, and I tried them all. All are less than ideal. So, if you're starting from scratch, take a look at the combo machines. Or if budget allows, similar sized jointer & planer.

Also, I hated changing blades, so like me, they were not always the sharpest tool in the shed. Spiral carbide insert cutter heads are big-time nice!

I just acquired a Grizzly G0634XP and so far so good. It had a bug in the limit switches (detecting raised jointer tables), took 45 minutes to find it, but just a slight twist in the linkage to fix. I thought I wanted the familiar pork-chop style guard, but it is a little awkward on a 12" table. ...Live and learn. It's quiet, smooth, and simple/quick to change over.

[Jim German]

Those sound like good choices. An 8" jointer hits the sweet spot on price/usability. I've got the G0490X that you're looking at and have been quite happy with it. Obviously bigger is always nicer, but moving up to a 12" jointer is almost twice as expensive. Its rare to have boards wider than 8" and for those occasions there are some work around to get up to a 16" width.

I've never been happy with the results when ripping a board on the bandsaw. However between a tracksaw, router and the bandsaw you probably could make do pretty well without a tablesaw.

[Joe Cowan]

I agree it would be nice to have a large jointer, but I have an 8" jointer with the spiral cutterhead and get by nicely. The one thing I had to end up building was the planer sled that was featured in a Fine Woodworking magazine several years back, to help joint wider boards. This works nicely on the few occasions that I need a wider jointer.

[Steven Fowler]

Thank you for the replies so far. I am running into the same problem of going up to a 12" jointer in terms of price @ Joe and Jim.

I have heard/seen some of the planar sleds and would really like to avoid running into those if I can.

In terms of my budget any recommendation of getting tools besides a bandsaw? I really think I would happy with the bandsaw but if there are other views on what tools I should get instead I would like to hear about them as well.

For anyone who owns the Grizzly 513 any recommendations for a resaw blade in terms of cutting 12 inches of very hard stock?(Purpleheart comes to mind) How did it perform under those conditions? Was the motor powerful enough?

Thanks,

Steven Fowler

[Peter Aeschliman]

Consider getting a 12" jointer/planer combo. They're an efficient use of space, and cheaper than buying separates with the same capacity. And if you want a spiral head, there's savings vs separate machines because there's only one cutterhead.

It may seem like a lot of money upfront, but take it from somebody who went the route of buying cheaper machines and upgrading my way to nicer ones, it's much cheaper to save until you can buy once and cry once!

[Jim Dwight]

A lot depends on your projects and some people I respect say a bandsaw is a great first or early stationary tool but I still say a table saw is more important. I really like using my track saw but I can't imagine being without a table saw. I am without a bandsaw at the moment but I am getting by nicely. I've been doing a lot more with sheet goods than solid wood recently so the tracksaw does most of the work but there are still things much easier to do on the table saw.

When I get another bandsaw, it will likely be a 14 inch with the riser, quite possibly the Grizzly. I'm sure the 17 inch is nicer but it's also several hundred dollars more last time I looked. The reviews indicate the 14 will make thick veneer out of solid wood pretty well with the right blade. I used to have a 12 inch bandsaw which did pretty much what I needed it to do so I can't see a 14 being a major limitation. A bandsaw for me is to get the most out of a really nice board (by making veneer) or to cut curves. I think there are far better tools to make straight cuts.

My jointer is 8 5/8 but I don't use it as much as I should. I am usually lazy and just use the planner (10 inch). Neither is a limitation very often. The jointer doesn't have a power feed so the planner is less effort. The other problem I have with using the jointer to get a face flat is I sometimes end up with wood that is too thin to use because the board is not very flat to start with. If I just use the planner, it may not be flat but when I fasten the board into the piece it flattens them out.

[Mike Wilkins]

Since you like wide boards, you may want to re-think the 8" machine as being too little. Grizzly has some nice offerings in the 12" range, and the price is reasonable compared to the Euro jointers. You will never regret the larger machine; better to have it now than to need one and not have one.
As someone has already stated, consider a combo jointer/planer ; same jointing and planning capacity in one footprint.
I have a 12" jointer/planer, and many times have wished for a 16" machine. Maybe my eyes are bigger than my belly as the old folks used to say.
There are jointers on the used market available for a decent price. Just check it over before laying down some cash.

[brian noel]

I would go with a bit wider jointer. Since I bought my supermax drum sander I have not pulled my old 12" planer out at all, just sayin'. Of course I buy my lumber close enough in size to mill lightly, if you have to take off a bunch a planer would be nice. I do agree with Malcolm that it is nice to have a jointer and planer that work in tandem.

[Steven Fowler]

Ah funny how much has gone from 2000 to almost 3000 so quickly. haha.

@Jim I considered staying with the 14i" but I wanted to get the cast iron 17" as I feel like that would be a little easier tensioning 1/2" to 3/4" blades and resawing does make up a good portion of what I plan on doing. I haven't looked into track saws much might give that a look.

@ Peter and Mike I have seen the planer/jointer combo but for it seems like quite a hassle to have to move things around just to get to planing. I have also looked used and there is an 8" jointer for 650$ so I have been considering that as well. I would still need the cutterhead for another 300 and then some type of mobile base, which would bring it around 1000. But other than that one I haven't seen much in the past few months.