Justifying A Major Tool Purchase

[Matt Mattingley]

I believe Julie is an angry pixie wrangler Matt.

I got a answer first this morning. Since it has a disconnect on the machine the plug does not rely on its Hp rating.

[Van Huskey]

This is where all the electricians , Industrial electricians, technologists and E engineers get to put their two cents.

At this point, I imagine Julie the electrician's two cents are the only ones that count.

I think she was miffed at herself because she knows better not to double check a BORG employee.

[Jim Becker]

Don't worry, Matt...she'll be using appropriately specified stuff. She's an electrician by trade. And in fairness, even if she picked the parts out herself, it's not unusual for things to be mixed up in the bins at the 'borg in my experience and since many things look very similar, it's very, very, VERY easy to get a mismatch if one doesn't stop and read the package. DAMHIKT! People just throw things back in any bin when they are shopping. When I was doing my prep for my CNC, I actually ordered the receptacle and plug via Amazon (at a better price by far than HD) to hopefully insure I didn't have to do that "electrical isle bin dance" and get frustrated.

[Julie Moriarty]

I believe Julie is an angry pixie wrangler Matt.

I only get angry when the electrons escape and bite me

This is where all the electricians , Industrial electricians, technologists and E engineers get to put their two cents. Maybe different C of Q’s have different opinions. I would like to see these opinions if they differ from Hubbell.

I'd say Hubble is the favorite among electricians who work commercial or industrial. Then maybe P&S but I've heard a lot of griping about them too. I always prefer to use Hubbell devices if the contractor will buy them. For residential, most guys I've worked with like to see Leviton devices show up on the job, including me. They know better than to ask the boss to buy Hubbell.

Well, I got the device faux pas fixed. Shame on me for not double checking what the HD guy handed me. I've always been one of those electricians who checks everything before installing it. I must be getting old... or lazy.

Anyway, got the machine running. OMG! Is it QUIET! The first time I fired up the 735, I instantly hated it because it was so loud. I think I'm going to like this one.

[Julie Moriarty]

Don't worry, Matt...she'll be using appropriately specified stuff. She's an electrician by trade. And in fairness, even if she picked the parts out herself, it's not unusual for things to be mixed up in the bins at the 'borg in my experience and since many things look very similar, it's very, very, VERY easy to get a mismatch if one doesn't stop and read the package. DAMHIKT! People just throw things back in any bin when they are shopping. When I was doing my prep for my CNC, I actually ordered the receptacle and plug via Amazon (at a better price by far than HD) to hopefully insure I didn't have to do that "electrical isle bin dance" and get frustrated.

Yeah, but I should have checked. This may be the first time I didn't. I was in a hurry and just took what he handed me and left. This is totally on me.

It's funny, when I went back there this morning, this woman stocking the shelves asked if I needed any help. I told her what happened. And she said pretty much the same thing you did, customers put stuff back wherever and it's almost impossible for them to keep up with it. Which is another reason I should have taken a few seconds to double check. Heck, I didn't even check the devices when I installed them. I'll blame it on the Florida heat.

[Charles P. Wright]

Yeah, but I should have checked. This may be the first time I didn't. I was in a hurry and just took what he handed me and left. This is totally on me.

It's funny, when I went back there this morning, this woman stocking the shelves asked if I needed any help. I told her what happened. And she said pretty much the same thing you did, customers put stuff back wherever and it's almost impossible for them to keep up with it. Which is another reason I should have taken a few seconds to double check. Heck, I didn't even check the devices when I installed them. I'll blame it on the Florida heat.

It's not even that they put them back in the bins wrong; they'll put the wrong receptacle in the wrong box at times. So you'll pick the right box; but it has the wrong thing in it.

[brent stanley]

I only get angry when the electrons escape and bite me

Ha ha! Let me rephrase....I believe you are a wrangler of angry pixies, not an angry.....pixie wrangler.

[Julie Moriarty]

Probably both, Brett.

I just ran the first piece of wood through the jointer. The candidate was a short piece of maple. What was new to me was the tendency of the wood to want to rotate as I pushed it through. The other thing was the guard - on short pieces it's kind of hard to control the piece as your hand passes over the guard. But the surface was pretty impressive. I could see chatoyance in it. FWIW, my only reference to power jointing was from a Craftsman 6" jointer I loved so much I gave it away.

Next up was a cutoff from some live edge. Not very long but about 8" wide. I took it to 4mm to see how the dust collection works. Again, difficult to control through the guard but maybe that Metallglanz I put on the table makes it really slick. As for dust collection, it seemed to work very well. Though the big test will come when planing. But when I opened the hood...



I was surprised how clean it was.

As far as mobility, I think the 12' cord and the 10' DC flex should allow me to position the JP so it can handle long boards.



I have to clean up the planer bed before running anything through there. Then we'll see if it's totally plug and play or not.

[Brian Holcombe]

Just a heads up, but the minimum length my machine calls out is 16"....I'll plane that but I am typically uncomfortable jointing things that short, rather I would prefer 20".

The shorter it is, the harder it is to comfortably transition from infeed to outfeed without a rocking motion.

I also spray the tables down with some sort of agent that makes them slick but doesn't mess with the wood (not sure what it is off hand).

Most often I have my jointer set at nearly the bare minimum cut, maybe it's just the stuff I get but usually two passes like that is enough for most boards. The cut is something like 1/64". On the planer I usually take .030" at a time, but I can take up to something like 1/4" if need be and as little as .010". If I have that much material to take I'd rather just bandsaw it off, then re-joint and plane. Easier than filling my dust collector bin every few passes.

[Warren Lake]

Brian are you talking jointing or planing, two different things. Im not sure the shortest I can plane but its pretty good on the SCM roller to roller distance if I remember correctly. Up top on the jointer its what you feel safe with and your technique and type of push stick thing, mine not a push stick but more like a plane rear handle,

[Brian Holcombe]

I'm talking about jointing, but I did mention that I would plane a shorter piece. Just like yourself, as long as it will easily hit both rollers.

[Jim Becker]

I agree with Brian...when face jointing in particular, do that while your stock is still "longer" for flattening. Batch it after any rough cutting of boards down to reasonable lengths. You will also get used to the bridge guard and that pass of the hand over it will become second nature, including "blossoming your fingers upwards" as a good habit to always insure they never, never, ever go to or under the edge. If you absolutely, positively MUST face plane a short piece of stock, use a wide "shoe" with a back lip so you can run the whole thing along the fence with the guard pulled back to clear like you would for an edge joint. The "shoe" should completely cover the workpiece for that. The one I made is about a foot long.

Enjoy the (relative) quiet of that new machine!

[Julie Moriarty]

Quiet is an understatement, Jim. The first pieces I put through the jointer I wasn't wearing any hearing protection and it wasn't bad. But what was really appreciated is my bones weren't rattling. I know some here have the same JP but also kept their 735 and use it for certain work. I don't think I could ever go back to the 735.

Time to put the JP to the real test... And in this corner, at 11-3/4" wide, 30" long and over 1" think, the wood that brought former champ DW735 to its knees, Pecky Bolivian Walnut! Can't you just hear Michael Buffer now?



At a 1mm cut, it was quite a chore pushing that through, at least it would have been if I was doing full length boards. I took a total of 2.5mm off in three passes. No issues with dust collection. Then I went to planing. I missed the part about setting the gear level and the wood would not feed in. Went back to the instructions and looked under the section about operating the machine. Nothing. Finally I found what I was looking for under Assembly.

I set the cut for 1mm and away it went. That ended up being more of a skim cut. Went down another 1.5mm. This time I could hear the machine work. The finish was excellent.


The DC pulled everything out of the JP and the hose looked completely clear. Right after I shut the JP down, I could still hear chips collection. Right at the blast gate there was a pile of chips being gradually sucked up. In about 15 seconds it was clear. Now if that was an 8' board, I can see possible having some problems. So no deep cuts on long, wide boards until there's a DC upgrade.

Now I have to go clean up the mess I created in the garage. There's barely enough room to change your mind in there right now.

[Martin Wasner]

Though I was dead tired, I had to finish the wiring and see how it runs. I tried to open the lockout box but they have a cover over one of the screws you have to break off to get at the screw. So I went out and picked up a Bell box and some other stuff. After looking at the possible locations for the box, I settled on the mobile frame.

This gave me a chance to ground the mobile base to the machine. The wire coming from the machine looked like #12 to me. I was expecting #14.

It's lower than I wanted but the length of the cord coming out of the lockout box limited my choices.


Done. I'll probably take a ty-wrap to get the cord off the floor.


I turn on the breaker. Check to make sure the voltage is good - 240.1v. And go to plug it in. That's when I hear myself asking, "Why did you let the Home Depot guy pick out the plug and receptacle?!?! You should have double checked him!" Yep, they don't match. We need a hair pull out emoticon.

I don't understand this. Why not take the goofy euro cord out of the disconnect and put a longer piece of SO cord on it? Pop the tab and open it up.

I have just enough sparky skills to be dangerous, but this seems like adding complications.

[Julie Moriarty]

I don't understand this. Why not take the goofy euro cord out of the disconnect and put a longer piece of SO cord on it? Pop the tab and open it up.

I have just enough sparky skills to be dangerous, but this seems like adding complications.

That was my plan. As I proceeded to do that, I found a little plastic tab over the bottom screw that, if you try to remove it, will probably break off. And I figured if I persisted it would somehow void the warranty. Thus the JB.