i bought a 6 3/4" makita hand planer for $60 at a garage sale and with a few pieces of wood, turned it into a jointer. with a planer, why do you need a wide jointer?
i bought a 6 3/4" makita hand planer for $60 at a garage sale and with a few pieces of wood, turned it into a jointer. with a planer, why do you need a wide jointer?
i also built a router table that i can plane burls up to 3' x 3' x 12" with my router. with that and a smaller jointer, you dont need that wide of a jointer.
i use the jointer for the edges of boards up to 5". i use my 13" planer for anything wider. if i need to square pieces larger than that i use a router table i built that can do 3' x 3' x 12"+ thick. total cost for all - less than $500. use your brain instead of your pocketbook.
So... kinda related to some of the recommendations to "go bigger"... been cruising CL, knowing full well that there probably won't be anything 'local' but with Seattle and Portland a few hours away, plenty of bigger stuff shows up on a somewhat regular basis.
Most recently, I see a 16" 10 HP 480 volt 3 phase machine for sale... for $800. I've read about people using inverters to run 'big iron' on 220v shop circuits... never made sense or appealed to me before, but dang, this almost makes me wonder if it'd be worth it?
First time poster.
Chris, I bought the Grizzly 12” Jointer a few months ago and I love it. Not trying to sway you either way, just letting you know about my experience. I had no problems setting it up and love the extra table length and width. Good luck!
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Henry Ford
i can do longer wood also.
Jim, I'm sure that how you have things setup works fine for you. But we are all individuals with different needs and wants.
A jointer isn't just for edges. It's also to flatten lumber before it gets thicknessed in the planer. Actually, that's my primary use as I rarely edge joint on the jointer since Ihave a sliding saw that I can straight-line material after it's flat and thicknesses. I buy wide lumber and also occasionally want/need to send odd-sized/shaped things across the knives. I have 13.68"/350mm of width available with my particular Jointer/Plainer combo and often wish I would have purchased the 16"/410mm wide model for more capacity.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Last edited by jim carter; 05-02-2019 at 7:59 PM.