King Canada KC-12HJPC 12" Jointer/Planer Combo: First impressions

[Paul F Franklin]

Thanks Paul! I appreciate your comments. Right now I am trying to sort out the pro’s and cons between the King, RIKON and CWI jointer planers. It gets challenging as they are quite similar. It’s a great help to get some personal feedback.
I have taken over our single car garage so space is limited and the J/P would be a huge upgrade from my Benchtop models. Which mobile base are you using? Do you like it?
I hope all is well with you in Ohio during these difficult times. My brother lives outside of Cleveland so I have a vested interest in your state
Cheers,
David

I had an old Delta 6" jointer and old delta 12" lunchbox planer, and the king is a big upgrade over those for sure. The jointer was fine for narrow stock. The planer had pretty bad snipe.

I use a Bora mobile base and it does the job. It's the kind with two fixed wheels at one end and two step down swivel wheels at the other. I only have to move the J/P when I need to process stock longer than about 6', so it mostly just sits there, and when I do move it, I just need to roll it straight forward a few feet. If you need to move it sideways, the fixed wheels are kind of a pain; you have to maneuver it like a wheelbarrow....swing the back out, roll it backward a bit, swing the back the other way, and roll it forward. So if you will need to move it sideways, you might look at other mobile base options. Also, the wheels are fairly small and don't lift the jointer very much, so if you have to roll it over an uneven floor I'd look for something better.

We are holding our own in Ohio, thanks. Our governor took pretty decisive action quickly and early, and while that has generated opposition in some corners, a large majority of Ohioans give him high marks for his handling of the crisis. I think we are all holding our breaths to see what happens as (some) schools resume in person classes.

[David Publicover]

Thanks Paul! I’ll look into the Bora. I’ve been revamping my shop and trying to upgrade some tools that have been a frustration for awhile. The 6” Craftsman jointer is a star example. Whatever unit I get will likely sit in front of and parallel to my garage doors. It will have to swing around for boards longer than 5’ so a decent mobile base is a must.
I am glad you were able to keep Covid-19 from getting out of control. We have been very fortunate here. We shut down early and hard and have had very few cases the last couple months. Many businesses are open and, like you, we have our fingers crossed that the return to school will be ok.
Thanks again for your insights.
David

[Stephen Leung]

Thanks to your first and subsequent post, I'm a proud new owner of the King J/P as well! Would you mind posting a couple of pics of your igaging DRO install? I've never installed one and wanted to see how to set it up.

Thanks again!
Steve

[Paul F Franklin]

Congrats Stephen! I still love mine and hope you will love yours.

Here's an overall showing where I mounted the DRO scale and display:

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Here's a closer shot showing the scale mounting. I chose to mount the scale to the planer bed and the sensor to the machine base (you could do it the other way round...) so the scale would be fairly protected by being down out of the way when the table is down for jointer mode. The brackets shown come with the DRO; I had to drill and tap holes to mount them...easy enough.

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This shows where I mounted the display. I didn't use the bracket provided with the DRO because I didn't need the adjustability so I just used a simple metal bracket I had laying around. Again, I drilled and tapped holes to mount it.

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Here's a close view of the scale mounting:

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And finally, just a shot of the back showing how I used a couple of adhesive cable tie bases to dress the cabling:

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If you go with the Igaging unit, just make sure to get the orientation correct so the display goes down as the table moves up. It's just a matter of attaching the correct end of the scale to the table, but IIRC, when I did that the cable pointed toward the front of the machine, and I wanted it to point toward the rear, so I ended up removing the end of the scale, sliding the sensor off the end, reversing it, and sliding it back on. Aside from the lousy directions that come with the Igaging unit, I've been totally happy with it.

As far as the J/P itself goes, I've now run many hundreds of feet of rough lumber through it (mostly cherry) and still find it a joy. The tables have stayed in alignment and I haven't needed to rotate the inserts yet.

One tip: after you've run it for a while, check the tension of the belt that drives the cutterhead. Like all belts, it will stretch a bit with use. It's easy to adjust the tension.

Enjoy!

[Rod Sheridan]

Rod, I believe the Hammer also has a dust chute that flips over between modes. Does it have an internal pivoting baffle and if so, does it just depend on gravity to hold it in correct position?

BTW, for anyone with the hots for an A3-31, it seems to be on sale on their e-store right now. Still a lot more $$$ than the king, but a discount from usual price, I believe.

Yes Paul, it has a gravity baffle in the dust hood as well.....Have fun with your new machine........Regards, Rod.

[Stephen Leung]

This is amazing - thank you!