Poll: Jointer Cutter Head: Straight Blades or Helical Segmented ?

[Andrew Hughes]

That’s a really good point Will. Spreading work out across a wider head. Most often I read post they say I don’t buy 16 inch wide boards only 6 or 7 inches wide so why would I need a 16 inch wide head.
The answer is you can spread out the work,bigger diameter heads produce a better finish.
The feed pressure from a insert head is not something trivial.
I speak now from my experience I use my jointer in the same way as Will. I go months with excellent cuts from my machine that has a 5 inch cutting circle. I also enjoy sitting in my chair while facing lumber mostly just the weight of the stock is enough downward pressure. My job is moving wood left to right. When the boards start needing pressure it’s time to take them out and sharpen them. Or wett them off the infeed table.
A insert head in a hand feed machine not me never again.

[Mel Fulks]

Tersa on my SCM/Minimax J/P combo...and I'm extremely pleased. If I had North American traditional "separate" machines, I'd have straight knives on a jointer most likely and something spiralish on a thicknesser. I like Tersa because I can replace them in about three minutes or even move one just a hair if there's a nick and they are also reversible.

By email I asked what steel they use for the HSS , and noted I'm aware of the many incorrect and mis-leading uses of
the term "high speed steel". They use M-2 and I've heard nothing bad about Tersa.

[Jim Becker]

That’s a really good point Will. Spreading work out across a wider head. Most often I read post they say I don’t buy 16 inch wide boards only 6 or 7 inches wide so why would I need a 16 inch wide head.
The answer is you can spread out the work,bigger diameter heads produce a better finish.
The feed pressure from a insert head is not something trivial.
I speak now from my experience I use my jointer in the same way as Will. I go months with excellent cuts from my machine that has a 5 inch cutting circle. I also enjoy sitting in my chair while facing lumber mostly just the weight of the stock is enough downward pressure. My job is moving wood left to right. When the boards start needing pressure it’s time to take them out and sharpen them. Or wett them off the infeed table.
A insert head in a hand feed machine not me never again.

Further, a wide jointer allows one to process odd shapes and curved work a lot easier. Sometimes skewing a workpiece slightly improves the result for certain grain situations, too. The bottom line is that narrow boards can be worked with a wide machine, but wide boards just don't fit on a narrow one relative to face jointing. That happens to be my primary use for the jointer function on my J/P, too. I rarely process edges on there as the slider takes care of that nicely while ripping after the material is flat and thicknessed.