buying a jointer

[Randall J Cox]

I bought a used 6" Sears jointer years ago, used it probably 15 years. Then I bought a used Powermatic 8" jointer in almost perfect condition Holy cow what a difference. I guess I didn't realize how much difference a good jointer made until I started using one. Took me a day to carefully dial it in, but its been dead on for the last 5 years. It has straight knives, I've had them sharpened once. Very happy with it. Randy

[Bill Dufour]

I realize I made a mistake some jointers have changed since the 1950's. Some went to a parallelogram table mount system starting in the 1970's or maybe even more modern then that.
Bil lD

[Jim Matthews]

https://charlotte.craigslist.org/tls...199764641.html

Straight knives work just fine.

[Scott Bernstein]

1+ on the phenomenon of "price creep"! I started with a Grizzly 6" wide floor-standing jointer. I purchased because it was relatively inexpensive, had never owned a jointer before (or any hand planes), and I had only 120V outlets at the time. I never gave a thought to a small bench-top jointer - that just didn't seem like it would be useful except for building very small things like cutting boards, models, or boxes. I wanted to make larger furniture items...so I obtained the 6" jointer. The machine worked great and gave excellent results; I built many, may projects successfully. Stiil, I outgrew it in a couple years. I wanted to use boards with wider faces for my larger projects...and I wanted to be able to buy larger pieces of rough lumber and mill it myself. So I used a combination of Makita handheld power plane, various hand planes, and a router plane jig. All these things worked, but were quite slow and frustrating for me. Eventually I started looking at the 8" Grizzly jointers. From there the price creep started... "8 inches is only 2 inches bigger...what about 10? or 12?" At that size you start talking real money...but then going from 12 to 16 inch isn't all that much more...but then my planer was only 13 inches...so what about a 16" combo machine... Well in the end I ended up with a 16" jointer-planer combo which costs more than what I'd ever thought I'd spend. But it's the last jointer I'll ever buy!!

If I had to do it all again I never would have bothered with a 6" jointer. I would have instead, in retrospect, learned how to use hand planes for jointing edges and utilized a face-jointing sled for my 13" lunchbox planer. I would have ended up with the machine I have now that much sooner.

[Mark Gibney]

Depending on where you live you can get 8" jointers, used, very reasonably.

Right now there is a Powermatic 8" straight knife jointer for sale locally to me for $500.
A few months back there was a 1980's model Transpower jointer for $300, practically unused. Transpower is not a sexy name, but as long as the tables and the fence are flat it was probably a really good deal. It sold fast.

You can then, if you want, spend the extra money on a helical head. In the future.
Installing a new head on an 8" jointer is one of the easier machine maintenance procedures you can undertake, don't let the idea of it put you off.

[Andrew Hughes]

Mark and I are lucky in sense that we have lots of used woodworking machines to choose from. Good ones made in
America. There’s a Oliver 144 bd in our local Craigslist for 2250. It’s direct drive 3ph. Oliver made the finest jointers in the world. The 144 is reported to be one of the quietest smoothest running jointer every made.
But like I posted earlier your probably not ready yet. Or a fine machine is appreciated as much until you had to settle with a Asian made screamer.

[Neil Gaskin]

The jointer is the one tool I wish I had bought bigger last time. I have a Powermatic 8" Helical Head and it performs well for edge jointing. It does fine on flat surfacing as well up to it's 8" capacity. I wish I would have bought a 16".

As mentioned above it really depends on the size of material your projects require. I don't do a lot that is bigger than 8" but at least a few times a month I wish I could flatten a wider board.

I had the thought today of posting mine for sale and looking for a 16" model but I will likely end up keeping the 8" a while because it is great for edge jointing. I haven't used a larger jointer so I'm a little concerned about the ergonomics of running a board on edge on the wider one.

[Phil Gaudio]

I would check craigslist for a nice 6" floor standing jointer. I started out with a 6" Jet and it was a very nice machine. A lot of very nice furniture has been made on 6" jointers over the years: you can always go bigger later, it that is what is needed.