Jointer upgrade - opinions?

[Nick Mazzino]

Hi all,

Looking to upgrade my old half working Delta 6" jointer to an 8" with a longer (72ish") bed.
Was looking at the Grizzly ones.
I would like to stay around the 1,000-1,300$ price range. Is the parallelogram worth it?

I have been on the lookout for a used 8" one around my area for at least a year and nothing ever comes up.

Any other brands or recommendations you have around that price range?

Thanks!

[Mel Fulks]

I dislike the modern machine tables that are elevated and lowered by 'stick shifts '. The old ones with a hand wheel on out feed
table can be calibrated with filed marks. Jointers are adjusted in thousandths, too much trial and error to adjust with no
marks . Marks about 3/8 ths apart often move out feed table a couple thou. Easy to make a small pointer and attach with
one screw.

[andy bessette]

...Looking to upgrade my old half working Delta 6" jointer to an 8" with a longer (72ish") bed.
Was looking at the Grizzly...

Grizzly is hardly an upgrade from Delta.

Look for an earlier Powermatic.

[Myles Moran]

I have a g0656x. Table was flat within .005 out of the box, and aligned coplanar as far as I could measure. To me the spiral cutter was more important than the adjustability of the parallelogram, because the dovetails can be adjusted with a bit more work. I also wasn't sure if I'd have to remove a table to get it into my basement but it went in without disassembly.

Cut quality is great. Nothing left that a quick sand with 150 can't fix.

[Patrick Kane]

Idk, I think an 8” grizzly is better than a 6” delta. I had a delta DJ20 and it was a fine machine. I also had a 12” grizzly and it was a better machine.

I agree that handwheels are preferred for fine tuning. For straight knives, it’s convenient to be able to move the outfeed table up or down 1-2 thous to match the consistency of the knives in relation to one another. Much more precise with a hand wheel. My current 20” machine has levers for adjustment, and I set the outfeed table with a fair amount of accuracy to the Tersa head. Lever adjustment is nice for the infeed table, because you can make an adjustment from 1/16” to 1/4” cut very quickly.

I would lean towards parallelogram. Does it affect the performance of the machine? No, it doesn’t. However, you will be very thankful when it comes to calibrating the machine. Dovetail ways are a guessing game of adjustment. Parallelogram are much more controlled and precise to adjust typically via a wrench/Allen key. Need to pick up the outfeed table far edge .005”? What thickness shim is that for dovetail way? On parallelogram you would make small tweaks until you hit the .005”. Finally, I don’t know how you move the outfeed table up or down with the shims in place. I’ve adjusted two parallelogram jointers to perfection and one buddy’s dovetail way to acceptable.

[Mike Kees]

Grizzly is hardly an upgrade from Delta.

Look for an earlier Powermatic.

I have owned two Delta jointers. First one was a 6'' made in Taiwan,#2 was a old 37-315 made in the U.S. Guess which one needed shimmed to have both infeed and outfeed tables in the same plane ? The one made in the U.S. Taiwan one was made well after the cosmoline was cleaned out of it. I say a good jointer is a good jointer and the name on it or even the country of origin does not matter so much. I prefer to buy used tools where I can put my hands on the machine and check everything out personally before I plunk down cash.

[Mel Fulks]

Patrick, thanks for backing up the advantage of the hand wheels. No good advice succeeds in helping those who need it
without a second vote. I've worked in shops where new knives perfectly installed get a knick right in the middle of machine
width. Then most are in the dark and complain , while the greenest guys might start taking the machine apart. Many don't
understand machine adjustment....they think " dang , now I'll have to sand that out". They don't understand the real
problem.

[Andrew Hughes]

Patrick, thanks for backing up the advantage of the hand wheels. No good advice succeeds in helping those who need it
without a second vote. I've worked in shops where new knives perfectly installed get a knick right in the middle of machine
width. Then most are in the dark and complain , while the greenest guys might start taking the machine apart. Many don't
understand machine adjustment....they think " dang , now I'll have to sand that out". They don't understand the real
problem.

If I had to share my shop with others there would be a big sign above the jointer.

Clean Wood Only.

Have we not seen the videos on YouTube where the host shows the world how meticulous of a job he’s done setting new knives. With a small pause soon shows up with a 2x4 that’s looks like it’s been in a field for years. Let’s see how the machine cuts.