Originally Posted by
Holmes Anderson
I disagree. Neither hobby woodworkers nor typical commercial cabinet shops frequently use highly figured wood for kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities. Regarding nicks, most people stagger the knives after getting a nick. A careless woodworker can sustain multiple knife nicks and keep using the same knives by staggering them in different ways - same for the planer. A HSS knife will take a deep nick where carbide will shatter because it's so brittle. Carbide inserts are also relatively expensive to replace. HSS jointer knives are practically disposable. Let's talk cabinetry, say kitchen cabinets. Nobody needs carbide inserts to build a single set of kitchen cabinets. HSS knives will stay sharp for your cabinets, bedroom set, dining set, and more, regardless of the wood species. Carbide inserts make sense for a production shop that is building 100s of sets of cabinets per year. They save the down time of blade changes, although rotating a bunch of inserts probably takes more time than swapping a few knives. Carbide inserts make sense for those who process only highly figured wood, but even then the inserts are more useful on the planer than the jointer. You are a hobby woodworker, right? How often did you need swap out the knives on your straight knife jointer? When I bought my first jointer from a local machine supply shop that sold to many hobby woodworkers they told me I would probably get a year out of a set of knives before they needed to be swapped out. They were right, and I work with hard maple, cherry, ash, and white oak so the knives get well used. I concede the points about reduced noise and tearout in highly figured wood but those advantages don't justify an extra $600+ in the purchase price for average Joe hobby woodworker. +1 with Mike Stenson on the hand planes.
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