I've been around woodworking for a few years now. I've finally gotten to a point where I think I could use a jointer or planer. But, I have a few questions to ask before I make my purchase:

1. A planer is used to take thickness from the board. Generally this is done on the face of the board. True?

2. A jointer is used to make to sides parallel to each other. True

Wouldn't a planer be able to do the same thing as the jointer, as long as the board would feed into the machine? And, wouldn't the jointer be able to do the same thing as long as the face of the board was not to wide that the knives wouldn't get the whole face?

I'm sure its more complicated than this, but this is how my simple mind sees it. If a few of my assumptions are correct, I'm leaning towards the planer. Rigid and DeWalt both have a few options around the 400-500 dollar mark. I've searched for planer on here and found several posts about some users getting some nice discounts lately.

Thanks

Kevin