Would 2 jointers be useful? or excessive?

[Peter Kelly]

Track saw works great for edge jointing. A TS 75 with a rip blade can do up to 2 3/4" quite easily.

Louis Sauzedde demoed a shop made circular saw edge jointing setup as well.

[eugene thomas]

I bought 16" jointer few years ago and bought dispozablade system. changing blades is fast and easy.

[Chris Fournier]

Changing blades shouldn't take more than 45 minutes once you are comfortable with the procedure. An hour tops as you start out. How many hours and $$$ are involved in getting a second machine as you are thinking of doing? You have a larger jointer, it does two things well - flattening a face and creating a perpendicular edge to this face, just like every other jointer.

Invest in your skill set and learn to change knives.

[jack duren]

Two jointers is excessive.

[Frederick Skelly]

Two jointers is excessive.

Why's that Jack?

[Mark Wooden]

I'm with the others on getting another set of sharp knives and having two sets, or at least honing the knives in the jointer. I don't know what make of jointer you have, but the first 1" to 1-1/2" of the knives usually don't see a lot of work,( just like the last few inches) if your fence racks over that far.
I keep two jointers also, always good to have an 8" on a mobile base that I can move around the shop to where I need it.
I'm also with Andrew on the helical head, they have their place but the cut they produce doesn't blow my hair back.

[Jim Becker]

I don't have a slider - and I didn't know you could use one to edge boards. I can dream of the day I do have one.

Ha...I hope you didn't take my comment as suggesting you get a slider! I was just pointing out that "your" workflow is what counts in the decision you're asking about. And it's a good question, quite frankly. The smaller jointer for edges (perhaps with some bed extensions) is a good solution for what you describe.

[Bill Adamsen]

I can't imagine any 4" jointer with which I am familiar performing edge jointing satisfactorily. Seconding what Carroll recommended ... a shaper with a spiral cutter-head and a power feeder. But that still leaves the width as an issue. Do you need boards square and parallel all sides?

I too would think another jointer more redundancy than one needs. I can't really think of how that would improve the workflow without taking away more valuable space.

[Mark Gibney]

I too would think another jointer more redundancy than one needs. I can't really think of how that would improve the workflow without taking away more valuable space.

It takes me forever to change out the knives on the 16" jointer, to the point I can't take the time right now in the middle of the job I'm working on, it's like trying to push string up a hill. Maybe I was born with two left hands....

The knives are okay for jointing faces, as the boards then go thru the planer, but for the edges, it would be good to have another machine to joint them. Of course expense and space are always an issue. I'm not in a rush to get this machine so I'll let the advice you all contributed settle for a while and down the road I'll know what I want to do.

[Ronald Mancini]

I used to use my 8" Grizzly to edge joint boards, but because most of my wood is straight from the sawmill and air dried it takes a lot of passes to edge joint most boards. Now I use my track saw to edge joint the boards. Make sure the track saw blade is high quality, sharp, and true so you get a factory finish. Using a track saw is so easy that I love it. My 8" jointer is outside under a pole barn, and I do most of the woodworking inside a barn 30' away, so I have a 6" jointer in the barn to make life easy for working on smaller stock.

[jack duren]

Why's that Jack?

Not taking care of one doesn't mean you should buy another.

[Phillip Mitchell]

If I was dealing with a lot of pretty rough lumber on a regular basis, I would consider a track saw for straight-lining. Of course it's not just limited to that, but excels at that task which is certainly done easy enough on a jointer, but sometimes you have a little more flexibility with where to take material off with the track saw and can sometimes be quicker and cleaner when you're talking about really rough edges. I wish I had one for it's versatility...maybe one day.

I don't think another jointer is the answer to this problem. I think you should move your fence in close to the inside of the knives and/or replace them with sharp ones. You're gonna have to do that sooner or later the more face jointing you do anyway.

[Dale Murray]

I have one jointer and only recently acquired it, however, I did see an interview years ago with a woodworker who had one jointer dedicated to making a spring joint for glue-ups. I suppose, if you have the room and you do a great deal of panel glue-ups it totally makes sense.

I would kindly suggest a more reasonable, and still expensive, option would be to get two sets of carbide knives. You can always have a sharp set in reserve.

When I bought my table saw I bought two Freud blades (plywood and glueline). The first time I send one out to be sharpened I will then purchase a Forest blade and keep the Freud as my second string backup.

**** EDIT ****
- I just looked and Infinity has Carbide Tipped Jointer knives for very reasonable prices, in my opinion.

- I should add that while I've only had my jointer for 10 days - used DJ-20 - I've already installed a Shelix head on it and am extremely happy. The scalloping can be minimized with slower feed rates.

[Jeff Duncan]

So by the sounds of your post your doing this as a business yes? If so your in a very different situation than many/most on here so keep that in mind. For example, while using a hand plane or track saw to edge a few pieces of lumber is good advice in some situations, if your looking at 300 board feet of hardwoods.....it's just not going to be practical. I'm not trying to criticize anyones suggestions so please don't take it that way. It's just that if your looking at milling 30 board feet of lumber your in a very different place than someone who's looking at 300 bd ft.. I don't know which the OP is, but sounds like he may be closer to the latter camp?

As someone who does this for a living I find having two jointers is absolutely a beneficial way to go. I use the big jointer to straighten and flatten all my rough stock first stock. The smaller jointer is almost exclusively used for just touching up edges where needed. With a big 16" jointer you can drop the table and straighten edges quicker than any other method short of using an SLR. And since all the "dirty" wood goes over the big jointer and through the planer first, only clean boards are going over the smaller jointer when needed. Meaning I can get years out of the knives without changing. So for me having the second jointer is a real benefit. Oh and personally I wouldn't worry about getting any fancy heads, learn how to change your knives and you'll be fine. I know I'm in the minority in here but I find the spiral heads to be highly over rated for what they are.

Lastly, if I were you I wouldn't worry about picking up another jointer right now. If you don't have time to change knives you certainly don't have time to set up a new machine. Get a second set of knives for your machine if you don't already have them and set aside the time to change the knives. Even if your fairly new to changing them it shouldn't take more than a couple hours. Certainly less time than it will take to get a new, (or even more so if used), machine up and running.

good luck!
JeffD

[Roy Turbett]

I think I read somewhere about using the router table with an off-set fence and a straight bit to edge joint boards. Haven't seen this in action, and so I'm not picturing if it will be easily adjustable to do good repeatable milling.

I feel this topic has likely been covered before, but I haven't found any threads on it at all.

Mark

I just got rid of a 6" Rigid jointer that a friend was letting me use because it was too small for surfacing most boards and too short for edge jointing long boards. I recently picked up a used router lift and had to make a new table because of the smaller plate. I mounted the old top and another router on an old RAS stand and set it up for edge jointing with a straight pattern maker bit with the bearing on the bottom. I offset the left fence with a shim out of some scrap formica and use a straightedge to align the left fence with the bearing. I then lower the router bit to bury the bearing and expose the cutting edge. I get great results with the router but there is frequently some snipe at the very end of the cut.

I have an in-feed table that is co-planer with my table saw. The router table is several feet to the right of the in-feed table and is also co-planer with the table saw and in-feed table. This allows me to move quickly between ripping and edge jointing operations with the stock fully supported.