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Robert, I've only owned two jointers, a General 8", and a Hammer A3-31.
I've been very pleased with both, I had the General for many years, it was a great machine, came perfectly adjusted from the factory and I managed to keep it that way until I sold it.
The next machine was a Hammer A3-31 which also came perfectly adjusted from the factory, and produces a better surface finish than the General.
The Hammer also has quick change knives, no more adjustment/fiddling, I can replace all three knives in about 6 or 7 minutes.
When I worked in industry, all the jointers were wedge designs, they worked day in, day out for decades without problems.
The big differences in jointers is the accuracy to which they're made, that's the most important criteria, not whether it has wheels or levers, or is a parallelogram or wedge design.
The one item all owners agree on however is width, no one ever complained that their jointer was too big.
regards, Rod.
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I've got a Powermatic PJ-882. It's about (5) years old. No issues with it. Completely happy with it. May go to a Byrd Head at some point but it does pretty well without it.
If I were looking for a new jointer though I think I would check out the 12" Grizzly with the Byrd Head and also maybe one of those jointer/planer combos from MM or Felder.
I've had really good luck with all the Powermatic tools I have. I'm up to (4) now with the first one being the hollow chisel mortiser.
Good Luck with your purchase.
PHM
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Just a thought, but for the price of an 8" PM, you could get yourself a 12" Grizzly. In my opinion, an 8" jointer, for the price, does not offer much utility over a 6" machine. You are still stuck working with narrow stock. One of Grizzly's 12" machines enables you to also work with wide boards.
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That was my choice 8 inch powermatic or 12 inch Grizzly / Shopfox, I went with the shopfox 12 inch. I would not even think of a 8 inch once I have had this one. But then again I do have several powermatic tools and the quality is top notch.
Phil
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I considered an 8" jointer
and decided it wasn't enough of an upgrade over the 6" to be worth the cost & hassle. I don't joint much stock longer than 4'-5'. Like Rod said, I've never heard anyone complain their jointer was too wide. I replaced a Delta 22-580 benchtop planer and Bridgewood 6" jointer with a Jet 12" jointer/planer combo. I'm happy with my deal. Others may value the longer beds found on 8"+ jointers over the wider cutterheads. Different strokes for different folks.
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I looked seriously at a PM 882HH, but ended up going with a Grizzly G0490. Mainly because of price, but in trying out the PM I found that I didn't like leaning over that much, the bed/fence is set back from the front of the machine quite a bit. I have a chronic bad back and leaning over like that even for just a few minutes really start it aching.
From the factory, the tables were dead flat and parallel, the outfeed table was perfectly set. I've since upgraded it with a Byrd head and realigning the outfeed was very easy. The only issue was power switch mount that was welded slightly crooked, Grizzly had me a new one in a couple days.
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