8" or 12" Joiner

[Ryan Hellmer]

I have two crescent jointers in the shop an 8 and a 16. The 8 gets used everytime I'm out there. The 16" only gets used when I get that trailer load of rough sawn lumber and I face everything before I run it through the planer. If space was a serious issue, I could get by the the 8, but if I was told I could only pick one with no other parameters (space/money) I'd go with the 16 every time. A little bit of a hassle to run the phase converter for it, but that 5HP direct drive is worth it. - Ryan

[Richard McComas]

Buy as much jointer as you have space and money for. I see it all the time. " can I joint an 8" board on my 6" jointer"? If you only have 6'' wide stock you glue two boards together and run that across the jointer.


To date I have never heard anyone say "I sure wish I'd gotten a 6" jointer instead of my 12" jointer.

[eugene thomas]

I have 16" cresent to. And with vfd cutterhead stops in 10 seconds. Very nice..

[Stephen Cherry]

First off, how wide is the lumber you want to work with? If it's over 8", it's a pretty easy answer.

I bought a 12" for my first jointer, and it has worked out fine. It's a grizzler 4178, around 750 lbs, so it's on wheels and not super heavy. I think that the 16" machines are much heavier.

My opinion is that when you go to the wood store, most of the lumber will be less than 12", but a lot will be greater than 8".

[Ole Anderson]

I guess I am the exception. I have a 6" jointer and other than wishing it were longer, I really have no use for a wider machine. Not that I wouldn't take an 8 incher if offered. The reason is that I almost never face joint wood and if I do, it is always narrower than 6". My local mill will face joint my selected rough lumber before running it through their planer and if I want to make my stock thinner than they planed it, it goes through my planer, not my jointer. The cost for them to surface it is almost negligible, on the order of 10 to 25 cents per board foot depending on quantity. And the amount of hassle saved by not emptying my dust bin as often is a bonus. 95% of my jointer work is putting a straight and square edge on my surfaced two sided lumber.

[Mike Wilkins]

I think you posted this on another site I replied to. I went from a 6" jointer to a 12" jointer/planer machine. It all depends on what your wallet can stand. I vote for getting the biggest you can get and considering shop space. Even though I have a 12" machine, I still have a couple of 15" boards that will not go through my machine. Guess I will have to sharpen the jointer plane blade and get my exercise. But these size boards are not found regularly.

[John Donofrio]

I vote for getting the biggest you can get and considering shop space.

+1 coming from someone who has a 6" jointer. There are other ways to flatten a side of wider lumber which I use for the occasions when it is necessary. A sled for the thickness planer works very well and if you are looking to lose a few pounds, hand planes always work too.

That being said, I'd recommend the largest you could fit and afford.

[Jim Becker]

I'm a "wider is better" kind of guy for this. A wide machine can surface narrow boards, but a narrow machine isn't going to help much with wide boards. Further, since you can "finesse" the cut with narrower stock, such as angling across the cutters, you can often surface highly figured boards with less tear-out. My J/P combo is 350mm wide (about 13.6") and it handle most tasks that I ask of it. There have been a few times, however, that I wished I had a couple more inches of width available!

BTW, I never use my jointer for edges...purely for flattening stock. Being blessed with a great table saw, once I have a flat board at a given thickness, my rips and crosscuts are perfectly perpendicular to the face(s) of the workpiece and don't need edge jointing.

[Ryan Baker]

A jointer is definitely a case where bigger is always better. Get the widest one that your space and budget will allow. 12" is enough for almost everything (it rare to find really wide boards these days). Anything under 12" and you will be wishing you had more. I have a 6", and really couldn't possibly squeeze a 12" in -- but that doesn't mean I don't consider it from time to time... especially when surfacing wide boards with hand planes.

[Tim Boothe]

Thanks folks, some wonderful advise and insight here. Yes, I did post this question on another forum, several actually. Looking to get as much advice as I can from as many sources so as to make the best decisions. I think I've decided to go with the 8" over the 12". Remembering that I'm setting up a shop from scratch, the machines that I'm looking at double in cost when going from an 8" to a 12". Those funds could be put towards another machine rather than an extra 4" on a jointer. I know that it will take some learning but there are other ways to work with wood bigger than 8", especially when I think about how often I would realistically be using wood bigger than 8".

Thanks again folks, and I will be bugging you guys for more advise here shortly.....

[Curtis Myers]

Ideally you want your jointer to be able to handle what you resaw. I started with a powermatic 6" and with in six months went to a grizzly 12".

[Peter Aeschliman]

Ideally you want your jointer to be able to handle what you resaw. I started with a powermatic 6" and with in six months went to a grizzly 12".

Exactly the right way to think about this problem. Here are the questions I would ask:

-What sized material do you plan to work with (for me, I have a 10" Laguna J/P machine. Most rough stock I buy is wider than 8". Sometimes I wish I had 12", but this handles 90% of my needs)
-What sized material do you want to resaw?
-What size is your planer (I've never understood having a huge planer and a small jointer- to run a machine through the planer, you first need to joint a face)?

That said, 8" will probably handle most of your needs. If you do have a wider planer, you could always make a face-jointing sled for your planer for the wider boards.

[johnny means]

I hear a lot of talk about the width of raw lumber and jointer capacity, but thst is only part of the equation. I have a 20" Felder J/P and the primary use for that much capacity is flattening glue-ups. 20" allows me to flatten panels for up to a 24" door. This makes glue-ups much easier and guarantees the flattest possible panel.