Track saw or jointer for small shop?

[Mark Clemmens]

I recently started a small woodworking business, mostly furniture at the moment (tables, benches, chairs, dressers, etc), and my shop machines currently consists of:

10" table saw

17" bandsaw

15" planer w/ spiral cutterhead

+ a ton of hand tools (saws, planes, chisels, etc) and a bunch of other power tools (sanders, drills / drivers, routers, etc)


So a little background to help inform any replies, I've only been wookworking (seriously) for about a year, and have up until the past week been working out of my friends shop where he has all of the machines you could ever want, but it's time to work in my own space. I do however work 6-7 days a week, probably around 80-100 hours a week. My degree is in architecture, so I have a strong design background, I love making jigs, and I'm very familiar with building in general. I buy / borrow every woodworking book I can find, spend countless hours on youtube, etc, so although I lack formal training, I feel very confident in my woodworking abilities. Having said that, I do learn a lot each day, and I keep a log of all of my progress / ideas, techniques, process, etc. I have a very close family friend / relative who ran a huge cabinet shop operation most of his career, and he works with me when he can; he's kind of my personal consultant.

So anyway, the reason I'm posting is because up until last week I did most of my jointing with hand planes and / or a router, however I have recently invested most of my money into the machines I listed above. I couldn't afford a jointer, and as I'm very confident with hand planes I chose to continue that route until I have some funds. I have a planing jig, so that I can face joint boards before running them through the thickness planer. Now that I have a little bit of money coming in however, I'm wondering if a jointer is the best place to spend what little available funds I have. I also would love the ability to break down sheet goods with extreme accuracy, and I don't feel that the table saw is the best tool for this; too much room for slight error in handing large sheets; plus I don't have long rails. I am considering the idea of investing in a track saw, either festool or makita, to be able to process sheet goods as well as for jointing lumber.

My question is, given my situation and my current need to breakdown sheet goods and put a straight edge on lumber, would it be better to invest in a jointer or a track saw? Given my background, I have an obsessive desire for accuracy in everything that I do. I walk around with my starret square most of the day, and I never pass up the opportunity to work to the tightest tolerance I can, because that is very important to me; I have found over the years that it is much more effective to work in this manner than to fix error at the end of the process. This is one reason I am leaning towards the festool track saw. While I don't appreciate the fact that they charge absurd amounts of money for accessories and such, they do seem to have impeccable accuracy and design in their tools, and I have a lot of respect for that. I guess it does warrant their prices. The tracksaw (~ $615) + the long guide rail (~ $300), will end up running me around $1000, while the jointer I'm looking at (grizzly w/ spiral cutterhead) will run me about $1500. I realize I could get a straight knife jointer for much less, but in my experience spiral cutterheads are far superior, and I would never go back to straight knives. What I'm concerned about with the track saw is having the ability to quickly and easily joint small, especially thin lumber. I'm sure I could design some kind of jig for this, as well as crosscutting (I don't have a miter saw), but again that is more time and work. I would love to hear from people who use their track saw as a jointer.

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, I'm just trying to get the facts out there so I can hear some solid responses. Thanks,

Mark

[Myk Rian]

You say "tables, benches, chairs, dressers, etc" which don't require sheet goods (for the most part), or a track saw.
Get an 8" jointer.

[Justin Ludwig]

Only time I use my track saw is at the job site to break down sheets for closets and such. Take that for what it's worth. I build cabinets, closets, and do trim work. If I have to straight line something in the shop I use a jig on the TS as I don't own a jointer.

Break it down and do a cost analysis. Which tool would pay for itself the quickest? And that depends entirely on the type of goods you're producing. The one that pays off the fastest creates the income to buy the other tool faster. My 2 pennies...

[Mark Clemmens]

You say "tables, benches, chairs, dressers, etc" which don't require sheet goods (for the most part), or a track saw.
Get an 8" jointer.

Thank you for the quick response.

I've been building a lot of drawers lately, and I build a lot of jigs that utilize plywood, MDF, acrylic, etc, so while I don't really build cabinets at the moment I do use sheet goods often; plus I plan on working with sheet goods much more in the near future. By benches, I was also referring to custom booths, etc.

In my experience, running anything longer than 6' through a jointer just doesn't "feel" like the best way to be doing it; it clearly works, I just think that a track saw might put a perfectly straight edge on a board quicker than fiddling with long boards on a jointer.

I also should have specified that I work in a small area, less than 400sf, so another machine just means less floor space to work with.

Mark

[Matt Day]

A jointer and a track saw are two totally different machines.

Do you work with all sheet goods?

Any kind of rough stock requires a jointer or at minimum a planer sled.

My shop is about 300sf and I've got an 8" jointer - I couldn't start a project without it. Seems like a no brainer choice to me.

[Sam Murdoch]

For breaking down sheet goods I am completely sold on the track saw. Been doing this woodworking stuff for a long time and the track saw has changed the way I work with sheet goods - all for the better!!!!! My advice in this regard is to buy a TS55 and as big a CT as you can afford and 2 of the 1400/2 rails with connectors and clamps.

I suggest the 2 rails rather than the one long one because it really is a versatile option. The size is good for cross cuts of sheet goods and I am one who has never had any issues connecting rails together to make longer rails. The secret to success with this is that you work off a FLAT surface - not between 2 sawhorses with a few 2x4s for support. The cost is better, transportation and/or storage is easier, and the versatility is greatly enhanced with 2 rather than 1 rail. Later you can buy a few shorter rails and eventually the long rail but that is something you can grow into as money comes in. In any event you will want to buy more rails in time.

NOW - having written all that - a track saw is not a jointer. Yes, it will give you a straight edge. The work you describe - "What I'm concerned about with the track saw is having the ability to quickly and easily joint small, especially thin lumber." is not served well with a track saw. If you need to build "jigs" it would be much easier to build jigs for the TS or the bandsaw to joint "small, especially thin lumber". Buy your rough lumber dressed 2 sides and ripped one edge and you will at least have a nearly straight edge with which to start breaking down lumber parts.

NOW part 2 - Considering "Given my background, I have an obsessive desire for accuracy in everything that I do. I walk around with my starret square most of the day, and I never pass up the opportunity to work to the tightest tolerance I can, because that is very important to me" All of these options will give less than satisfactory results. To me a jointer is an essential shop tool. I'd give up the TS or bandsaw (one or the other - not both) in favor of a jointer.

[Mike Cutler]

Mark

I have a Festool TS-75, which is a beautiful little saw to own and very convenient, but nothing beats a tablesaw and a jointer for speed and repeatability.
The Festool,at least in my case, is used primarily for safety purposes. My lower back can't hump sheets of plywood through a tablesaw any longer so it's a lot easier to break down them to mangaeable sizes and then run it through the tablesaw.
I haven't yet got a perfect straight line rip from my TS 75 in solid lumber. Close, very close, but not perfect. The edge still needs to be run through the jointer, or tablesaw.
I think that your overlooking one very important aspect opf a jointer,a nd that is to establish one side flat prior to going through the planer. Once agin, speed and repeatablity. If you're going to be making furniture, the jointer is a machine that you will need.
One more thing is that long before tracksaws were being sold as a purpose specific "set", people were making their own. They're not difficult to make. Heavy and clumsy at times, but they worked. Point being that you can make a edge guide of your own, for just about any circular saw.

[Erik Christensen]

I have both and if I had to give up one I would dump the jointer and keep the track saw. if you get the festool keep in mind the fact that other tools can use that track - having a rail guided router lets you do things easily that are a challenge with other tooling - things like stopped dado's in the middle of a panel, adding a few thousands to the width or depth of an existing dado, etc. - you have hand planes so if you got a tracksaw and needed to to edge joint a board you would use the saw to get a straight edge and a pass or 2 with the plane to remove saw marks -done. with a planer sled to face joint I think you have all your needs covered.

not quite as convenient as a spiral head jointer but the track saw & rail does so much more that for a small shop I think you would be better off with the saw to start - my 2 cents

[paul cottingham]

Seriously, if I was to start over, I would replace my table saw with a (gasp) Festool track saw and dust collector. Great for long rips, and no dust. I crosscut everything pretty much by hand. Anything really wide, well, that's what the track saw is for. I would also buy a good power planer. And a good bandsaw. Maybe (ala Schwarz) a power mortiser as well. That takes care of all the drudge work that no one notices anyways. A jointer would follow, but it would be a distant purchase.
The rest of my money would go in to quality hand tools, either new or used.

[Peter Quinn]

Get the jointer. Get the big one. It's about making right angles, the track saw isn't going to do that for you. You can make a shop made jig and use a $78 skill saw to break sheet stock until money tree blooms.....or you can spend days with hand tools doing what a good jointer will do in minutes.

[Don Welch]

Jointer - preferably used European over Asian no matter the head type on the Asian machine; search for an insert knife type if at all within your target range. Consider selling the planer to finance a J/P combo machine. I don't intend this harshly at all, but w/o a jointer, the planer really isn't an effective asset - you need one flat surface to start the planer feed. Perhaps you're achieving this starter point w/ hand planes, but that's a long path to get there for even a start-up business. you

[Mark Clemmens]

Jointer - preferably used European over Asian no matter the head type on the Asian machine; search for an insert knife type if at all within your target range. Consider selling the planer to finance a J/P combo machine. I don't intend this harshly at all, but w/o a jointer, the planer really isn't an effective asset - you need one flat surface to start the planer feed. Perhaps you're achieving this starter point w/ hand planes, but that's a long path to get there for even a start-up business. you

I built a planer sled which uses wedges to hold the board stable, run that through the planer, then reference the flat face throuh the planer again, without the sled. Works great, just slower. This way I can work with s2s or even totally rough lumber.

Honestly, sometimes I think using the planer sled is EASIER and faster than face jointing a long board.

[Mark Wooden]

Get a jointer and a good one. You can break down sheet goods like Peter said, did that for years and sometimes still do. A jointer isn't just about straight edges, it's about accurate , flat and square stock

A bandsaw was about my next to last essential shop tool. Jointer was my second after a table saw

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'm constantly finding new uses for my Festool TS55EQ track saw.
The sheer versatility of that tool is amazing, to say nothing of the fabulous dust control, accuracy and quality of cut.

To compare a shop made guide to a top shelf track saw is like saying you can use a 2x4 clamped to the top of your table saw as a fence.

[glenn bradley]

while I don't really build cabinets at the moment I do use sheet goods often; plus I plan on working with sheet goods much more in the near future.

My knee-jerk reaction was toward the jointer but, we all tend to base our responses on what we do. Reading this and understanding a little bit what you are going to do, I would say track saw. All that being said, I breakdown sheet material with a shop made guide and use the tablesaw to make accurate parts when I work with sheet goods but, that is a rare activity.

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A jointer is one of the first steps in milling material in my shop where I use solid woods that I acquire is various semi-rough forms so, I wouldn't be without one. Working with sheet goods takes space so anything taking up my work space would have to pay it's way. My 8" jointer would find little use if I were not making solid wood items and it takes up a hefty foot print that could be used for other purposes.