Northfield vs. Martin

[Mel Fulks]

The square head ones make more noise, but everything I've used that was old was from about 1930 to to probably no later than 1950, had the round gibbed head with standard (but now rapidly being replaced) straight knives. Most had direct drive. Sometimes I wonder just how many videos are on line with jointers running with coins on edge! When I first started working, the company actually still had one "line drive" but It wasn't long before they took it out. I mention that because I'm guessing they made a point of prioritizing removing square heads.

[Jeff Duncan]

Fun thread! So one more opinion for the mix, I have a preference towards older European machines for many reasons mentioned. They were well engineered and built like tanks. Very little electronics if you go old enough, so it's the best of both worlds in my opinion. My jointer and planer are both Italian and likely close to 40 years old. My shapers are German and Italian and older than that! They're not perfect machines but they'll run all day long in a commercial setting no problem. Nothing against the old American iron either, for jointers and planers it's probably a toss up. For shapers and saws....no contest IMHO, the European machinery is just more flexible and a pleasure to use.

good luck,
JeffD

[David Kumm]

Jeff, I'll agree if you include Great Britain with Euro. Not sure if that is politically correct any more but their machines were very good. Dave

[Martin Wasner]

Nothing against the old American iron either, for jointers and planers it's probably a toss up. For shapers and saws....no contest IMHO, the European machinery is just more flexible and a pleasure to use.

If you're planning on running a Northfield shaper, it better be a set and forget setup. They are unpleasant to have to change gears and do something else on. Which there are plenty of things where that is just fine.

I'm going to be in the market for a different planer in a few years. I don't have a Northfield on my list for what I do. If I was taking skip planed lumber and just facing it, they're awesome. They can also hog when needed. Right now an SCM is at the top of my list, but I haven't gotten a price yet, so it make get knocked off pretty quickly for a lower model.

Tablesaw, I'd go American. Tannewitz, Northfield, Oliver. Of which Northfield is the only one still around. I don't care for how far into the field the blades are on any of them though for manual use. For a slider, I wouldn't buy one except for very specific uses, but that's just me. The only regular cabinet saw that I know of made in Europe and is still being produced is Robland. I have no clue what kind of quality they are. There may be others that I'm unaware of.

Panel saws, as far as I'm concerned there's only one brand. Striebig.

Is there any European made straight line rip saws?

[James Biddle]

I've had the pleasure of using 3 different SCM jointers over the years and now have access to a Martin combo J/P. I can tell you that although the SCM products are top notch, heavy, durable machines, the Martin is on a different level. Two speed start up, braking, motorized lift, variable speed feed, digital height readout, overall build quality...it's as if the SCM developers were given carte blanche. Now, the combo machine I use is made in Italy to Martin's specs; This is advertised as Martin's intro machine. I've never used a Northfield and hear they are also fantastic, but I worry about them relying on past laurels and not venturing into modern electronics, probably unjustifiably. Heck, without electronics, I wouldn't be able to figure out what to cut anymore. Martin's help network is second to none. The dollars are going to hurt one time with either machine...and if I didn't have access to the Martin, SCM would be on my short list.

[Joe Calhoon]

No experience With Northfield but I hear they are solid units. 2 local shops have new Northfield planers. One has both a Martin planer and a Northfield They use the Martin as a fine finishing planer and the Northfield to run reclaimed wood for millwork. He is happy with both machines. The other shop is a cabinet door mfg. and upgraded from a carpet feed SCM planer to the Northfield. He is happy with the Northfield last I talked to him.

I have used a Martin jointer the last 15 years and will offer a comparison based on the Northfield specs. We upgraded from a SCM 16" combo J/P. I think if you are only doing rough work like facing or just straightening the edge for ripping there are a lot of choices. We use ours for a lot of finish edges and bevels. We bevel all our passage door edges and they only require a light sanding with the orbital sander to clean. Tilting the fence to 45 is a quick and easy way to chamfer or put and eased edge on.We have a SLR but prefer the jointer for accurate glue ups.

Martin is about 20” wide, Northfield has a 24”

Martin offers a Tersa head they make and balance in-house, a spiral head they make in- house and a straight head if desired. I think Northfield offers a Byrd head and their standard head.
Martin cutting circle is about 5”, Northfield is 4 ½” cutting circle.

Martin 5000 RPM, Northfied 4500 and 3600 with direct drive

Martin 2160 lbs. with compound steel and concrete frame with heavy cast tables, Northfield 2200lbs with cast frame and tables

Martin 7.5 HP, Northfield 5, 7.5 and 10HP

Martin depth of cut 8mm max, Northfield says ¾” rabbet depth. I do not know if that would be the max depth of cut also. I don’t think any Euro jointers have rabbeting ledges.

Martin has motorized table adjustment and adjustment for concave – convex joints. Northfield has a ships wheel for adjustment that I bet works well.

Martin has 78” infeed table and 47” outfeed. Northfield is 8’ overall.

I assume a Suvamatic guard like Martin offers could be fitted on the Northfield.

I have been very happy with my machine. No issues with table alignment and fence squareness like I had with past jointers. I think the best features of the Martin is the fence that rides on ball bearings with easy one hand operation for moving locking and tilting. The long infeed is nice as is quite running and good dust collection.

For heavy duty rough work I could see some advantages to the Northfield.

The Martin jointer is better compared to the SCM L’Invincible F7 and in Europe to Panhans, Hofmann and Utis.

[David Kumm]

Joe is the go to guy about anything Euro, machines and tooling. I believe Northfield spec's their tables to be within .003 or better along their 8' length. I suspect Martin and L'Invincible will be similar but you won't find many short 8" jointers that can boast that. Of course the price point and market are entirely different. I'm a US bandsaw guy but a Euro shaper fan. Martin, for table saws I'd add Whitney and Greenlee to your list- maybe on top. The Robinson is my favorite saw with a short slider, followed by Whitney, and Wadkin. I think their sliding table designs are slightly better than the Oliver but we are splitting hairs here. There are still a lot of machines to cover but I digress. Dave

[mreza Salav]

Joe, excuse me for jumping in, but I'm trying to imagine running a heavy passage door on its edge to get a bevel on the jointer (I used my track saw ). how tall is the fence on the jointer that allows doing this easily?

[Rick Fisher]

The fence on my Griggio is 7" tall.

It would be sufficient to bevel interior doors.

[Erik Loza]

..The Martin jointer is better compared to the SCM L’Invincible F7...

Joe, can you explain why you feel this way? Not a flame war question, an honest question. What specifically makes it better? Also, what does that Martin jointer cost? I know that the Invincible costs but not the Martin. Curious to know.

Of all the machines out there, Martin is the one I run into least. If I'm being honest, most Martin owners I know are rich hobbyists, not production shops. Not sure where it is anywhere else the vast majority of commercial shops I run into have Altendorf or SCMi equipment and the more basic models, at that.

Not shilling for SCM here (I'm actually forbidden from dealing in Invincible machines in most parts of the country, since most of them require a dealer service contract and technician to install, which I can't offer) but the F7 does have a pretty nice returning guard as well.

Erik

[peter gagliardi]

Eric, thanks for posting that. Initially, it would seem that that guard works reasonably well and is clever, but I have to wonder the durability and toughness of such an arrangement over time?
On my old American with the porkchop style solid aluminum style guard , it sees a little bit of abuse from large,heavy ,unwieldy thick planks. Sometimes while positioning, it is not uncommon to have an end of a 80-120 lb plank resting on top of the guard.
It probably doesn't like it, but it does it.
I don't think even the Martin guard would like it to be fair.
I don't abuse my equipment, per se, but it does get used heavily at times, with big stuff.

I haven't been able to look closely at the newest generation SCM equipment, but I did last back at IWF in 2004, or 2006.
At that time there was a very large gap in fit, finish, and engineering between Martin and any of the Italian machines, almost comical on the shaper especially.

I am, however looking into a new high end shaper, and if only from a distance at this point- again, haven't been able to inspect up close, I am encouraged that SCM might be actually trying to close that fit,finish, and engineering gap a bit!

I am headed to IWF again this year to inspect and compare basically side by side.

[Rich Riddle]

I like the old Martin. Ken's right about all the technology.

[Frank Drew]

I bought a mid-Fifties Northfield medium-duty 12" jointer in 1981 and sold it twenty-five years later. I used it in a one-man custom furniture shop so it wasn't running hard all day, but, still, I got twenty-five years out of it with no degrade in performance over that time.

It had been sold new as a direct drive but when I bought it it had been converted to belt drive, without a motor. The used 3 hp dustproof motor I bought was still going strong when I sold the machine.

My only beef with the machine was the difficulty replacing and aligning the straight knives (3); I kept a couple of sharpened spare sets so there wasn't any down time when a set needed re-sharpening, but it was a p.i.a. to set the knives. Once set, though, they stayed set for the life of their sharpness. I ran a lot of large boards over it, and some heavy timbers, and the machine could easily handle anything I could heft. I always used ear muffs, absolutely positively when face-planing which was louder than loud.

As for which machine to get, among the many fine ones available, my strong inclination would be used; I'm only familiar with American jointers, and have a prejudice for Oliver, but if you can find a good European machine on the used market at a good price....

Then there's the fun job of moving one of those monsters!

[Erik Loza]

Peter, I think Martin stuff is awesome but my take has always been that SCM is good enough for what most shops need, at a more effective price point. That's not me shilling for SCM, it's just my professional observation as a guy with many pro customers and as a guy who has been in his fair share of pro shops. I'm not going to IWF this year but they will have a couple of Invincible machines there. My pitch to guys has always been, "The Martin is great. Buy it if you like but the Invincible will do exactly the same thing and save you some money". Like I said before, I've never seen a new Martin machine in one of my shops. I know they're out there and I know folks must buy them but most of the Martin owners I come in contact with are affluent hobbyists. Again, not a judgment, just an observation.

From the IWF side of things (and I can say this because I've done almost every one of them), machines like the Invincible and the top-of-the-line Martin gear aren't there to sell Invincibles or top-of-the-line Martin gear. They're there to get you in the booth, wow you with the technology (they actually upload an automated "demo" mode for the motorized functions, so the customer can watch the machine run through its paces) then get you looking at the more basic stuff. I would bet money that Martin sells mostly their re-badged Griggio equipment at their shows, just like Stiles sells more of their Chinese sliders than the real Altendorfs. Exact same thing with SCM: The Invincible sells Novas for me. "Mr. Customer, what if you could get a machine that cuts the exact same way, at a quarter the cost?", and presto, a Nova sale. Here is the AWFS booth from last year. Notice the entry level Si400 Nova right next to the Si7 L'Invincible. Think that's by accident?



Erik

[Mel Fulks]

Frank, the easiest jointer I've seen to change knives was a Faye & Egan that had a indexing wheel on the direct drive head. I made my own magnetic jig which held the knives perfectly vertical. I put a height gauge on the outfeed table adjustment wheel ,had a marking for "change knives" and another mark for "new knives". Other marks about 3/8 of an inch apart that represented table movement of 2 thousandths. Made it easy and quick to adjust even for slight nicks. The large acme threads make such an arrangement quite accurate. I consider the lack of factory provided pointer and increment marks a serious omission .