FWW Jointer review - We can do better Creekers !!

[Ken Garlock]

Let me comment on the comments, then I will crawl back into my sawdust pile.

1. Precision is important in any tool test. Most of us can't measure more precisely than .001 inches. I think it is incumbent on the tester to use any available methods to accomplish those measurements that most of us can't muster.

2. Noise level must always be measured for like equipment. Testing a jointer with Shellex cutters is not the same as testing with standard blades. Don't test one against the other. Example, my cabinet saw cranks out about 92 db with the dust collector running. However, my jointer with DC cranks out 102 db due to the loud noise of the spinning blades. Measurements made by a Radio Shack sound meter.

3. Customer service should also be a consideration, but IMO it is secondary. Most of the power tools we have in our shops are not delicate instruments. A jointer is a rather simple machine, so for me customer service is almost a non consideration. The same can be said for a cabinet saw, or even a band saw.

4. Fit and finish are also low on the list. I don't buy a tool for its innate beauty. I want performance, appearance is a far secondary. I define fit and finish as those exterior items like does the doors fit well and is the paint of good quality.

5. We expect our blades in our planes to have Milli-micron sharpness, why not hold other manufacturers to the tolerances that we hold ourselves to when honing a blade?

I can only regard these reviews as what I call "rock and rat" filters. They can eliminate the truly bad products, the rocks and rats, from those items that need further consideration.

Now where is my saw dust pile.

[Andrew Ault]

I think that a measure of relative dust collection would be feasible.

If you put a machine in a clean room, ran a proscribed number of operations on it, with a dust collector hooked up, you could then sweep up any escaped dust and measure it.

[Donnie Raines]

Let me comment on the comments, then I will crawl back into my sawdust pile.

1. Precision is important in any tool test. Most of us can't measure more precisely than .001 inches. I think it is incumbent on the tester to use any available methods to accomplish those measurements that most of us can't muster.

2. Noise level must always be measured for like equipment. Testing a jointer with Shellex cutters is not the same as testing with standard blades. Don't test one against the other. Example, my cabinet saw cranks out about 92 db with the dust collector running. However, my jointer with DC cranks out 102 db due to the loud noise of the spinning blades. Measurements made by a Radio Shack sound meter.

3. Customer service should also be a consideration, but IMO it is secondary. Most of the power tools we have in our shops are not delicate instruments. A jointer is a rather simple machine, so for me customer service is almost a non consideration. The same can be said for a cabinet saw, or even a band saw.

4. Fit and finish are also low on the list. I don't buy a tool for its innate beauty. I want performance, appearance is a far secondary. I define fit and finish as those exterior items like does the doors fit well and is the paint of good quality.

5. We expect our blades in our planes to have Milli-micron sharpness, why not hold other manufacturers to the tolerances that we hold ourselves to when honing a blade?

I can only regard these reviews as what I call "rock and rat" filters. They can eliminate the truly bad products, the rocks and rats, from those items that need further consideration.

Now where is my saw dust pile.

Ken in repsonse to your statements:

1)If the unit tested shows to be near perfect, how can we be sure that the one we purchase is? And how do we use the information...if the "popular" item test poorly...does that mean we have all made a bad buy?

2) If I seen in writing, as I just have, what the db rateing of certain items are tested at...I would have no idea how loud that really is...and I suspect many would be the same. Again, not sure why one would need to test the db in person if you can simply turn the machine on prior to buying.

3) agree

4) agree

5) agree to a certain extent.

[Lee DeRaud]

Ok, my two cents, commenting more on the usefulness of certain test criteria (I have a Delta 6" benchtop jointer...what do I know?). And no, I haven't read the FWW review/test/whatever yet.

1. If you look at the statistics of the flatness measurements you find that there is really no standard deviation and thus no 3 sigma. What does that mean? It means that based upon table flatness alone the data is really inconclusive. The only possible option in this case would be to buy 5 of each machine and then do the analysis on all of them to see if there was any statistical spread in the data. The machines measured are just all to close to perfect to make any real choice.

Agreed. But as Cecil noted, the units used are pretty much meaningless with respect to wood. This one (and any other tolerance) should probably be a "pass/fail", as in "This POS is so far out-of-flat as to be useless." More useful here would be comments on how easy/hard it is to adjust it.

2. I do believe that you all have enought smarts to devise a series of tests for these 11 machines that would in the end point to a single top performer or at least the top 3 machines.

Maybe not a single top performer. Have you seen the way Road & Track does comparison tests? Typically two winners: one price-adjusted, one price-no-object...and relative rankings listed for every test.

3. Here are a couple of things I would have wanted to see added to the test. First, lets see how each company handles "problems" or the request for " a replacement part" Although it somewhat subjective, you could measure the time it takes to place the order for say a new belt ( or somthing more complicated ). You could measure how long it takes to get the part once you have ordered it. I guess this catagory would be called "service after the sale". If you really wanted to stress the parts system, you could enquire about a replacement fence or some big casting that got "broken" some how. I had an experience with a tiawian machine that took 12 months to get a major part. I would have been better off just buying an entire new machine rather than try to get a big part that does not break very often.

Problem with this one is, it's a test of the vendor, not the machine. That whole issue should probably be the subject of a completely separate test (or poll, ala PC Magazine).

4. How about a catagory called "routine maintenance". The test person could have to change all the knives and reset them. There should be some way of measuring how long it took and the results one got with the "jig" provided by the mfg.

Definitely.

5. How about a catagory called "set up". A lot of these machines are covered with gooo.. How long and how hard is it to get the machine ready to work?

How much weight would you want to give to something that only happens once? Some notes on egregiously bad manuals or missing parts, sure, but this whole category is certainly not something I'd want to base a purchase decision on.

6. How about a catagory called "long term stability" Some fences get wacked out of square very quickly when being moved or simply by having the pork chop guard repeatedly hit the fence. Maybe the infeed table keeps drifting down after a while. I am sure some simple test of the machine running for even an hour could be devised that might show that many of them got out of wack pretty quickly or maybe none of them did.

Yes, but again, a 'pass-fail', not "This POS's fence was 0.03" out of alignment after 37 minutes of run-time."

7. How about a catagory of Noise. This is any easy one to measure.

As a comparison for that type and size of machine only, sure. They'll probably need a whole article on noise just to get the readership educated on what the numbers really mean in the real world. Probably easier to just rank the machines from quietest to loudest, with any significant outliers noted.

I think that when I look at test results for a machine, I believe that if I was to buy the top pic that "my" machine would be just as good as the machine that FWW had to test.

But what you really want to know is if their "top machine" is the one that you will be the happiest with. My bet? Ain't gonna happen...because you're not a "bench racer": you actually use your tools.

[lou sansone]

lee and others

excellent points and I agree with them..

Does anyone know of an equipment mfg that has a show room that allows you to "try out" the machine? Seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea

lou

[John Renzetti]

hii Lou, Personally I think FWW did a good job with the review. The tester appeared to clearly state how he did his tests. I always take measurements when taken to a .001" with a grain of salt, since a number of variables included the instrument used and the persons skill at taking and reading such a close tolerance can cause some variations from one reading to the next. My main test is "how's it cut."
I know some here may not have liked the idea that Grizzly was first, but based on the criteria used in the test, they were. Whether that machine is totally representative of every 8" jointer that Grizzly sells, I don't know, but a friend in CA who owns a big Felder saw, also has a 12" Grizzly jointer. He told me his tables were pretty much dead flat also.
To me Grizzly saw an excellent opportunity to show their machine at its best and they took advantage of it. Every manufacturer knew that their machine would be tested. If any of them didn't make the effort to send the best machine possible and pack it so that it arrives in perfect setup condition, then they should get mediocre marks. I don't think Grizzly just grabbed a jointer at random and said "lets ship this one." I wouldn't expect them to. They probably took a lot of time and care in getting that machine to FWW for testing. To me that is a good sign.
I'll go on to say that I've never been a big fan of Grizzly mainly because of the way they advertise and the situation with Oneida and Bill Pentz. But I've ordered from them and the orders have arrived very quickly.
take care,
John

[Lee DeRaud]

Does anyone know of an equipment mfg that has a show room that allows you to "try out" the machine?

If there is, it's probably on the opposite coast from where I live.

[Donnie Raines]

lee and others

excellent points and I agree with them..

Does anyone know of an equipment mfg that has a show room that allows you to "try out" the machine? Seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea

lou

The wood stores around me allow you to run the machines...sometimes they even have a demo. To put this into perspective...I don't test drills, sanders or things like that. I do test jointers, tables saws and items of that nature prior to buying. I have been very lucky to have tried many diffrent tools(a friend of mine is a good postion to allow me this opportunity). Jointers have always sounded the same to me...excpet for when they have the shellix type heads in them. Planers....they seem to be the same as well(with induction motors that is). Again...the shellix head does make a diffrence as well.

I guess there is no one test that will appeal to everyone. The very detailed test on certain machinery are a turn off to me...the numbers all run toegther. For hand tools(chsiels etc), table saws and finishing products(I am sure there are others) a more detailed test would be nice.

[JayStPeter]

Lou,

I think your point #3 about service is a good idea. However, it should be a test of its own. That has little to do with a jointer test, but more of a brand test for all machines. If any mags are reading, a customer service shootout might make good reading.

On your point #5. I believe many of the mag tests are flavored by this wether they mention it or not. The author usually does have to setup all the machines and may immediately not like that machine because of the extra effort it took relative to the others. I personally find it unimportant as it is a one time deal. In FWWs review of mobile bases, they based a significant amount of their scores on ease of setup. Brand-X has 10 bolts and Brand-Y has 50 ... blah, blah, blah. I only need to set it up once. But, since the author had to set up 15-20 bases, it was important to him. It's worth a mention, but not worthwhile in the scoring unless it is extreme. I found the results of the mobile base test useless at best.

#6. A long term test would be difficult for a magazine to do. I don't think they could resonably put 11 machines through enough abuse and get the article released while those models still exist. If they do choose to keep some of the top performers around, an update article would be good. Sort of like the Road & Track long term tests.

Jay

[Donnie Raines]

Lou,

#6. A long term test would be difficult for a magazine to do. I don't think they could resonably put 11 machines through enough abuse and get the article released while those models still exist. If they do choose to keep some of the top performers around, an update article would be good. Sort of like the Road & Track long term tests.

Jay

There are a few magazines out there that perform long term use reports on tools. They don't test several tools at once this way...just one or two. I think one of the mags test the unit for a year prior to reporting. They also do the more tradtional test as well.

[Lee DeRaud]

On your point #5. I believe many of the mag tests are flavored by this wether they mention it or not. The author usually does have to setup all the machines and may immediately not like that machine because of the extra effort it took relative to the others.

I find that very hard to believe: more likely the machine is delivered from the factory or major distributor in (or near) ready-to-run condition. For small stuff like drills, they might go out and buy a bunch at retail, but not the "big iron". (Except maybe Consumer Reports, assuming they still do that.)

But I agree that this "test" is not particularly important.

[Donnie Raines]

I find that very hard to believe: more likely the machine is delivered from the factory or major distributor in (or near) ready-to-run condition. For small stuff like drills, they might go out and buy a bunch at retail, but not the "big iron". (Except maybe Consumer Reports, assuming they still do that.)

But I agree that this "test" is not particularly important.

They don't go to retail stores for the big stuff...they are ship directly to them via the factory. often the company wants the tool back afer testing as well...or you can buy it at a slight discount.

[lou sansone]

opps.... frank I stand corrected ... they did measure sound levels... sorry about that.

Hi john R... Thanks for your wise comments as always. BTW ... I did not mean to suggest that the FWW article was junky.. I just wanted to explore what other types of things could be looked at in the light of the fact the most of these machines seemed to be so close to each other in the table flatness area ( which I agree with most that after a few .001" it is too close to call ).

I really do not care who "won" the test anyway... I just think that we were getting somewhat de-railed on Dev's initial post and lost the forest from the trees.

Donnie says that he has found a place where you can test drive the machines, how about the rest of you creekers... I have not seen that in my neck of the woods... maybe the woodcraft stores that have a school in them might count as a place where you could try out the machine, but other than that I have not seen it. But I live a sheltered life up here in CT.
lou

[Frank Pellow]

I will re-state my view on this. The test was performed in a manner that would be more in line with the way most of us would be capable of testing our own machinery. The majority do not have the equipment to test for noise and other tolerance issues that larger "testers" could perform. And I venture to say, that, if all of the test were performed that have been stated(in the other thread) most would not be able to distinguish what the inofrmation means any how. Thus...what good does it do the majority?

I do agree Lou...that the other thread has gotten way of track...and we can do better. I have had the opportunity to read the review..and re-read it. Granted it is not a scientific test at all...why should it be....its a jointer.

Just because a "normal" user can not accurately measure noise does not mean that he can't benefit from the measurements of others.

[Dev Emch]

Well, Dev is back with a big old Crocadile Dundee profile, ear to ear grin!

First of all, for Lou: AMEN BRUDA! You have concisely hit several nails on the head.

1). The absence of any sigma deviation should be setting off alarms in your brain. Perfection is work done by God, not by us mortals. We have deviation. All of us. And a good designer understands this and works to design a design that can work around imperfections. For example, look at how the delta deviation angle works out to nill in the T fence (patternmaker fence or new Incra/Woodpecker fence) verusus a front mount fence such as the Biesmeyer. One is absolute deviation and the other is differential deviation. Both are excellent but the Biesmeyer has to be held to a higher set of tolererances to maintain the same overall accuracy. To quote Clint Eastwood in one of his dirty harry classics... "A man has to know his limitations.".

2). Parts and service is very important and often lost. If you hire one paper pusher to man your parts franchise, your dead! A phone call parts exchange transaction that could take less than 10 minutes including the credit card verification process could wind up as a two hour elevator music hold exercise with some person comming back to say in a nasel voice, "I am sorry SIR, but I am not clear what your talking about. The guy who knows this was layed off a month ago so please bear with me. Could you please leave a call back number so one of our techs can call you back as soon as possible". Of course, by this time your going quasi balstic. And the pros know what I am talking about. You respond "Honey, I have a line down condition and the payroll clock is ticking. I need resolution now and this is really a simple issue. Can I talk you through it?". She comes back and says, "SIR, Please stop yelling at me. Sir, Sir,....". Your reponse is.."Sweetheart, I am not yelling! If I were yelling, you could hear me two states away and you would not need the phone".

What many companies are to dumb to grasp is that often the customer on the other end of the service line is flustered and pulling his/her hair out. The customer service guy need to have training in how to handle this situation and how to de-esculate and de-fuse the problem. Then find out what the problem is and provide quick solutions. Often, one of the best tools a customer service guy can have is his computer. Each company needs to have a data base in which CAD files are stored as database entries and these are cross linked to the parts schdules and BOMs or Bill of Materials which in turn are linked to the parts franchise transaction system. This maintains current parts inventories as well as current prices for parts and order processing capability. Also of extreme vital importance! Yo, Corporate America, are you paying attention here! The parts diagrams need to be in the form of say *.jpg or *.DXF files and the system needs to be able to quickly email these to a customer. Most customers have computers and email. So here, the service guy can email a diagram ASAP to get the cutomer on the same page so to speak instantly. As soon as the problem part is identified, the order is placed. By knowing the SSN of the machine, all current warranty data is at your finger tips. That is why you should always mail in those warrenty cards. Guys, a warrenty return and its RAN or Return Authorization Number is a black mark on your face. You need to calm down the customer, get him to feel good again about his purchase and then fix the problem quickly and quietly. If this cutomer gets loose on the internet and begins to blog over the problem, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS. Its a wild fire that can get out of control very quickly. This is a sincere warning!

3). Many machines are covered in "goo" as Lou mentioned. This is normal practice and if you have ever seen a brand new bridgeport milling machine right of the shipping case, you would now what I am talking about. Often this is cosmoline and its put there to protect machined surfaces from rust. Lately, its more of a petro jelly as cosmo has come under the EPA gun. At any rate, the trip on the container freighter can have wild conditions that can cause all sorts of issues including lots of surface rust. When I unpacked my hofmann shaper, the tables were covered with 1/8 in layer of cosmoline followed by a rust preventative sheet of brown paper followed by plastic shrink wrap. It took about 2 hours to wipe this goo off and clean it with paint thinner. No problem as the tables were perfect after the boat ride over here.

4). The Nickel and Dime Test. Vibration and noise are a big deal. A poor design will be load and will buzz. This is not only uncomfortable for the human animal, but it can also cause error in your work. Why do we need vibration dampers and laser cut perfs on circular saw blades? I once ran an Freud 16 in blade on a northfield #4 slider. The noise was really bad. It was like standing on the tarmac in front of an airliner just turning over and winding up its turbines. You have to yell at full volume to have anyone next to you hear anything. The blade was an older "ringer" with no perf slots. The difference is day and night. That ringing also affects your work as the kerf is wider than you think!

Sound deadening and vibration supression have been major research areas in machine design for years. So its not like this is a new problem. Its one reason why massive cast iron was once used and why martin uses CONCRETE to make its base structures today. Done right, you should be able to set a nickel and even a dime on edge and run a board through the machine! This is the ideal and I have seen it done. Its not some urban legend. So this is the ideal that all machine makers have to pursue. How close did they get? This is of value.

5). And much of what David Fried wrote about is also material that I am in full agreement on. And I will say this about grizzly. I have talked to many folks about their parts availability and I have liked what I have heard. I have also dealt with the Jet parts franchise and I was quite pleased with their service as well. And the new Delta/Porter Cable/DeWalt ServiceNet website and service account system is killer! If your not registered for this, I would advise you to get on there ASAP. They even have parts blow ups online for stuff made during the heyday of Leave it Beaver!

My 5 cents worth (again). Just remember, with what I post and a $1.50, you can get a regular mug of Jo.