Hi all, first post here! Though I've lurked for a while...

A little about my WW background and tools first. At one point, one of my roommates I lived with was a professional WW and had all General equipment (TS, jointer, planer, bandsaw) as well as numerous hand tools. Needless to say, I got spoiled. He's since moved out, and I've been building up my shop and am ready to buy either a jointer or planer to clean up some rough lumber I bought. I currently have a TS and router w/ table, as well as quite a few hand tools (but no planes yet).

I know this has been asked before, and I've done a lot of reading on the topic but i can't seem to find the answer to my question. I'm building a trestle table for the kitchen out of curly maple that I bought rough cut: the boards for the table top are all under 7" wide, and I bought 12/4 soft maple for the trestles (legs). As I said, I'm ready to buy either a jointer or planer and would really like to not have to buy both, since money is tight.

I have two theories.

1) Buy a 6" jointer. After ripping the boards down to just over 6" (to take out the major high/lows), I can put it on the 6" jointer to plane the face. Once this face is planed down, I can turn it on edge to get a nice 90* edge. Then I can go to the other face and edge and have 2 parallel surfaces. I know the flaw in this is that it will be tough to get all the boards for the table top the same width, as a planer would do. I was going to buy the Ridgid JP0610.

2) Buy a 12"+ planer, and figure out how to make a "sled" that I've read about to make the faces flat and parallel. Then use the TS or router table on the edges to make them flat and parallel. I haven't decided on which planer to buy, suggestions are welcome.

I know it's best to have both, but could either of my theories work?

I *could* spend $600 on a jointer and a planer, but I would like to make it work on the smallest budget possible.

Thanks in advance!