Jointer/Planer Purchase Questions

[Jeff Fondaw]

Hi - I’m fairly new to this forum, although have been reading/lurking for several months, and have been impressed by the depth of knowledge to be gleaned here. I am looking at purchasing some new (i.e. larger/more capable) woodworking machinery. Specifically a Jointer and Planer OR a combo Jointer/Planer – and therein lies my conundrum. I have been looking at the Grizzly line of equipment and here are the items I am considering:

8” Jointer – G0490X 8" Jointer w/ Spiral Cutterhead; Cost $1075.00
15” Planer - G0453Z 15" 3 HP 220V Planer with Spiral-Cutterhead; Cost $1295.00
Total for both = $2370.00

-or-

12” Combo Jointer/Planer – G0634 12" Jointer/Planer w/ Spiral Cutterhead; Cost 2295.00

The price for either of these choices is very close, but there are trade offs for either. With the combo I get 12” of jointer, but only 11 ¾” of planer, but it has a substantially smaller footprint. But with the smaller footprint comes the “hassle” of switching modes. With separate machines I only get 8” of jointer capability but 15” of planer, plus the ease of two separate machines. Downside is they also take up a lot of real estate. Upside is I can split the purchase – $2500 makes a real impression on my credit card!

Information about me – I have recently retired after 28 years in the Marine Corps. I began woodworking about 15 years ago but because of all the military moves my equipment had to be small/portable and was often in storage when it wasn’t practical for me to use it. We retired to Olympia, WA (close enough to Bellingham!!) about 1/1/2 year ago. The house we purchased has a workshop space of about 385 sq ft (28.5 X 13.5). This is the first opportunity I have had to upgrade to larger and more substantial equipment. I purchased a Shop Fox cabinet saw about 8 months ago. I currently have a Delta 14” bandsaw, 6” Grizzly jointer, Delta 12 ½” “lunchbox” planer, Delta 12” Benchtop DP, Delta Mortiser, Ridgid Oscillating Belt Sander, Oneida 1.5 HP Cyclone ($350 Craig’s List find). My woodworking interests include everything from small boxes to larger furniture, beds, etc.

Bottom line– what other considerations (upside/downside) or options should I be taking into account to get the most woodworking bang for the buck? Such as - maybe keeping my lunchbox planer and get a drum sander with the 8” jointer??? I blame this on Grizzly! – I would have been very happy to just get an 8” jointer until they came out with the 12” Combo J/P!

Thanks for the help
Semper Fi

[Eric DeSilva]

Until I found a great deal on an 8" jointer and 20" planer, I was in the same boat. One thing that dissuaded me from the J/P when I was looking at new was the weight... I could not get the J/P into my basement. As it is, my big planer is in my garage, but I have a small planer in the basement that works for most things.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Jeff, I have a similar shop to yours, and am purchasing a Hammer 12 inch planer/jointer combination.

Currently I have a 6 inch jointer and a 15 inch planer, however i want a larger jointer, and do not need a planer that is wider than my jointer (I only plane individual pieces, not assembled panels).

I looked at Hammer, MinMax and Felder, and decided that the Hammer was well made, and less expensive, not to mention that Felder have opened a branch in my town.

Regards, Rod.

[Mike Spanbauer]

given your shop size, I would likely recommend the combo myself. If you need larger than 12" for your planer, you could use a drum sander for panel leveling as you likely won't be working with rough lumber greater than 12" wide anyway. Plus, you should face joint your lumber prior to planing anyway and having the 2 matched makes a lot of sense.

I'm eventually going to upgrade from my stand alone 8" jointer + 15" planer to a 12/12 or 14/14 unit.

spiral is a great idea though either way!

mike

[Joe Chritz]

I have the 15" grizzly planer and the non parrellelgram jointer. Both are good units and serve very well. The planer is new so not much work yet and the jointer has the Byrd head (great idea).

I often want a wider jointer but rarely need more than 15" on a planer.

The combo gives you a wider jointer but a narrower planer. Two machines take up more space but it is faster to go from one to the other. I understand that switching from planer to jointer and back is a fast and simple process but don't have first hand knowledge of that.

I doubt you would do bad going either route.

Joe

[Jim Becker]

I'm a big fan of J/P combos. They just plain make sense to me, especially when you want larger capacities, (especially with the jointer) and have limited space. The cost is also usually much better than with separates of the same capacities and quality.

Joe brings up a good point, too. Most time, one doesn't really need a planer wider that 12-16", but even an 8" jointer can be constraining if you like to work with wider stock and like your lumber flat. The "value priced" combos do keep you at the smaller end of the planer width, but get you where it's nice to be for the jointer. The actual width of my particular J/P combo is 350mm or 13.6-something inches. Only one time has the planer not been wide enough and I have used every inch of the jointer capacity a number of times, either for wide stock or for skewing highly figured wood for a cleaner cut.

[Jeff Fondaw]

I'm a big fan of J/P combos. They just plain make sense to me, especially when you want larger capacities, (especially with the jointer) and have limited space. The cost is also usually much better than with separates of the same capacities and quality.

Joe brings up a good point, too. Most time, one doesn't really need a planer wider that 12-16", but even an 8" jointer can be constraining if you like to work with wider stock and like your lumber flat. The "value priced" combos do keep you at the smaller end of the planer width, but get you where it's nice to be for the jointer. The actual width of my particular J/P combo is 350mm or 13.6-something inches. Only one time has the planer not been wide enough and I have used every inch of the jointer capacity a number of times, either for wide stock or for skewing highly figured wood for a cleaner cut.

Jim - Your (and others) comments make a lot of sense - I feel really constrained by the 6" jointer and was thinking an upgrade to 8" would be great - until I saw the possibility of a 12" jointer. I don't want to get the 8" and regret not having a 12"..... My shop is ground level (3rd garage, separate from the 2 car garage, so I don't have basement shop concerns.

Thanks again

[Jim Becker]

Jeff, it's interesting that the market is really paying attention to conversations like this. A year ago, most of the options for a J/P combo were exclusively at the high end. No longer. Machines like the Grizzly and Jet combos are bringing these wonderful machines into a cost band that is a lot more affordable...within or below the cost of high quality separates such as a stationary 8" jointer and stationary 15" planer. That's good news for almost everyone in the long run.

[michael osadchuk]

I feel really constrained by the 6" jointer and was thinking an upgrade to 8" would be great - until I saw the possibility of a 12" jointer. I don't want to get the 8" and regret not having a 12"..... My shop is ground level (3rd garage, separate from the 2 car garage, so I don't have basement shop concerns.

.......as the armchair psychiatrist might say, "I hear you saying that you don't want to regret downstream passing up the capacity of a 12" jointer".......
so go for it (smiley)

large/stationary planers, IMHO, primarily offer convenience over portable planers and have a less annoying, lower pitch noise but typically don't offer more capacity, while it is significantly harder to get around the nominal capacity of a jointer.....
.... but you might want to ask yourself/ask others who have a 12" or bigger jointer whether you will use more capacity than an 8" jointer.

I started with a 6" jointer and Ryobi's original 10" AP10 lunchbox planer and both worked fine - apart from the shriller sound - to mill rough saw maple for 10 foot long laminated workbench. Now I have a separate 8" jointer and a 15" stationary planer and enjoy their greater convenience, longer beds.....

......but don't forget you can spend the money on some really nice hand tools like handplanes as an alternative

good luck

michael

[Greg Pavlov]

..........The actual width of my particular J/P combo is 350mm or 13.6-something inches. Only one time has the planer not been wide enough and I have used every inch of the jointer capacity a number of times, either for wide stock or for skewing highly figured wood for a cleaner cut.

"Skewing highly figured wood??" I know what each of those words mean but not what you're driving at. Would you explain, please? (I predict yet Something Else to Worry About in picking a j/p....).

[Jim Becker]

"Skewing highly figured wood??" I know what each of those words mean but not what you're driving at.

When face jointing figured stock (and frankly even non-figured stock since it's just a habit at this point), I angle the stock as it passes over the cutters to get a shearing action from the edges. This provides a cleaner surface with less incidence of tear out. Easy to do when you have a wider machine. With the 12"+ of these J/P machines, slightly skewing even a wider board is easy to do.

One other thing nice about having a wider machine is being able to run an odd-sized workpiece over the cutter head...things like bent laminations to clean the edges and so forth.

I will mention...because I think it's relevant...that the Euro bridge guard that many of these machines come with is also preferable, IMHO, to the "pork chop" guard that most "North American" design jointers come with because they still completely cover the cutter head when you are face jointing wide stock. There is a short learning curve to get used to passing your hands over them, but once you get there, it's unlikely you'll want to go back to the hinged guards.

[Kevin Murdock]

"Skewing highly figured wood??" I know what each of those words mean but not what you're driving at. Would you explain, please? (I predict yet Something Else to Worry About in picking a j/p....).

Jim's speaking about turning the leading edge of the board "off center" to say 15 degrees in an effort to create a shearing effect when using straight knife cutterheads.

Skewing like this means that you need a table (and cutterhead) width larger than the board's width. The more table width you have, the greater the angle you can skew the board's approach angle.

Hope this helps,
-Kevin

[Peter Quinn]

Been rangling with these same milling issues myself Jeff. Used to work in a pro shop making interior doors among other things. Got used to 12" long bed jointers (needed a 16"!), 24" spiral planer, 38" widebelt sander, etc. Now working in my own basement shop part time (full time stay at home dad). I have moved machines over 900# down the stairs of my basement with a winch and sch 40 pvc. Might need the marines to get them back out some day! Its getting awful crowded in my shop!

A few observations: Don't know how the griz works, but I got real excited when I saw that in the new catalogue myself. I have seen a Felder demo and know guys with a minimax...there is no change over hassel on most combos. That"s a good size investment, can you see the machines demoed some where before buying?

When jointing/planing long stock (ie: door styles 88" rough length require 16' infeed to out feed) I have one "alley" where I roll my DJ20, joint, move the beast, roll in 15" cast iron planer, plane, move that beast, sometimes roll in the drum sander if required...that dance gets old quick. I'm looking at combo machines myself. Most combos have a nice slot mortiser option which may be a powerful incentive.

If your work requires lots of long flat stock, table length is something to consider. Most 12" combos have @60" bed length. DJ-20 has 84"? I recall from school some rule of thumb about a jointer being able to flatten stock theoretically twice the length of its outfeed table? Don't know if I can flatten 88" door styles on a 60" jointer, and I dont want add on extension tables. Plus I'd miss my 15" planer. Its like my mascot. Once you get a 220v cast iron planer of any width you will never miss the lunchbox again.

3 options I use for a traditional setup: For stock less than 11" , you can cheat 2-3 more inches out of an 8" jointer quickly. You flatten 2/3 -3/4 of the total face of a board on the jointer. Take off the cutter guard (at your own peril!), let the extra width hang into the seldom used rabbit ledge,flatten 8", make a tall split jointing fence for the table saw, cut 1/64 deeper than jointed face, fix it on the planer. Works great for shorter worker pieces (I flatten 10" X30" kick rails for my doors with an 8" jointer) Another option: get the wide ones flattened where you buy your wood if possible. Shop I worked at was glad to process wood for local craftsmen at shop rate. Another option: make a jointing sled for the planer, gives you 15"! All good options for the occasional board.

Word of caution: a drum sander is not a planer. They remove wood .008- .012" per pass. My planer will take .190" (3/16ths) per pass all day without stalling. I flatten wide panels for raised panel doors and make my own veneer with a performax all the time, but the stuff is dam nearly flat going in, just needs to be "leveled" and smoothed. Even a mighty widebelt won't take more than .015" per pass. You can do the same basic thing with a $5 card scraper and time, actually makes the wood "glow" a bit (sanded wood is always kind of dull).

You have to decide what you make, how often you process wide/long stock, and what access you have to outsourcing, and how fast you need to go. Also what do you enjoy doing? Hand tools mentioned in earlier post work great, take and teach great skill (and time), but 3 Lie Neilson planes cost more than my jointer! I spent 20hrs one weekend flatening, honing and tuning a tag sale Bailey bench plane (lets see: $15 plane+20hrsX$45/hr=nearly what I spent on my jointer!) Can you wait and save up for the 16" Combo? Might solve a lot of problems. That is my current strategy.

The sound and smell of fresh wood shavings falling from my srub plan to the shop floor is a zen moment for me. I also enjoy cashing checks for commercial work completed on time and being able to pay my electric bill. Sorry so long, hope this helps.

[Greg Pavlov]

When face jointing figured stock (and frankly even non-figured stock since it's just a habit at this point), ....

Thanks, Jim (and Kevin).

[Peter Quinn]

Jeff's post mentions 3 machines with Byrd shelix heads, which cut at a shear angle already, skewing only neccessary with traditional straight knifes no? I heard shelix heads work well with birdseye, skewing not much help w/birdseyes and burls, any info?