Replies

1. 
   woodhacker | Feb 08, 2013 06:15pm | #1

   Is bigger always better?

   At one time I had a 16" jointer. Took up a lot of space in the shop, and I doubt that I ever ran a 10" or wider board across it. I used a 6" Makita for years, and about 4 years ago upgraded to an 8" Powermatic with spiral head. That was a good move, love the jointer, and have never wished for anything larger since going to the 8". Working with rough sawn lumber, typically anything wider than 8" should probably first be ripped to 8" or narrower to reduce the loss of thickness that will be experienced when jointing the wider material if a person had a wider jointer. If a 10" wide board has appreciable cup, first ripping it at the peak of the curve/cup, jointing the two halves, and then glueing the two jointed halves back together will yield a thicker end result, and then there will be less material to be removed from the top of the curve area when the board is subsequently run through the planer. And in this manner, the grain pattern will be more consistent across the surface of the board than if the wider board had been jointed without first being split.

   Perhaps more important than extra width is extra length. All other factors being equal, go with the jointer with longer lables.

   Anyhow, that's been my experience.

2. 
   roc | Feb 09, 2013 12:22am | #2

   Another perspective

    Well in the early days here I would say "just scrub plane it.  What are you a furniture factory or what ?".

   Well . . .

   no reason for me to change now.

   Early on I too had the hots for a BAJ (big assed jointer).  For me and my size shop that meant 8".  The one I wanted happened to be quite long.  Looking at the Euro combination jointer planers which are short but even wider  I was fairly sure I could do well with a shorter bed and just be smart about how I used it and or do the final jointing with a hand plane.  I would run a hand plane over the joints anyway for better glue adhesion; the jointer blades, especially in the harder wood, tends to burnish and compress the surface some what compromising optimal glue adhesion.

   The more I looked at the size of my shop and the jointer I wanted I was almost to the point of cutting off the tables a bit.  I am more comfortable with metal work even than wood so that was no problem.

   First I decided to try hand planes and my really nice precision bandsaw to see how it was to go that route.

   For me . . .

   These are my thoughts:

   I don't like the idea of paying all that money for truly exotic and rare wood and then turning a lot of it into filler for the land fill.

   So

   I like to bandsaw off the waste and save it as veneer thickness ish stock.  See photo with thin slabs and smaller boards stickered.

   Also many of the planks I was working in the photos here were ten inches and more wide.  That would have taken some fancy nonsense to run over the eight inch joiner in two passes going mostly against the grain on the second direction pass or more waste by ripping perfectly fine planks just so I could run them on the jointer then gluing them back together.  There is something there that smacks of insanity in my twisted way of looking at this.

   I found one of these inexpensive things, once mastered, is pretty competent at taking off the material too thin to bother bandsawing off.

   Assuming you will be belt sanding the crap out of the table tops etc. anyway it isn't like the planks have to be all that perfect as a jointer is going to produce.

   I didn't buy the jointer, I would go with the twelve inch if I ever did and I don't have room for that or the bank.

   I assume you are leaning toward production by your chat room name   so this isn't going to fly for you but in case you are less ambitious figured I would lend some perspective in the opposite direction.

   
3. 
   oldwindowguy | Feb 19, 2013 11:23am | #3

   Good advice from the guy who said length is more important than width.  Weight is also a consideration.  No small machine can match the smooth performance you'll get in a factory weight tool.

   I started with a 6" Powermatic, and it was fine for building furniture and cabinets.  I went to a 12" Northfield when I started making architectural frame and panel doors.  There are a lot of glue lines in a properly engineered 8' door stile.  I'd advise the smaller machine unless you plan to do a lot of heavy laminating:  face gluing up 8/4 stock for turning squares, architectural columns, stave core door stiles with resawn faces.  You won't get those glue lines with a smaller machine.

   Best jointers I ever saw were in a shop that made watertight dye tanks out of 16/4 cypress.