Combo Jointer/Planer 16″ + Do I need it or keep doing glue ups??
ohiodon
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hello,
As my skills have become a little better and setting up a new workspace, I find myself considering the purchase of a Jointer/Planer combo of 16″-20″ size. My major reason is that I would like to make larger home furniture pieces..China cabinets, Highboys, book cases and on and on… I get by with glueing up side panels but would like to be able to work with larger pieces… How do you furniture makers deal with this issue?
I currently use a Grizzly 8″ jointer and a OLD grizzly lunchbox planer.
Any help or suggestions would be very helpful…
Replies
My $0.02 would be to go with a 12" helical J/P and a 16/32 drum / thickness sander. Affordable lumber rarely gets wider than 12", and jointing even a 12" board is a stretch. I feel like glued-up panels are the norm. The 12" machine will prep your stock and the sander will level irregularities after glueup.
The sander had never occurred to me, as I have never used one. I will take that into consideration. Thank you for taking the time to help me.
I second MJ's recommendations. The drum sander adds additional capabilities to your shop in addition to flattening panels up to 32" wide, one side at a time. For example, it will remove the bandsaw marks from resawed lumber, sand smooth and flat material thinner than my 15" planer can normally handle, and flatten end grain like end grain cutting boards.
I don't know anything about drum sanders and I'm trying to avoid something unpleasant at work, so I started exploring drum sanders just for kicks. Rockler has a drum sander for $30,000. Holy smokes. So I googled "most expensive drum sander", and $30k is actually a real bargain. I know these are for the real pro's and high-volume people, but yikes.
This is the one I own. Works great for what I need as a hobbyist. It will sand up to 16" in one pass. If your panel is wider, just turn it around and run the other side through. It's slow going through though, depending on how much you're trying to take off in one pass. The machine is produced by Laguna Tools so any warranty work etc. is handled by them.
https://supermaxtools.com/products/wood/16-32-drum-sander-71632/
Yes, this is more my speed (I realize $30k is an outlier). Are these machines fussy and finicky, or is it decently easy to get a consistently flat surface at the desired thickness?
I'm guessing the 30k was for a wide belt sander, which is a different animal. Most of those are 3 phase machines too.
Drum sanders are great if you need to make pieces less than 1/8 thick. I make parts from .050 to .114 inches a lot. There's nothing else in a small shop that can do that.
They are slow, and fussy. Try to take off too much, or too fast, you'll burn the paper. But again, nothing else can efficiently make thin parts.
I tried a couple of times to "thickness" wide boards. I could grow a full beard in the time it takes. It's not for surfacing rough lumber.
If you've got the money (and space) to spend on a machine that size.... go for it :)
Realistically... that size is overkill if you're a hobbyist.
There's also some real reasons why to glue up panels vs using 1 wide slab. Firstly, finding those wide boards is almost impossible and if you do find them, it's going to be extremely expensive (given that you're talking about buying a 10k + machine maybe you don't care about that...). I can't even remember seeing a board that wide in any of the lumber dealers (outside of actual slabs).
Narrower boards are easier to work with and require less surface prep to actually get flat. I agree with above comment that 12" board presents challenges when flattening at times, and you can compound that exponentially when getting up to 16-20".
Long story short here.... most pros don't even have a planer, let alone jointer that size (becksvoort just has a 15" planer and i'm pretty sure an 8 inch jointer)
Having that kind of capacity is great, but I don't think it's going to make your life much better or easier, at least not as much as you think it would. You're rarely ever going to make use of that capacity, especially on the jointer. For the amount of money that you're going to spend on a machine of that size, you can upgrade an awful lot more (get a 12" combo, or keep the 8 and get a good planer, + upgrade your tablesaw, or band saw, or any other number of things).
It's your money, spend it how you like! But ultimately since you're looking for opinions, I would rather spend that money elsewhere.
Thank you very much for the feedback! Very well stated...and my wife will be very happy to read your reply :) I guess I just needed to be talked off the edge....
If you already have an 8 inch jointer, why not buy a 20 inch planer ? That’s what I have and when it gets above 20 inches wide I plane both boards and glue them together flush and even out with the belt sander.
The machines you have are fine. Get a couple of hand planes and learn too flatten large surfaces. It's satisfying work.
Your wife will hate me but...
The jointer is not so useful, but you do want a wider planer and 16" is a decent size. In a combo machine you buy a big stable planer and the jointer is tacked on for relatively fewer $$.
No, you won't joint 16" boards, but you will plane panels that size and a combo machine does both very well.
In the end it will come down to how your work flows - if you have limited space then having a big planer/jointer is a good option as the footprint is not that much larger than a smaller jointer and you have a planer hidden underneath.
The larger machine costs only 10%-15% more than a smaller device too so you get the additional capability for not much more.
No-one ever wished for a smaller planer or jointer.
I have used a 16/32 drum sander as an alternative, but whilst they can be very effective, they are really only useful for final finish passes - you are not going to be taking 1/4 inch off large boards. Long boards and heavy stuff really are a bit much for that sort of machine. Trying to thickness rough stock on one is for the extremely patient...
Jump into your time machine and set it for December 10, 2021 11:37:01 am. When you get there, delete your post.
Go with your gut and get the 16-20" combination jointer/planer. You will be happy and suffer no regrets.
Your wife will get over it...
I'm late to this party but I will provide my 2¢ worth anyway. I think you can breakdown the decision to a few points.
I may not be as young and strong as I once was, but at 6' 3" and 240lbs no one has ever called me feeble and it is everything I can do to push a 10-12" board through my 12" jointer. Trust me face jointing such wide lumber will give you a workout. While I am big fan of wide jointers, and scoff at 6" bench top models, anything wider than 12" is probably overkill, except for those times you find a board 12 1/2" wide so a little headroom can be helpful.
As for the planer since many of the pieces you mention can have panels in excess of 16" to answer your original question will having such a wide jointer eliminate glueups I would say the answer is only slightly. So buying such a tool just to eliminate glueups may leave you disappointed. On the other hand as an owner of a 12" combo machine there have been many times I wished I had a little more headroom even in planning 12" boards for the times they skew going through machine or have a slight bow in them that causes problems when you are operating at a machines limit.
In summary is if your goal is purely to eliminate glueups I don't think you will be satisfied but if you want to minimize the work in handling glueups a 12" combo machine combined with a open ended drum sander will get the job done if power tools are your thing or substitute the drum sander for a few Lie-Nielsen planes and smooth your panels the most satisfying way in my opinion. If money is not an obstacle then substitute a 15-16" combo machine for the 12 to get that headroom I mentioned.
The other plus to a wide thickness planer is that with narrow boards you can use the whole width of the machine, so that the knives don't get worn in the same spot, and you can go longer between having to change knives or sharpen them.
I love the process of jointing and planing rough stock. like uncovering hidden gems! i have a 16" Jet planer and an antique 12" jointer. The jointer has only 2 blades so shallow cuts are a must. I have drooled over getting a helical cutter for the jointer, but then it dawned on me, the helical cutter head should go in the planer, as it's the last stop on the way. Besides, the jointer is too old to find a helical off the shelf, and custom mades double the price. So for $750 i can get one ready to install in my planer.
Merry Christmas to me!
I find the main feature I look for in a jointer is the length of the beds, I also get quite a few long and heavy boards to process. In a planer I look mainly for width, so I now have a 20 inches wide planer. All other features remain important but these two sit at the top of my list. If the combo was to compromise on one or the other I personally would steer away and get seperate machines or one that has beds as long as a standalone long bed jointed and at least 20 inches of planing capacity.
I use an 8" Oliver jointer and a Powermatic 15" planer, both with helical cutter heads, and couldn't be much happier. I opted for the 8" jointer only because the 10" model weighs over 900 lbs. so I knew I would never be able to move it by myself in my shop (My 8" is over 600 lbs). If I had a big employee, the 10" would be a great choice, but it's not worth having employees for me anymore (I'm 68 yrs old and they're just too much work).
One thing I've found is that there is seldom a reason to joint anything wider than my jointer can handle. As it's been said earlier in this thread, there isn't much lumber available these days wider than 8", and as a long time professional woodworker I seldom have reason to use any. Even if I have wider lumber, I prefer to cut it to half it's width, joint & plane both pieces separately, then glue them back together again. It adds a lot of stability to the board.
One other thing, and the real reason I chimed in, is that I don't think a drum sander is a good thing to have unless you are doing mass production projects and don't care so much about the final results of your work. I do very little sanding and cannot see a reason to deal with trying to eliminate the nasty look of a drum sanded surface on anything I build. Those drum sanding scratches are often deeper than you think until a stain is applied, and to eliminate them you have to sand the rest of the board down to that depth. It's much easier to sand the very slightly high ridges off a helical cut surface.
Yes, I would still love to have a 12" planer in my shop, but I would only use it on very rare occasions.
You are asking the same exact question I have been thinking. Hobbyist who wants to make big stuff. Here is what I am going to do. Nearly saved up to buy a PowerMatic PM1500 bandsaw. This will give me ability to resaw 14" wide boards to desired width. Next purchase in about a year will be a high end dust collector when I save up (or dip into savings) that would be capable of handling the 16-20" jointer (I've started talking to Felder/Hammer and have gotten rough quotes). I will probably first get the Dewalt 13"ish (don't know the specific width) table top planer. There are ways it can be used to joint and then plane and given it's cost it's worth a try. When I reach the limitations of the bandsaw and Dewalt planer, I will then buy the 16 or 20" jointer.
As noted above, no one complains about having too wide or long a jointer, or too wide a planer, if they have the room for them. I am fortunate to have had for about 40 years a 26"w x 8"t industrial planer, and a 24"w x 6'L jointer (as well as a 8"x6' jointer.) After gluing up a 20"x39" chest top 2 days ago, I ran it over the jointer with a VERY light cut at a VERY slow speed, and had no tear-out. Then planed the bottom with the thickness planer. Saved me a bunch of work. I used a Stanley #112 scraper plane to smooth from the thickness planer, and have a coat of dye on it already. Are those guys essential? Of course not. But, depending on how and where you get your lumber, you can acquire some pretty wide boards. A few years ago I made a cherry sugar chest (was in FWW Gallery) using 20" wide cherry boards I got from a 46" diameter cherry log given to me. I have some 14"-16"cherry boards in the shop right now, waiting for the right project to come along.
The big machines open up opportunities that are possible but intimidating to do by hand.
I Greatly appreciate everyones input/comments/reasoning and help. I think I am gonna go bigger though. I do "want" to be able to buy 5/4 or 6/4 rough lumber from places like Irion Lumber in PA, where I can get Curly Cherry..Walnut..and so on.. sets cuts from the same tree. The type of pieces I would like to do have the 16-24+ sides and top to them. I have to stress and fuss to find acceptable boards where the grain will match up for glueing....buying rough lumber in wider boards is worth the extra funds to have the look I would like to achieve. I guess I should stop going to museums and looking at the old furniture with all the solid panels and tops :)
IMO it is not worth premium prices buying boards that wide. For something like a case side, I think 2 bookmatched boards look better and are probably more stable.
Along with this thinking, the 8" jointer you have is fine, a 15" stationary helical head planer and a drum sander is going to get it done. I've built a few pieces even before I had the drum sander (glad I have it now!!)
IMO those huge 16" jointers are crazy money & take up a huge amount of space, for not much return other than bragging rights.
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