Dang's Weblog

So, I got money for christmas to get tools. The one I need most is a jointer.

First, a little background. A jointer is similar to a planer, in that it has wide flat blades that take small amounts of wood off of one face or edge of a board. It’s used to either joint or face-plane a board. Jointing is getting a perfectly straight edge that is also some specific angle (usually 90 degrees) from a face. Face-planing is getting a perfectly flat face, optionally at a specific angle (usually 90 degrees) from an edge. A planer, technically a thinckness planer, cannot do either of these, because it makes one face parallel to the opposite face, which may not be flat. The ultimate goal is to use a combination of face-planing, jointing, and thickness planing to get a board that is perfectly rectangular in cross section, has perfectly straight edges, has perfectly flat faces, and has a specific thickness and width. Boards such as this are extremely important in furnature making, because you can no longer buy boards wide enough for the fields of furnature (doors, table-tops, desktops, etc.). Instead several boards need to be edge-glued to form wider boards. The edges of these boards need to be absolutely straight and square, and the thickness of these boards must be the same on all of them, or the result will not work.

Anyway, I need a jointer. This poses several problems.

First, there are three distinct classes of jointers: benchtop el-cheapo models, midrange floor models, and professional modles.

• We can leave out the professional models right away, because they generally run over $1000 (sometimes much more), which is way out of my price range. And, they’re generally overkill for my needs, as I’m not a professional.
• The benchtop models are cheap ($150-$250), but are very small, and generally really low quality. For example, they almost all have aluminum fences, rather than the cast iron that’s on higher end jointers, and so the fence can flex when you’re jointing a board, resulting in a bad joint. In addition, the tables on the benchtop models are generally quite short (20″ to 25″), and this makes jointing longer stock very hard, as the stock tends to tilt. Finally, the benchtop models universally have two cutter heads, rather than the three that higher end models have, and so must spin faster (~8000 RPM rather than ~5000 RPM). This results in a slighly lower quality joint, and a lot more noise and vibration. But, they’re cheap, and they might be good enough for the kind of weekend warrior stuff I plan on doing.
• The midrange, floor models are priced *gasp* in the middle. They’re generally $450 – $650. They universally have longer tables (45″-60″), and have cast iron tables and fences. They universally have three cutter heads. They’re universally big and heavy. But, they’re capable of doing anything I might want them to do, and doing it well.

The second problem is that there has been a noticable decline in the quality of tools over the past couple of years. Tools are mostly being mass-produced in Taiwan, with much lower quality parts and worse quality control. This goes mostly across the board for tools in my price range, and is universal in the low-end benchtop set.

One possible solution to this whole mess is to buy a used jointer. I could possibly get a reasonable deal on a mid-range jointer, and get the higer quality construction of a few years ago. This looks like an ideal solution, but has several problems of it’s own. The largest is that there’s no way to guarantee I’ll ever find such a deal. Jointers are sold used only rarely, and are almost always pick-up only (or the cost of shipping is so high that it makes them more expensive than a good new one). This means that I have to find one for sale in the general local area, and such items are quite rare. Then, of course, I have to get it home. Jointers are big. They’re generally 45″-60″ by 4 feet, and 200 lbs. or so. This basically means some kind of truck, which I don’t have. That means renting one, most likely, or at least a trailer. More expense. If I buy a new one, it’ll come disassembled (if I buy locally), or be shipped (if I buy on Amazon), so I don’t have to worry about picking it up.

So, the big question is, do I buy the cheap, benchtop version, and risk it being inadequate? If it works, I’ll have saved a considerable amount of time and hassle, and a fair amount of space in my shop. Or, do I buy a new midrange? It’s expensive, but it’ll be shipped, and should work fine. Or, do I wait, and hope for a local sale of a good jointer? I still haven’t decided. I guess first I’ll go to the various stores that sell them locally and look at and touch the ones they have. That might help me decide.

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