Just wanted to get some opinions from you guys.  I am equipping my shop as time and funds allow.  What would be the more useful purchase:  a jointer or planer?

I have a cabinet saw, a miter saw, a bandsaw, and router/router table.  To date, any jointing/planing I do is by hand.

I also have looked at some of the new Grizzly/Jet combo jointer/planer machines, but not sure which direction to go.

I can only speak for myself but given the choice it would be a planer.  I have both and I use the planer a lot more than I use the jointer.  I'll be interested to read the other thoughts.

10-4, if you have to go with one or the other, the planer first. If your working with mainly dimensioned lumber from the mill or the big box stores, then your just pretty much down to wanting to custom thickness your material. If your working with a lot of rough lumber that might be cupped or twisted, then your jointer really comes into play here. Even though it is called a jointer, it's main use comes from making bad boards behave nicely.

As you do already, it's just as easy and more peaceful to edge join a board by hand before glue up.

But I get the feeling Randall that at this point your working mainly with pre dimensioned lumber? If so, get the planer.

Again though, if my assumption is wrong, and your working a lot with wild boards, twisted sisters and warped daddy's, then the jointer would have to be at the top of your list as well.

If it were me, I would without a doubt, given the two car garage I work out of, I would purchase that Grizz Combo Machine your looking at. Grizz has made the combo world much more affordable for us home based woodworkers. Laguna and Robland to name a couple had the market on those and you'd pay well over 3 thousand plus for one of those planer joiner combos, but the Grizz 12 " is just shy of two grand including shipping. and you can get the 10" for about 1100.00 with shipping.

So in a nutshell Randall, work alot with rough lumber? Seriously consider a jointer, work alot with pre dimensioned lumber, surface planer, and don't forget, if you want a fast automated way to glue joint your boards without a jointer, that router table you have does a wonderful job at that.

Here's one more vote for a planer being able to give you custom thickness'

 

Rick

And another vote for planer first.

As far as a J/P combo machine. I have one in my shop and I like it. But mine has an electric planer table lift and an accurate digital readout. If I what to plane something to 3/4 thick I push a button and the table raises, while it's raising I watch the digital readout and stop it when it reads the desired thickness.

Without those two features I'm not sure I'd want one because of the hand cranking up and down. Unfortunately to the best of my knowledge you can't get these features with Grizzly and other low priced J/P. To get these features you have to step up to the more expensive European machines.

That being said I have not use a J/p without those features and I've seen post on different forums where people where happy with the J/P without those features. If you decide to go the J/P route check it out carefully.

Just found a 20" inch, Grizzly G1033 for sale close to for $600.  I've read several reviews for this machine and only one problem was mentioned with the infeed rollers.  I think if I can get him to $500, I may be getting a planer in the near term.

What was the negative about the indeed rollers?

Randall Farris said:

Just found a 20" inch, Grizzly G1033 for sale close to for $600.  I've read several reviews for this machine and only one problem was mentioned with the infeed rollers.  I think if I can get him to $500, I may be getting a planer in the near term.

You can joint with a router table if you have too. So I agree I would go with the planner first. As far as the combination goes I always avoid equipment that has to be changed from one operation to another. Some folks like combination equipment  because it takes up less floor space. I like grizzly equipment, I have  a good number of tools from them. If your budget will allow I would suggest buying a planner with a spiral head.Their blades cut much smoother then the solid blades and are easier to change also.

Jim, on the subject of spiral heads, can you tell us just how smooth they are? And, since they are just little squares of cutters, I am guessing they are more durable and less susceptible to chipping as a long one piece blade would be with it's delicate edge. What do you think?

A-1 Jim said:

You can joint with a router table if you have too. So I agree I would go with the planner first. As far as the combination goes I always avoid equipment that has to be changed from one operation to another. Some folks like combination equipment  because it takes up less floor space. I like grizzly equipment, I have  a good number of tools from them. If your budget will allow I would suggest buying a planner with a spiral head.Their blades cut much smoother then the solid blades and are easier to change also.

I didn't do it the way everyone else has said and that was only because I wasn't on a great forum like this when I started. I bought a joiner first. That was great but I realized real quick that is impossible to thickness lumber with just the joiner. I ran into a Delta 12" planer for a good price and purchased it. I can tell you I spend a lot more time with the planer than I do with the joiner. I still use the joiner but the planer gets lots more attention.

 

Go with the planer and the 20"sounds like a great price.

John

The spiral head planner I have is a Grizzly 20" I'm very happy with how well it works. Because It does have a series of small cutters each one cuts a small area, this makes for a much smoother cut on highly figured woods basically eliminating tear out like you get on planners with 3 or 4 long blades. The cutters have 4 sides so when they get dull all you do is loosen them and turn them a 1/4 turn and your ready to go. Planners with blades you have to take each blade take it out and sharpen them and take a lot of time to adjust each blade to get it to work. All said and done $500 for a 20" grizzly planner sounds like a real bargain if it works properly.

I agree, sounds like a great price, and I wish I had that 20" capacity many a time!

Richard, the one negative item that came up on multiple sites was the infeed rollers would often fail to feed the stock through the machine.  Now, I am not sure if it was truly a machine issue or a setup issue.

Richard McComas said:

What was the negative about the indeed rollers?


Randall Farris said:

You here that off and on about a lot of machines. Seem it's usually a cleaning and waxing issue.

Randall Farris said:

Richard, the one negative item that came up on multiple sites was the infeed rollers would often fail to feed the stock through the machine.  Now, I am not sure if it was truly a machine issue or a setup issue.

Richard McComas said:

It could be that the rollers just need to be cleaned. It is also important to keep the bed waxed and slick. That will help the material go through without a lot of drag. If the bed gets dull and the rollers are gummed up it will greatly effect performance.

 

 

first off, where are you getting your wood from?

 

Is it s4s or are you milling it yourself?

 

oak or pine?

 

Plywoods, poplar, what?

 

We need to know. lol

He doesn't' even have a planer yet, so he doesn't know if he has a problem .

dragon1 said:

first off, where are you getting your wood from?

 

Is it s4s or are you milling it yourself?

 

oak or pine?

 

Plywoods, poplar, what?

 

We need to know. lol

Hello John,

Since I sold my jointer and only use my planer to process my wood all the jointer was doing was gathering dust.

The secret of using a thickness planer to flatten the wood is to start off with very light cuts on the convex side of the board till you get a flat spot wide enough to carry the board level then you leave the planer on the last setting and start removing the sled runners on the outside edges of the board. By doing this the infeed and out feed rollers won't flatten the board too much and it soon will emerge from the planer flat and smooth. If the wood is twisted don't attempt to run it through the planer at all but cut it up into pieces short enough to use elsewhere.

My response got bumped way to the end.  I responded as the third person to respond.

 

As ralph and others have said, it depends on what kind of wood your working with.

 

If your doing a lot of milling, a 16 inch jointer saves a lot of time and fixes a good deal of twisted lumber, it's not just for edges.

 

and we still don't know what type of wood (s2s, rough milled, raw?) he's working with.