I bought one about a month ago and it does great for the size of it. I've
used it for edge jointing only and used it on oak and pine. I took the min.
cut depth and fed it slow. I had a couple of pieces that were slightly bowed
and I fed just the ends in for a few passes till it was down closer to the
center then jointed the whole board. It's not a big jointer and I don't
expect it to perform like one.
Mike S.
"Toller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Okay, I know that at 30" it can't do a really good job, but I just don't
> have room in my "shop" for real equipment.
>
> That said, is it well made for what it is? About 2/3rds of the reviews on
> Amazon love it; the rest say it is worthless trash.
>
>
I have an even smaller benchtop jointer. It works fine. But . . .
Keep the knives sharp, clean and make every effort to set the knives
perfectly. Keep the feed rate modest and don't everload the motor. Don't
expect "production" type throughput when face jointing 5 or 6 inch widths.
Do all your feeding over the outfeed table once the cut is started, avoiding
pressure directly over the cutter head. Keep the cuts shallow and make more
passes.
If this machine has a parallelogram type infeed table you may have to spend
some time making some very fine leveling adjustments on the screws that true
the infeed table mechanism (for instance, if these screws are 1/4-20 the
final adjustments may be the smallest turn that you can make with the allen
wrench or screwdriver - but that will be the difference between cutting a
great joint or a cove or arc). I think that because the castings that go
into these home shop tools my not be very well aged before they are ground
and machined that they may change slightly after you have owned the tool for
a while (I have heard this many times regarding home-shop and contractor's
saws). And because of what we pay for these tools we shouldn't expect
"milling machine" type fit and dimensions in them either. My guess is
because of this, if the infeed/outfeed alignment is good at zero cut, it may
remain good only through minor changes - i.e. as you lower the infeed table
to greater and greater cut depths the error will get worse and worse.
My little jointer (smaller than the one you describe) will make beautiful 8
foot joints using shallow cuts (say 1/32"). How long do you need and how
fast do you have to go?
Tim
"Toller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Okay, I know that at 30" it can't do a really good job, but I just don't
> have room in my "shop" for real equipment.
>
> That said, is it well made for what it is? About 2/3rds of the reviews on
> Amazon love it; the rest say it is worthless trash.
>
>
Not a bad machine, and if all you can afford, that small machine is
heads and shoulders better than none
John
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 22:17:22 GMT, "Toller" <[email protected]> wrote:
>Okay, I know that at 30" it can't do a really good job, but I just don't
>have room in my "shop" for real equipment.
>
>That said, is it well made for what it is? About 2/3rds of the reviews on
>Amazon love it; the rest say it is worthless trash.
>