I am looking at a new Planer with moulding possibilities and a jointer to replace ones I lost in a shop fire two weeks ago.
I had been using an old DeWalt 12″ planer and a Ridgid 6″ planer that I was “babysitting” for a friend. I run a 1 man shop building custom cabinet to match existing cabinets in old homes, I also want to be able to match old moulding profiles with out having to pay a local millwork shop to do it.
Jet has a moulder/planer that i have been looking at.
Any opinions out there? Any “sweet spot” tools that are worth the price?
Thanks for any help
Replies
We are looking at getting a machine also, I started a thread about it a week ago.
William and Hussey has a new model out that planes and moulds. That was our firt choice.
Then I heard about a Hawk Tool 3 in 1 Planer Moulder, cheaper with a bigger motor. My uncle has one is his shop and loves it.
I read about the Jet and most reviews said that it fell victim to one failure or another. I think the model # was JMP 13.
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Combination machines I thought were in my future until I realized it was better for me to build the space to house older, single purpose machines.
When we moved to Va, I had my eye on Stetons. Here's an example:http://www.mlsmachinery.com/onlineCatalog/details.asp?cat=3400&id=15002&p=1&rpp=10
These may require more investment than what you and Matt were thinking. Serious machinery. Shopsmith they ain't.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Well I have just spent the morning looking at web sites. I think that all seperate tools may be the way to go.
Grizzly tools seem to be a good bang fro the buck, poor reviews on small tools but good reviews on the large tools.
Here is what I like so far:
G0490X 8" Jointer http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-Jointer-w-Spiral-Cutterhead-/G0490X
G1021x2 15" Planer http://www.grizzly.com/products/Extreme-Series-15-Planer-w-Spiral-Cutterhead/G1021X2
I like the idea of the insert, spiral heads. Lots of opinions but I think the extra expense is worth it.
Still looking at moulders.
What do you all think?
Bruce
I might be the wrong guy to ask what he thinks. I was just suggesting that a look into the heavier combination machines might be enlightening.
I've never bought a new stationary machine. My preference tends toward extremely heavy old ones. For instance, my 24" planer with segmented infeed roller and built-in knive grinder weighs 4500 lbs, cost $800. No longer has variable speed, but doesn't bother me.
Did you find Matt's thread about small planer/mounders? For me, moulder is 4 head or nothing, as I have a large 2 spindle shaper (cost $350). A climb-cutting shaper makes excellent moulding.
I've used stationary Grizzly's that worked fine, had happy owners, if rough castings. A large part of your decision should be based on your shop, then on projected use. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
grazing the periphery of your topic . . . just last week got a 15" powermatic planer with helical head set up. Not a moulder, but man oh man, that upgrade to the helical head was soooooo worth it. Thing just about doesnt care about feed direction which is great since some boards want half one way, half the other. Quiet, virtually no snipe, from crate to ready to run was about 2 hours with the wrenches and gauges I needed. But its a 4 man lift, totally. 568lbs. It does have casters that work well, and lock well.
Real trucks dont have sparkplugs
Helical head sounds great, outside my experience. What's the sharpening situation? I never found anyone who could sharpen a helical router bit here.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Pretty slick actually. The head has the helical rows on it, and each row has a couple dozen interchangeable teeth. Each tooth is square, sharp all 4 edges, and has an indexing mark on it. So if the cutter gets dull, you take a half hour, pull the cover, and with a torx screwdriver rotate each tooth 90 deg. The indexing mark helps you remember where you're at. If just a single tooth gets fragged, you can replace each piece individually. Packs of 10 are not expensive. I think the price diff between the 15 with the straight blades and the 15 with the helical head was a grand. Again? In a heartbeat.Real trucks dont have sparkplugs
Good choice. Though I don't understand the adjustment method.
Mine's 10 hp direct drive, unlikely candidate for a retrofit. Oh, well.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
You can get a helical insert cutterhead to retrofit into probably 95% of the old machines out there. Just a matter of dealing with a supplier that can make it up.
The adjustment is, there is no adjustment....you simply loosen, rotate, and tighten one or as many of the interchangeable insert knives as required. They will have either two or four edges; junk them when all the cutting edges are used up. No setting of three or four long traditional knives, and ending up with one a hair high or low. The insert knives are automatically located correctly when you tighten the bolt.
The above applys to the most common carbide insert cutterheads....there is another version based on Newman-Whitney cutterheads that does have a true helical knife (in segments that are bolted on), running in a helix around the cutterhead. Nice, but mostly for larger machines than you have (going by your description).
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Thanks, helical knives are all I've seen. The grinder solves my adjustment chore.
Never had much problem planing with the 1950's sweetie that lives here. Highly figured stock gets the sander. Extremely unlikely I'd bother with larger machines.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
if you have a small one man shop go for the combination machine, I love it, I have one main shooting alley in my shop and that's where I park the combo. If I had separate machines I'd be constantly swapping them in and out of the open space, disconnecting and reconnecting the dust collector. It has a 5' sliding table/outrigger that detaches in a second and makes cross-cutting, or cutting ply a one man operation.
This is what he is talking about (or something like it). It has insert tooling.http://www.hermance.com/cutterhead.asp
That was very enlightening. Thank you.
$4940 for the hardware to retrofit my planer head? Yikes. I'll stick with what I have, which actually works very well.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
There are cheaper alternetives:http://grizzly.com/products/category.aspx?key=78The first one I should you was an example.
They're all too short, but I get your drift. I'll keep my ears open about somebody running something of the sort around here. Interesting.
$8k at Grizzly buys the whole 24" planer, with cutterhead. 10x what I spent on mine.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
RW:
How did you pick the Powermatic over other, similar makes?
I saw figured maple boards come out of a Tersa-bladed planer and they looked nice - did you consdier Tersa?
Totally opposite of my regular approach. I usually look at every available option forever before I jump. This time, I kind of knew what I wanted, I'd seen one work about a year ago and that was pretty much that.
The humorous aside to the story, a guy I know said, the day before the truck showed, you won't like it, its a dog, darn thing snipes like crazy, feeds funny, doesnt plane straight, everything else. He left and I thought (because I know him), you never read the manual, you got it, put bolts in, turned it on, and were mad that it wasn't perfect, so sold it for half 6 months later to some lucky sob who spent an hour and had it tuned. Yup. Thing is a dream. The only other helical I've used was bartered shop time and that was a SCMI. Really nice little machine but I know what their price ranges are. I ain't touchin it. Real trucks dont have sparkplugs
I have the W&H
Other s like the RBI/Hawk or the Woodmaster.
I looked at a jet when it first came out and my impression was that it was more of of one job or hobbiest machine.
It is tempting to go with the cheapest one you canfind especially after a devastating fire situation, but it doesn't take long before you have more invested in the cutters than you do in the actual tool, so get one that will last
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At first I thought everyone was talking about a different Jet molder/planer, but I'm assuming you have been looking at the one that's essentially a copy of the W&H. Guys I know who have both like the W&H better, but not by much. If price is no object get the new W&H.
I couldn't imagine not having a dedicated planer always set up to smooth saw cuts and whatnot. Personally I'd rather have a Jet for molding and something like the 13" dewalt for planing, both for less than the W&H.
I typically work onsite, and have settled on the Delta 6" jointer since it's a bit lighter than others and easily breaks down into three pieces that a single person can manage to move. A larger machine would be more useful for some projects, but not many cabinet jobs.
In the past I've used an 8" long bed jointer from woodtec (woodworkers supply) that was well worth the $700 and much better for larger pieces. We still moved it from house to house, but always had a skidsteer to load it.
Finally, for matching old construction, I would get more milage from the Jet molder and an extra grand in blades over the more expensive W&H. If you wear out the Jet then I'd look into something else, but there's a lot of machine for the money.
Good building
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