Jet 8" or 10" Joiner/Planer combo

[gad5264]

Does anyone have one of these? Likes, dislikes, worth the money for a small shop?

[EvilTwin]

8 or 10 inches is a good size for a jointer, but is a tad small for a planer.   These two machines are essentially benchtop models, and a quick look on woodcrafts website shows some pretty poor reviews:

  https://www.woodcraft.com/products/jet-8...aCEALw_wcB#

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/jet-1...jjp-10btos

[stav]

Wow, quite spendy as well.  A nice planer and a jointing sled would get you more capacity for less money.

[JohnnyEgo]

As Evil Twin mentioned, that's awfully small for a planer.

As to what I think about combo machines in general for a small shop, I think mine is great, but it is an order of magnitude more expensive. I have a Hammer A3-41, which is a 16" Jointer Planer. It was more expensive than a separate large planer and jointer, and you can only do one function at a time, which means you can't keep settings on the planer and then go joint some stock. But that limitation, and the frustration of cranking the planer bed up and down between functions, haven't proven to be nearly as burdensome as I would have thought. With the depth dial, I can dial back to my exact same setting to the thousands place consistently. And the best part is that it takes up a very small, mobile footprint in my otherwise very limited garage space. When the weather is nice, I frequently roll it out of my garage to do my work. It is an absolutely wonderful machine, and I have zero regrets as it ideally suits my purposes. But in terms of benchtop equipment, of which the Jet 8" appears to be, you're not saving substantial space over separates in that size range, and you are giving up a lot of planer capacity.

[greatscott]

As Evil Twin mentioned, that's awfully small for a planer.  

As to what I think about combo machines in general for a small shop, I think mine is great, but it is an order of magnitude more expensive.  I have a Hammer A3-41, which is a 16" Jointer Planer.  It was more expensive than a separate large planer and jointer, and you can only do one function at a time, which means you can't keep settings on the planer and then go joint some stock.  But that limitation, and the frustration of cranking the planer bed up and down between functions, haven't proven to be nearly as burdensome as I would have thought.  With the depth dial, I can dial back to my exact same setting to the thousands place consistently.  And the best part is that it takes up a very small, mobile footprint in my otherwise very limited garage space.  When the weather is nice, I frequently roll it out of my garage to do my work.  It is an absolutely wonderful machine, and I have zero regrets as it ideally suits my purposes.  But in terms of benchtop equipment, of which the Jet 8" appears to be, you're not saving substantial space over separates in that size range, and you are giving up a lot of planer capacity.

Mind sharing what casters you used on your Hammer?  I have the Hammer mobile base setup for my A3-31 and it's not ideal.  Thanks!

[EvilTwin]

Since we are sharing...

Combo machines are a good idea if done well.  They can save space for sure, with some compromises in function.  Probably over 10 years ago I picked up a Makita 2030 which is combo jointer/planer with a common motor but separate sides for each function.  It's a 6" jointer, but has very long infeed and outfeed tables as well as a 12" planer.  It wasn't common 10 years ago and less so now.  Parts are unobtanium, but I knew that and managed to source some extra knives many moons ago.  It also had an issue with the feed rollers that had turned to mush and that was rectified by sending them out to get recovered in a urethane material that is used for industrial machinery feed rollers and casters.   Hitachi also had a similar version of this type of machine, and if you can find either and make it run, its well worth the effort.




This is a similar version that Griz had:




Their current offerings are similar to the Euro machines that convert from jointer to planer but are priced around 2500 and up.

[JohnnyEgo]

Hey GreatScott:

Sorry I overlooked your question. Mine is riding on four Great Lakes stem casters on a steel plate. My understanding is that a lot of folks just run the casters directly into the cabinet base on the A3-31s, but everything I read suggested the 41s were too heavy and the cabinet was bending under the weight. So I asked a buddy to cut out a piece of 1/4" steel plate in roughly the same dimensions as the base, and put the feet on that. Has worked fairly well. With the feet down, it is super-stable and easy to level. With the feet up, it rolls easily in all directions on my shop floor. The only tedious part is bending down and ratcheting up all the feet when I need to roll it somewhere.