SS jionter vs other brands

[ericolson]

Eric, great now you've got me thinking about looking for some of the older quality machines too!! Back when they were made with quality AND to get the job done. Question, would you get a jointer first or a planer? What brands would you consider? I hope I can have your experience of going pro but I am really not too good at mechanical things. I really love em but not experienced at all.

I think I'm experienced enough to be dangerous!:D Seriously, I've learned a lot of things the hard way. A lot of mistakes, a lot of misadventures, and a lot of questions. Personally, I would go with a jointer first. It's next to impossible to buy furniture grade stock that straight and square right from the mill. There's always some fine tuning that needs to be done and a jointer will fill the bill. Since you've got a Shopsmith and, this is an assumption, you've got limited space, I would recommend you go with the SS jointer. As I've said previously, I've got a stand alone shop, so I've got space to spread out. Plus, over the years I've upgraded almost all of my machinery from "hobbiest" (I use that term loosely) to industrial grade. Before I discovered my first SS 10ER, I had a little Craftsman bench saw and Delta benchtop VS 6" jointer. Both good machines, but I outgrew them. There are folks who've posted on this thread and in the forum who are perfectly happy with a 4" jointer from SS. There are those that aren't. It all depends on what you want to do. Could you joint stock for a Chippendale highboy on the SS jointer? Yes, of course. Same goes for a monstrous 24" Yates American. Where a jointer comes in real handy is when you need to face joint stock to make it truly flat. I often have to deal with stock that's twisted or bowed as I start with rough milled lumber. The jointer is the only machine that can flatten rough lumber. A planer won't do the trick as it's made for thicknessing stock. If you try to face plane stock that hasn't been jointed, the pressure/feed rollers in a planer WILL flatten the stock as it's fed in, but when done the stock will spring back to it's original shape. It's difficult to exert enough even pressure on stock on the jointer to flatten it out, especially if it's thick. With moderate hand pressure, just enough to feed the stock over the cutterhead, the knives will remove wood until that face is dead flat. Then you take the stock to the planer and feed the stock flat side down, so the knives are cutting the unmilled side. Then you take the planed stock back to the jointer. With enough pressure to keep the flat face on the fence, you run your stock over the jointer until you've got an edge which is square to the face. But, it all starts with a jointer.
You can get used SS jointers for a decent price on eBay or sometimes they pop up on Craigslist. Jointers are simple machines and relatively easy to repair, if necessary. And you just can't beat SS customer service!!
Learn how to utilize the tools and machinery you have and if you outgrow the SS jointer, you can always get a bigger one.
As far as brands if you want a bigger jointer, well, there are a lot out there on the market. As much of a proponent as I am for US made (a true misnomer, if ever there was one), I would have to go for Grizzly. There's a Grizzly showroom here in Springfield and I've examined quite a few of their machines. Fit and finish, customer service, and cost are excellent. By misnomer of US made: Delta machinery is made in Taiwan. Powermatic is following suit. So for folks that swear by Delta or Powermatic because it's American made, well, I hate to tell 'em but it's not.
I'll pose a question to you and I think maybe all of us trying to give you advice should've asked this in the very beginning: what type of woodworking are you looking to do?

[Ed in Tampa]

Wow Eric!

You sure said a mouth full. But on most points you were 100 percent right on. Remember a person has to come up with something new to be read, these experts are all trying to get their books, articles, whatever sold. So if they can convince you that you need to go down to .0000001" you will probably read their book/articles whatever to learn how to do it.

The manufactures have to generate sales, so if they can convince you their new machine is just what you need they will have a sale. Then if they can shove you off onto someone else to service and provide the support so much the better.

The American public is funny, we not only pay for exceedingly overpriced junk we think it is sign of success to do so. Look at the car industry. If we stopped paying the prices they would come down, instead we pay more and more, they have now exceeded the price of my first and second house.

I think SS has done an excellent job in the manufacture and service of their machines. I think they have missed the boat on marketing. They had the greatest thing going back in the 80's when buying a SS was like joining a club or a fraternity.

SS tools still respresent quality and I think most of what they sell is fairly priced especially when on sale. Back that up with long term customer service and you have a winner. A Shopsmith will do the job for homeowners and in many many cases for the pro's.
You can't go wrong buying a SS tool but you can buying some of the others.
Ed

[ericolson]

Ed;

I agree with you, completely. Shopsmith advertising has virtually disappeared. At my local Lowe's, a distributor of the SS, the display board is on a shelf, at an angle that you can't see. I discovered it purely by accident when I was looking at some Bosch router bits. There's no display model and certainly no prominent display of the advertising board. I remember when Shopsmith ads were prominent in the woodworking magazines. They kept getting smaller and smaller until they were a little bitty box in the classifieds section in the very back of the magazine and now they're gone.
I wonder if Shopsmith has ever considered publishing Hands On! again. I would certainly subscribe. It would be nice to see it on a the display rack in Walmart and other stores. Maybe sell some advertising to the companies that make aftermarket accessories for the SS, etc. I think a big part of Shopsmith's problem (and this is just me hypothesizing) is that, aside from owners, no one really knows about them anymore. Word of mouth in the machinery industry is only going to get you so far. Trying to describe a Shopsmith to someone that has no knowledge of the machine at all is very difficult because they just can't picture it. They can picture the individual machines, but can't put together the 5-in-1 concept of the SS.

Wow. Puttn, I'm really sorry :D . We've sent this thread all over the place!!

[putttn]

Eric, I'm going to print out what you explained and just sit and read it so I can visualize how the jointer/planer works on lumber that is twisted or bowed. Going to my local box store, that's all I see and I wonder how I'm ever going to work with this stuff. I still don't quite understand how the joiner "staightens" a twisted board. I would think the planer would do that but like you said it springs back to the original shape and it's just "thinner". Doesn't the jointer just do the edge of the board? How wide a board are we talking about, I'm used to seeing 2x4's that are all twisted. As to what I'm going to start with, well mostly storage cabinets, cart etc for my garage/shop so I can get the tools I do have situated. I built a workbench years ago and it's done with 4x4 and 2x4 but nailed with metal brackets. Seemed like a good idea then but now it's a bit wobbly, but heavy. So, not to hijack this thread about what I'm doing - but that's where I'm starting.

[ericolson]

Let's see if I can explain this right. Say you have a board with a twist in it. You place the board on a flat surface and only two diagonal opposing corners touch. The board will wobble on the two touching corners. This gets a little tricky. I try to get as much of a balance as I can on the two touching corners, so the other two are off of the table. In other words, two points of contact. I use moderate hand pressure to feed the stock into the cutterhead. The cutterhead will only remove the wood that's touching the table. With enough passes, the cutterhead will remove enough wood so all four corners are touching the flat surface. Four points of contact. Basically, with the four corners flat, you now have a stable surface and can proceed to flatten the rest of the board by making more passes until the entire surface of the board is face jointed or, usually what I do, get four flat corners and run the board through the planer. This creates another flat surface. I flip the board, newly flattened surface down, and mill the other side. I repeat this process until I've got the stock the thickness I want.
Board width is limited only by the width of your cutterhead. On the Shopsmith jointer, your board width could only be 4". For wider panels, you would have to glue up multiple 4" wide pieces of stock to get the width you desire. Not too difficult to do. My personal preference is wider stock to minimize the amount of stock I have to glue up for wider panels.

[putttn]

OK, I'm starting to see it a little clearer. I've printed it out and will sit and study till I get it. The SS planer is only 4" right? If so wouldn't you want one that did 6" on up? Or, is this where you glue them together to come up with on big wide board. What do you do when you want a twisted board a certain thickness but have to keep planing it down to get the twist out? Thanks for the help.

[ericolson]

OK, I'm starting to see it a little clearer. I've printed it out and will sit and study till I get it. The SS planer is only 4" right? If so wouldn't you want one that did 6" on up? Or, is this where you glue them together to come up with on big wide board. What do you do when you want a twisted board a certain thickness but have to keep planing it down to get the twist out? Thanks for the help.
I think what you're asking pertains to the jointer. The SS jointer is 4", the SS planer is 12" width. You're correct when you say that with a 4" width jointer, it will be necessary to glue up the stock to get the width you actually want. The same can be said for 6" and greater jointers. It just takes more glue and time with a 4" jointer. Plus, the problem of misaligning the edges, but that's a whole new topic. With the 3/4" stock commonly found in the home centers, you're very limited in how much stock you can remove to get rid of twist, cupping, what have you. When going through the stacks, look for the straightest, clearest (no knots, checks, splits) stock you can find. That simplifies things. Stear clear of any stock that has excessive defects.
I work with rough lumber, usually anywhere from 1 1/4" to 2" thick. Utilizing my jointer, planer, and bandsaw (for re-sawing, yet another topic), I do in my shop what a lumber yard does: mill and dimension my stock to the exact sizes I need, removing twist, cupping, etc. in the milling process. Takes some time, but I get exactly what I need.

[dusty]

This thread has gotten a bit off subject but it sure seems to be hanging onto the interests of the group.

putttn

If I remember correctly, you are in the Spokane area. If that is correct, you really ought to look around for a mill site. You won't find the sort of lumber that Eric is talking about but you can find some rough cut that will allow you the opportunity to dimension lumber.

I could do that too but mesquit doesn't get all that large and it is really tough on the saw blades.
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