Thread: Bench top Jointer

In my experience with owning a bench top jointer, I will advise you not to buy one.
These jointers have very small beds,and will limit your work/project choices. I guess you will out grow it very soon, and wish you had have put the money into something a little more substantial. I did, I went out and bought an 8" long bed.

As pointed out, the common wisdom is not to buy. They are too dinky to be of much use.

I bought one a while back and had trouble with it , so returned it with extra money for a 6 inch version, much better machine ..

I have a 6" Delta bench top. It does what it's meant to well, but you are limited to short lengths. Spend the extra and buy something with a longer bed.

what do you build / plan to make ?

If you're making document and jewellery boxes, a small jointer and small band saw might be all you need

Originally Posted by ian

what do you build / plan to make ?

If you're making document and jewellery boxes, a small jointer and small band saw might be all you need

I think a small and inexpensive jointer is called a plane!

Originally Posted by Bodgy

I think a small and inexpensive jointer is called a plane!

I'm not so sure, a decent plane blade (if it's an ASW) to go in a second hand jointer will set you back over $100. so at $250 Caratech's little jointer might be the goods for some.

I got one about 18 months ago and used it for the first few months. Only on small pieces for jewelery boxes etc. I was never really quite happy with it and ended up kind-of using it as a thicknesser/planer of sorts.

Ended up getting a LV LA Jack Plane and I love it. Much more control and not much slower in trueing edges, a little slower in truing faces.

I haven used the jointer in over 12 months so maybe that is the answer.

Maybe another option is to consider getting a cheap thicknesser (dont know if the GMC is still $199), and building a sled for flattening faces. I got one on sale but havent set it up yet.

Robert

I've got the bench top jointer from Carbatec and have used it quite a bit. I find that I can joint pieces up to about 1.2 m with no problems and, as I don't really have the shed space or need to do much bigger pieces at this time, it suits me very well. I looked at a good low angle hand plane when I bought this and the handplane was actually dearer. Also, a lot of the wood I use is very well seasoned (read b***** dry) or redgum. A handplane is a bit too time consuming for me. Also, as I started this late in life, my handplane skills are limited so the learning curve for this little machine is a lot less steep.

Grizz.

Thanks for the replies fellas. As I said I was after opinons and thank you for that. I can see the pros and cons now towards having the unit. I was looking for something that would handle an array of different sizes of timber. I can see now how the short bed can cause a few issues there. I also intended to use it for hardwood, so it could be a little under powered as well.