Thread: Jet Combo Planer/Thicknesser JPT260M

Originally Posted by Repete

Hi, I am considering this machine & possibly fitting a CTS spiral cutter. Are there any members in Melbourne with this machine that I could view & have a natter about? Peter

Peter,

I'm not in Melbourne, but I do have a JPT-260M with the CTS helical cutter block fitted. i bought the machine about 18 months ago.

Until recently I used it with the straight cutters, and it worked very well, except on highly figured timbers, where tearout in areas of curly grain was a problem. The straight cutters also chew off longish slivers of timber which was causing my 2HP dust extractor to clog if i tried to take too deep a cut.

The spiral or helical cutters produce much smaller wood chips which have much less tendency to clog the dust extractiion system. Noise wise, I haven't actually measured the noise levels, but I don't think that the CTS cutters are much quieter than the straight cutters - at least on the hardwoods that I normally work with (Red Gum, Tas Oak, Silky Oak, and Qld Maple). Overall, the JPT-260 in thicknesser mode is much quieter than the old Carbatec 12 inch thicknesser it replaced, and about the same noise as the old 6 inch planner it replaced.

Changing from planner to thicknesser mode and back is an easy 30 second exercise. The thicknesser will easily take a 3mm cut in softer woods like maple and silky oak, but with something hard like forest red gum, 2mm is about the limit.

The main limitation with the JPT260 is the shorter planner bed. The planner bed is not as long as a dedicated planner. This effectively limits planning/jointing operations to about 2 meter lengths of timber. When I need to joint longer lengths of timber, I use shop made extension tables to increase the table length to two meters.

I had a machine tech install the CTS cutter block for me, as I don't own the necessary bearing pullers etc. The install cost me $200 in labour, so not bad. The JPT260 is a bit different in that it doesn't have a parallogram movement on the outfeed table.With straight cutters installed you get rid of snipe by adjusting the height of the cutter blades. But with helical or spiral cutters installed, you eliminate snipe by shimming the outfeed table hinges, and then by adjusting the outfeed table stops. It is a pain to adjust to eliminat snipe when you first get the helical cutters installed, but once adjusted you should never need to touch the shims again. It took me about an hour of fiddling and swearing to get the outfeed tabe shimmed correctly to eliminate snipe.

PM me if you like any more detailed information, photos, etc.

Regards,

Roy

Thanks Roy, informative!! I would love the Hammer A3 as that resolves every issue I have with my current setup & the cheaper combinations. My main problem is tear out, no matter carefully I feed the timber. How do you find adjusting the fence, as it looks fiddly? Peter

Originally Posted by Repete

Thanks Roy, informative!! I would love the Hammer A3 as that resolves every issue I have with my current setup & the cheaper combinations. My main problem is tear out, no matter carefully I feed the timber. How do you find adjusting the fence, as it looks fiddly? Peter

Adjusting the fence so it's 90 degrees to the table (or any other angle) is easy to adjust via the two wing nuts that lock it in position. Adjusting the fence back and forth across the cutter is also straight forward - two locking levers secure it. And unlike some other combo machines, the fence doesn't have to be moved when you convert the machine from planner to thicknesser and back.

Roy

Over the weekend I had a chance to use the woodman over and under 310. It's not too shabby. it's a true spiral helical head and its real quiet (the dusty was noisier). I put through some straight boards of pawlonia,red gum, end grain chopping board and some really gnarly cypress with lots of knots.
i found that there was virtually no tear out and it was easy to push through as a jointer and the machine didn't slow down in planer mode. The end grain board tore at the edge but I was expecting that otherwise it planed it real well.
the changeover from one mode to the other was simple and easy.
the only drawback I can see is the fence, it seems a bit lightweight but I managed to get it to 90 degrees after a bit of fiddling.
This was at woodworking warehouse on their demo machine maybe worth a call to see if you can have a go.