Jointers

A jointer does two things that make woodworking possible. The first is to make one side of a board flat. This includes those surfaced boards that were supposed to be flat when you bought them. They might have come out of the milling machine reasonably flat, but by the time they sit around the lumber yard and then your shop they probably twisted enough that they aren't flat enough for fine furniture without a few passes on the jointer.

The second thing that makes a jointer essential is making one edge of a board straight and square to the flat side. There's a big difference between a board that looks straight and one that really is. Jointers are also handy for cleaning up the edge of a board after it's been ripped on a table saw.

We've read articles about other cool things you can do with your jointer like cutting rabbets and tapering table legs. We promise ourselves we'll try them someday, but never have. The jointer does a few things very well and the flat, straight, square boards it makes are essential to working wood.
 

Bed Width and Length

The two primary considerations to your jointer purchase are available space and price. The wider the jointer bed, the wider the board you can face joint. The longer the jointer, the better you can flatten long boards. Basically, the bigger the jointer, the easier it is to work large boards. But bigger jointers are heavier, take up more space, and cost more. Space is often a bigger limitation than cost. We were recently offered a 12" jointer with an 84" long bed. It was 90 years old, but for the price of a new motor, we would have had a sound two thousand pound machine you can't buy anymore. It would have been a great addition to our shop, but we had nowhere to put it.

Also remember that the space you'll need for your jointer is not all of the space you'll need to joint boards. If you want to edge joint an eight foot board, you'll need eight feet of clearance on each side of the cutter head. You may need to move the jointer for long boards and that means a mobile base which is impractical once you get above an 8" wide machine. Take a close look at the space you have available and get the biggest machine that is practical for your budget.
 

Power

Check to see if the tool uses a power-source your shop accommodates. Jointers are available in single-phase 110V, single-phase 220V, and three-phase 220V (see Shop Power).
 

Table and Fence Adjustments

You want a jointer with solid, flat surfaces for the in-feed and out-feed tables and the fence. The in-feed table and the fence will be adjusted fairly often so it should be a smooth operation whether the jointer uses levers or hand-wheels. The fence should be easy to slide forward and backward so that you can use different parts of the knives.
 

Cutterheads

This used to be an easy discussion because the variations were pretty limited. You had a cutterhead of a certain width that had two, three, or four knives that cut perpendicular to the jointer bed. More knives was considered better as the cuts would be smoother and knives would stay sharp longer (although it takes longer to change them).

Early innovations made straight knives easier to install and added cheaper disposable knives. Now there are spiral or biased knives that change the angle of the cut. There are also cutterheads with carbide inserts instead of knives. If a knife gets nicked, you'll need to replace the entire knife (and probably change all of the knives while you're at it). With a nicked insert, you simply replace the damaged insert.

These new cutter (spiral and insert) systems tend to run quieter than traditional straight knives. Manufacturers also claim that cutterheads that utilize spiral knives or inserts produce smoother cuts in figured woods, but it's not obvious that the increased cost is justified. In some of the tests we've seen, the best results came from old fashioned straight knives using a light cut. Don't spend extra money on fancy cutterheads without reading all of the available literature and knowing that your application warrants the expense. The same is true of extra knives on the cutterhead. The incremental benefit of that fourth knife may not justify a lot of extra money.

Changing knives on a jointer is not like changing a blade on a table saw. It takes some time and requires test cuts to make sure it's right. The easier the cutterhead makes the job, the more likely you'll be to change your knives when they get dull. If you're not making heavy use of your jointer you probably won't change knives very often, but if you plan to flatten a lot of wood, you'll want a system that makes replacing the knives easier.
 

Jointers Analysis

Average Grade Average Price products --- $139.48 2 4"   To read the full overview and product reviews in this analysis, click here.

Average Grade Average Price products B $520.70 36 6"   To read reviews of products in this analysis and the full overview, click here.

Average Grade Average Price products A- $1177.85 18 8"   To read product reviews in this analysis and the full overview, click here.

Average Grade Average Price products A- $2348.38 8 10"   To read the overview and product reviews in this analysis, click here.

Average Grade Average Price products B $4305.85 7 12-16"   Click here to read the full overview and product reviews in this analysis.