JET - JJP-8BT 8" Jointer / Planer Combo (Rating: 4)

I am writing my review in order to help people with their decision on a purchase of this unit. Before I begin I had some reservations about this and was unsure about making this investment, Even though it is an economical unit, 350 to 400 bucks is a lot to throw away on a piece of garbage that doesn;t work correctly Anyways I am more than pleased with this purchase. I never give 5 stars because when we write these posts we have no way of determining on how long something will last. I may write this and as soon as I do the unit may crash. But from using this for about a week now I am confident that this will last a while as long as you dont try to cut too much at one time.. I give it a solid 4 because there are a few short coming's which I hope that Jet would address in the future These are really simple fixes that would take nothing for them to do. All in all I think it is a solid machine that does the job very well. It does take time for th blade to be adjusted and the tool that they provide (a aluminum block) is useless and much better ways of getting a reasonable blade setup. I YouTube and found many good ways of adjusting and was able after several hours of doing it over a few days( my first alignment was wacky) got a pretty accurate alignment, between 1/100 th and 1/50th of an inch, I have purchased a magnetic dial indicator but that is on back order, so when that comes in I will aim for a more accurate alignment, but right now I am happy. I do suspect that the table is slightly out of co-planer. Right now it doesnt seem like much of a problem, and I probably will do worse by trying to adjust the out feed table as many have stated that they needed to do. Once again when I get the proper gauges to see how much it is, I will just leave it as is. But it dosesnt seem to be out much. The motor seems strong enough to do what this tool is intended to do, I just take very light cuts about 1/32 of an inch, and plane less than 1/16 at a time. The blades seem thin but I have ordered 2 additional sets to have in hand, as you should with this tool. I havent noticed any chips in the blade or any tiny ridges when I plane, so maybe the blades are better than I think. They do the job that's for sure. My biggest reservation that I had was how much of a pain it would be when changing from jointer to planer. It is a breeze which takes less than 3 minutes. Hardly a hassle, and makes this a 2 in one space saver a must for small shops. Recently I purchased some Cypress which was very twisted. I will never purchase lumber from the place that I got it because I was charged for S2S and I have seen rough lumber in better shape than this. Anyways I was able to straighten out the boards with this tool. My wife would have thought I was drunk when making the entertainment center because of the warpping of the boards, and there was no way that these boards would have jointer correctly had I not had this cool tool. I did have to shave off nearly of a 1/4 of an inch to do so. Sp now with my few short comings.

1. The manual needs to be updated. I spent quite a bit trying to find pan head screws which weren't included and had changed the to the hex bolts. Many others had this issue also. The tool is easy enough to put together that laying things out, you will soon or later realize that the manual is out dated.

2. one of the long bolts that holds the face plate on they need to make the part that goes into the back of th machine a little shorter. When you tighten this bolt it protrudes in the back and prevents the planer to get any thinner than 1 1/2 inches. I have just left this not tightened all the way, but am thinking of putting a washer or something to make this a better fix. Jet should address this problem because I had thought that something was wrong with the planer mechanism until I looked deeper into the problem.

3. The spring was not connected in a good spot on the blade guard and as I put it on the first time the spring popped out. It was easy enough to reconnect and there are 4 holes where you can attach the spring to. I just had to figure from trial and error which one would work without the spring popping out again.

All in all it is a decent tool. A must have if you are into wood working, it will save you money in the long run. I am saving 3 buck a BF by purchasing rough cut lumber, so in the end this tool will pay for itself. I love this tool. I have many uses for it, and cant believe I went without it for this long.