Warning: bought a $180 benchtop jointer to square drawer stock and it cost me a whole weekend | Cabinetmakers - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Warning: bought a $180 benchtop jointer to square drawer stock and it cost me a whole weekend
I picked up a cheap bench top jointer last spring to flatten walnut drawer sides instead of using my hand planes, and it wandered so bad that half the boards came out wedge shaped. I burned about six hours and forty board feet of walnut before I measured the outfeed table with a straightedge and found it off by nearly a sixteenth. Ended up re-milling everything on the table saw with a sled, which is what I should have done from the start. That was roughly $300 in wood down the drain plus the $180 for the machine. Curious if any of you have found a benchtop model that actually holds its settings, or is this just how they all are?
My dad swore by his benchtop for 20 years so I figured you just got a lemon, but then I helped him true up some oak last month and the fence had creeped nearly an eighth. We spent the morning shimming it with feeler gauges. I'm with you now, saving for a floor model.