8" short bed jointer. is there any demand for it?


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Hi everyone, its been too long since i've been on the forum . I was looking for everyones input on a product that does not exist in the woodworking market today. Im talking about a short bed 8" jointer, something that has a maximum bed length of 60". Myself, like many others on this forum are woodworkers with day jobs. We spend within our limits to make our small workshop feel like a professional shop. There are tons of threads out there titled " 6" v. 8" " this new product that im suggesting would end that debate once and for all! Now I know there people out there saying if you have a small shop but want a large jointer, go with a combo machine. Combo machines are a market all their own, i dont think someone trying to decide between a 6 or an 8" jointer is just going to say, " hey, why dont i just get a 10" combo!" Mostly all 8" jointers are 70+ inches long except for Jet who offers a 67". And there are european companies that make shorter bed 8" jointers but they are WELL out of my price range! For me thats just not doable in a 1.5 car garage. While researching I noticed that Grizzly offers a 12" dedicated Jointer with a 60" bed.....so why no 8" short bed? I brought this to Grizzly's attention today and they looked into it for me. They said there really hasnt been any intrest in a short bed 8" jointer but there may be in the future, they also said that if there were more requests it would help speed up the process of something like this coming to market.

So with all of this in mind, how do you all feel about this? Would a short bed 8" jointer make the argument of 6" v. 8" obsolete? Please leave your thoughts!Together we can make this happen.

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the problem is that the length of the bed has to be dead flat and long enough for the long boards.  if you mount the jointer in a spot that allow the jointer to outfeed onto a counter or table top how do you know that the secondary surface like a table top is even with the jointer bed? and if you dont feed off onto another surface you are likely to have you wood rock back and forth because there is not any suport at the far ends of you boards. its true that i more often then not work with smaller size lumber like under 2 ft but then i turn around and work with a board that is 10 ft and i need a long flat surface to make shure my board does not move on me.  

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I have a 6" jointer in my shop and I crave an 8", not for the other two inches of width, but for the extra length of the bed. Ninety nine percent of the lumber I get is s2s straight line ripped on one edge, and anywhere from twelve to fourteen feet in length. A short jointer bed limits my capabilities because my butt isn't heavy enough to hold the board down when I get toward the end.

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TR, what do you use those long boards for, mill work? Crosscutting before jointing will minimize waste. But I hear ya! It becomes border line unsafe when your placing all that pressure at the back end. One slip and your hand could be minced meat! Thanks for the reply!

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I have a 6" jointer in my shop and I crave an 8", not for the other two inches of width, but for the extra length of the bed. Ninety nine percent of the lumber I get is s2s straight line ripped on one edge, and anywhere from twelve to fourteen feet in length. A short jointer bed limits my capabilities because my butt isn't heavy enough to hold the board down when I get toward the end.

+1 on the longer bed joiner!

I have a friend of a friend with an old huge 12" aircraft carrier sized joiner but driving 45 minutes to joint a few pieces and then drive back is kind of impractical.

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Thanks for the input Steve. I wouldn't drive 45 minutes to make a couple cuts either, unless it was essential to a build. The more feed back I get here the better so I'll broaden the topic and also ask " If you own a 6" jointer what is keeping you from stepping up to an 8"? The real estate it takes up in a shop? The cost? Never had a use for a larger jointer?

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6" will do 90 percent of my jobs and the 8" would come in handy

 

the nice thing about the 8" is that it can joint anything smaller so i can use the 8" as a 6" but i can't work a 6" bigger.  but it costs a great deal more and it takes up a lot more room both wide and long.

 

 

I think the question you should ask and one i would like to know now that i think of it is there a point where the length of a board stops dipping and you can use a jointer successfully. obviously you can't have no length but can you have a 10-12" jointer that is not 30ft long but rather the same length as a 6" then you have some surface room down the length or would that just cause the wood to not joint flat? does it have to have aircraft carrier lengths as long as there is some length?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, your asking how far can a board overhang the bed before it starts to sag. I think the answer to that is contingent to whether or not your face or edge jointing. If your edge jointing I would think you could overhang more than if you were face jointing.

This has me thinking....do all jointers have the cutter head placed in the middle of the beds and if so why? In my opinion it is easier to keep a long board registered on the in feed side when there is overhang because you are putting force down and forward and as soon as the wood passes over the cutter head you should have the majority of the pressure on the out feed side. So if you could hypothetically make a 60" jointer act as a 72" jointer by having a 24" in feed table and a 36" out feed table.

What do you guys think of that idea? Is the length of the in feed as important as the length of the out feed?

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The longer the jointer the less wedge effect. Believe it or not jointers are considered tiny machines even 16" jointer when it comes to straightening long boards. No millwork shop would even consider them a viable option. A 12" is the perfect length for a cabinet shop. Mine for example is 84". 41" in front of the cutter head. Just the right distance to cut most face frame and door stock on the table without any wedge effect.

One reason 8 " machines are getting longer and longer.

Don

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Correct me if I'm wrong, your asking how far can a board overhang the bed before it starts to sag. I think the answer to that is contingent to whether or not your face or edge jointing. If your edge jointing I would think you could overhang more than if you were face jointing.

This has me thinking....do all jointers have the cutter head placed in the middle of the beds and if so why? In my opinion it is easier to keep a long board registered on the in feed side when there is overhang because you are putting force down and forward and as soon as the wood passes over the cutter head you should have the majority of the pressure on the out feed side. So if you could hypothetically make a 60" jointer act as a 72" jointer by having a 24" in feed table and a 36" out feed table.

What do you guys think of that idea? Is the length of the in feed as important as the length of the out feed?

 

I believe the rulle of thumb is that you can effectively joint boards as long as the jointer beds combined, so you can joint a 72" board on a 72"-long jointer.  I don't think you can make a short jointer act like a longer one by increasing the infeed length.  That's like saying a 10" Japanese plane (with blade in the rear 1/3 of the sole) is better at flattening than a 10" Western plane (with a blade in the front 1/3).

 

Not all jointers have equal-length beds.  The DJ-20 (and it's clones, including the Grizzly) have longer infeed beds.  I believe the 6" model, the DJ-15 is the same.  Most of the stuff I joint is between 1 and 4' long.  I'm not sure I've ever used the jointer for stuff 8' long.

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But shouldn't the only thing that truly needs to be registered flat to the jointer is the material AFTER the cutter heads? That's what needs to be true, everything prior to the cutter heads is going to be cut.

No. Think about edge jointing a board with a frown towards the table. If a big chunk is hanging off the table then the board is going to ramp/lift up as the part hanging off comes onto the table. This is why you get the wedge effect. The longer and more warped the board is the worse its going to be. Get too long and your just wasting wood.

This is the reason euro jointers are so short. They have a different way of thinking. They straight line rip on their slider then just clean up on the jointer. For faces they make it a habit to cross cut short before face jointing. Then they parallel in the planer on edge which is why tersa cutters are so appealing.

Don

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Ok. That makes perfect sense to me now! So there really is no benefit of a jointer with different size in feed and out feed. Thanks Don.

So let's bring this discussion back on point with " is the main reason people upgrade to an 8" jointer for bed length or cutter width?"

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