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Where are we so far<\/strong> for the developing woodworker building the machine segment of his or her shop?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. thickness planer<\/strong> with helical cutterhead<\/p>\n 2. router<\/strong> with multiple functional accessories, and a router table<\/strong> built or bought. And throw in a hand-held power drill.<\/p>\n 3. table saw<\/strong>, big or small; think safety\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 4. band saw<\/strong>; maybe even start with a jig saw or add it on<\/p>\n Now for #5: Jointer<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like all the other power tools, you can do high level woodworking without it but the idea of this series is to help along most developing woodworkers with how to sensibly, efficiently, and money-wisely build the shop.<\/p>\n I see little point in going less than 12\u201d<\/strong> cutting width for a jointer, just as I suggested in Part 1 of this series to get a common 13\u201d cutting width for the thickness planer. Of course, most of the time, only some, maybe little, of the 12\u201d is used, but it is really worth it when you need it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But what about a jointer-planer combo?<\/strong> Great – with a good helical cutterhead and the 12\u201d. That is, if you can afford a sufficient quality and have the space.<\/p>\n I got an excellent Hammer combo<\/strong> (see the photos) before helical cutters became common. I hardly ever use the thickness planer segment now. I instead use the Oliver with the helical cutter (see post part 1). The \u201cold fashion\u201d blade cutters in the Hammer work remarkably well, though any defects from difficult grain can be fixed up with the Oliver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For practical purposes – money\/quality\/space\/future plans<\/strong> – I suggest the thickness planer (with a good helical cutter) first, then latter<\/strong> the jointer – also with a spiral cutterhead. Though I have not used such a jointer, I think it is not bad to save with “spiral” cutters that are HSS\/tungsten-carbide\/two edges, not four. (Maybe a Rikon or Cutech?) You can correct defects with the better thickness planer cutters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These are relatively light, small machines that are manageable in almost any shop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One tip:<\/strong> Any new jointer should be checked (unplugged; no power on!) to make sure all<\/i> of the cutting edges<\/em> are in the same plane as the flat outfeed table. A trace higher is ok but edges should never be lower or variable across the width. A little imperfection on the alignment of the variable-height infeed table is probably OK. Primarily, the outfeed table governs the cut. And, of course, the fence should be flat and square set at 90\u00b0.<\/p>\n You can get each machine – thickness planer and jointer – for around a $1000, with the better quality for the thickness planer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n CAUTION:<\/strong> Electric woodworking power tools are extremely dangerous and can cause severe injury including amputation of fingers. Please do not even begin to use an electric woodworking tool without first learning safety from a highly reliable source, understanding, and using appropriate safety procedure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This website is NOT the source for learning this important practice. The brief mentions on the topic are not nearly sufficient to keep you safe. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n So there are my ideas so far. These posts<\/strong> really are more to help you<\/strong> come up with your own decisions as you build a shop, rather than declaring what are necessarily the \u201cbest\u201d decisions. Like the rest of this blog, I want to help<\/em> you see things YOUR way, not to necessarily follow me! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Part 6 coming up.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where are we so far for the developing woodworker building the machine segment of his or her shop?\u00a0 1. thickness planer with helical cutterhead 2. router with multiple functional accessories, and a router table built or bought. And throw in a hand-held power drill. 3. table saw, big or small; think safety\u00a0 4. band saw; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools-and-shop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8866"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8878,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions\/8878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_2355-521x600.jpeg\")
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