I sold it because my plans for a large mill room didn't pan out, not because I didn't love this jointer.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-x-72-Jointer-with-Mobile-Base/G0656
Free Shipping as well!
It the basic 8" model, but there are upgrades if you want them.... a parallelogram bed and a spiral cutter head:
http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-Jointer-with-Spiral-Cutterhead/G0656X
Some guys love the spiral head, I donno, I've never owned one. They both got 5 star reviews on this page:
http://www.grizzly.com/jointers
I have an "old" (Jet JJ-12 built in the 70's). I bought it used from a retired woodworker that had purchased it new. I paid $1000 for it in 2011. I changed the knife head to a Byrd/Shelix spiral head in 2013 for $800. All my power woodworking tools (table saw, band saw, cyclone, oscillating sander, surface planer) have been upgraded to Grizzly over the years, but the JJ-12 is staying until I die. If I didn't have the Jet JJ-12, I would have purchased a Grizzly jointer or sold my surface planer and bought a Grizzly Jointer/Planer combo to save floor space.
The Jet bed length is 84" with a width of 12".
My criteria for selecting a jointer:
1. Bed length - the longer the better. If you don't work with long boards, then you could go with a shorter bed. I typically joint 10' long boards. As long as the sawyer (that's me) has made a fairly straight cut, then the 84" length works well. Sometimes when the sawyer was having a bad day, I will have to pull out a hand plane and take off some high spots.
2. Bed width - depending on what board width you are using, go with the widest you can afford and fit into your shop. I also have a 20" wide surface planer. In order to get >12" boards jointed, I will rip (using a ripping blade, not a combo blade) them down the middle, joint one face of each board (make sure it is the same face of the original board) and then glue them back together on the rip line. Now the >12" board is ready to be run through the surface planer. If the rip line is placed correctly, it is hard to tell the board was ever ripped and then glued back together.
3. Easy cutter height change - Most of my wood starts with logs in my backyard. I usually take off 1/32" at a time for the face jointing. There are times when the "sawyer" (that's me) wasn't as accurate as he should have been cutting a straight line. I find that some edges, will need 1/8" removed for a couple of passes to get closer to a straight edge. After the edge is straight, I will change the cutter height to 1/16" for a pass and then 1/32" for the final pass. So, I may change the cutter height 3 or 4 times per board.
4. Cutterhead - This really depends on straight grain or non straight grain woods that you work with. Knives work great for straight grain woods. I work with a lot of non-straight grained woods, so spending the extra money for the carbide spiral head was easily justified.
I upgraded to a spiral head because:
1. the long curls from the knives were constantly clogging my pre-seperator (Thien Top Hat).
2. I had 600+bdft of big leaf maple that was constantly being torn up by the knives, even after being sharpened by hand.
3. No knife sharpening
4. No knife setup
Here are the additional benefits I have found after switching to the spiral head:
1. The spiral head noise level is far lower head than the knife head. I have to be careful and remember to hit the jointer off button when I am done using it.
2. The spiral head produces a smooth surface. It is so smooth that on some woods I can just use 220 grit sandpaper for the finish sanding. With knives, I would have to start with 100 or 120 and work my way up through 150 and 180 before using the 220.
3. Changing a broken or dull carbide cutter is so easy. I have only had to change one since I installed the spiral head. I do recommend that you purchase a special torque handle to install the cutters. I found one on Amazon for under $50.
Eric
