MIMF

I am on number three guitar (wenge b/s with sitka spruce top; rosette and headstock will be from ambrosia maple.) I've decided to laminate the neck on this one. I plan to use three strips of flamed maple with strips of wenge between the maple. Using this method I will have to flatten the neck where the fingerboard will be attached. So....I am considering purchasing a jointer. Most of what I've read on the benchtop model reviews says basically to stay away from them and go ahead and spend the extra money on a full size 6 inch model. Before I spend that much on the full size model (and spend the time deciding where in my small shop to put it) I wanted to see what you guys thought. Does your experience match what I am reading ....or do you find that a benchtop model works fine for guitar building?

As always, thanks for the help.

Danny

Danny,
I've never seen a benchtop jointer that wasn't crap, and you can have mine for free. It's been hardly used at all. It came complete with a full quarter inch warp in the fence and an eighth inch warp in the outfeed table. It does have about a half inch layer of rust on it now from my using it extensively to hold down one end of a tarp under the deck on the back of my house.

I think you would be nuts to buy a six inch jointer for the sole purpose of flattening the neck. If you do other types of woodworking that would require a lot of use from a jointer then fine, but you will be far happier putting that money into good wood.

If you don't want to plane it straight and level, and you don't want to use the sandpaper taped on a level trick, or sandpaper taped to a sheet of thick glass, then go to any company that makes granite countertops and ask them to save you a scrap cutoff about 4 inches wide and 4 or 5 feet long. Tape a strip of sandpaper roll to the surface, lay it along a tabletop, and you will have yourself the finest "Micro Control Leveling Sander" just by walking your neck back and forth along it. When you are through, you can just lean it up in the corner outof the way (which you may not be able to do with a 6 inch jointer).

With a laminated neck, do be careful that your center stripe is far narrower, or far wider than the trussrod that will be pressing upon it, or you will have all of it's force bearing down on a very tiny glued surface area and may have the center stripe pushed out from the adjacent neck woods by the truss rod over time due to cold creep (DAMHIKT).

Just my two cents, but I can think of several thousand things I would spend that kind of money on before I spent it on a jointer for guitar building.

You want a Saf-T-Planer for that job and for many others. It is great for cutting the taper in the neck also. It's one of my favorite tools, I love using it.

A well tuned jointer is a wonderful tool! There are quite a few tasks it can do well and quickly. Most bench top jointers I've seen were crap, get a full size machine.

I haven't heard great things about the smaller, newish jointers but if you can get your hands on an inca tabletop jointer or even an older delta home life jointer like this one they are pretty decent. I have one of the delta's and it works great, of course it's solid cast steel with no plastic parts. Basically you want a real thick heavy slab of metal for the bed, it'll resist warping better than what they sell these days in smaller sizes. I bought my jointer for $150 on craigslist and it's one of my nicer tools.

http://www.google.com/url?source=imglan ... yUwbduj4NA

for reference here is the inca as well. Gorgeous tools

http://www.google.com/url?source=imglan ... JiQr2XEPTQ

Incas were go-to luthier's tools because they were small and light enough to be portable. The jointer has a planer attachment and came in 10" and 12" widths. I'd stick with cast iron and dovetailed ways. Bring a straight-edge when you go a-shopping to check the alignment in every way you can think of. If it isn't perfect, don't even think about it.

I have a benchtop PC from one of the big box stores and have to agree it isn't a quality tool. I can get it to work well enough by taking off very small amounts of wood. It overworks it to take a big bite and you do have to fiddle with it to get it to plane flat but it was cheap.

Hi Danny,

I like Randy's suggestions if you're just starting out. I was never quite satisfied with a Safe-T-Planer, and I gave mine away to someone on the forum. But apparently it works well for some. Currently I'm using a 6" Delta that is okay. Incidentally, I found a supplier (globaltooling.com) that sells matched sets of HSS knives at a good price for my Delta - $15.

I think it's quite possible to find good used machinery on Craigslist, but aside from a good straightedge as David recommends, some research might be helpful before inspecting the machines. You could go to owwm.com (now http://www.vintagemachinery.org) to find examples, comments, and manufacturers' literature about older machines so that you know something about the characteristics and adjustments for a particular machine. You might be able to contact the people who've restored particular machines for advice. Also, the current issue FWW (Tools & Shops) has an article about tuning up jointers that may be informative, and there are also similar articles in past issues.

FWW?

FWW---Fine Wood Working (I presume).

I've got the 6" jointer from Harbor Freight, and it's not a quality tool, but it works OK after some tuning.
I do other woodworking, so it made sense for me, but sandpaper on a flat surface would be a better choice for you. Flamed maple is tricky to cut on a jointer without getting some tearout, you need a pretty good tool to do that successfully on a regular basis.

I have a bench-top Delta. The fence was warped when I got it, so I glued sandpaper to a flat surface and flattened the fence. Since then it has operated flawlessly, but I use it very little, and I always take real shallow cuts.

Danny - I have not used a bench top jointer, but am familliar with both a larger 8" floorstanding model, and hand planes. I find that the machine only gets used rarely when I want to roughly dimension a lot of timber. For the fine tolerances that make the best rub joints (or variations thereof, being two flat surfaces glued together), you simply cant beat a handplane. Doesnt even have to be a jointer model, a 5, 5 1/2, 6 would do the job just as well. The main advantage, apart from the much finer tolerance of cut, is a combo of near silence when in use and a much better surface for gluing - no matter how well set up your jointer (tabletop or floorstanding) is, there will always be a slight ripple to the surface, not so with a handplane. There are other issues, for sure, but they are essentialy related to practice.
Just my thoughts,
Adam

I also have the benchtop Delta, purchased around 2001-2002. In terms of everything being straight and flat, it's all good. Adjusting the fence is a little annoying, as it tends to move as you tighten the screws, but stays once its set. I think where a bigger jointer really excels is its longer outfeed table. With something even as long as a neck blank on these benchtop models, you have to do some fancy hand-shifting to keep a hand over the outfeed table and pressure in the right places, otherwise you'll get snipe.

I'll second Rodger's comment on tearout with figured maple.

Thank you guys. You've given me a lot to think about. Not sure what I'll do yet.

One more thing to think about is, are you going into production or just making one at a time? For production you will need a good jointer but if you are doing this as a hobby and making one at a time the hand tools are just fine. No matter what tool you choose whether it be a hand tool or power tool you have to learn how to use and maintain it. Do you know how to set up a jointer? sharpen and adjust the blades? Adjust the tables for parallel, snipe, Etc.?

Power tools generally take up more space than hand tools.

Well, I married a pretty good Mrs. Claus 32 years ago and another proof of that is that she just approved the order of a Grizzly G0452Z 6" X 46" Jointer w/ Spiral Cutterhead. Woodworking has been a life long hobby of mine and I think that I will get good use out of this. I am hopeful that the spiral cutterhead with indexable carbide inserts will handle the figured wood without the tearout issue. Thanks again to all for all the help. Danny

If this is only your first or second guitar us a long bed hand jointer plane. Learn how to do it with that in the first place and you will save many hours of setup and many dollars. Do you really have to save time on something as important as a neck? The best hand planes in the world will cost less than a cheap electric jointer and will serve the craftsman well while retaining their value.