Customer Reviews

JET 708457K JJ-6CSX 6-Inch 1-HP Jointer, 115/230-Volt 1-Phase

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was fortunate enough this year to be able to upgrade several pieces of equipment in my shop. After spending a considerable amount of time studying reviews and looking at Jet, Delta and Powermatic equipment, I decided to go with JET because of the fit and finish, the features and overall value. I think that Jet has come a long way in the past 10 years to improve quality to a level as good as and in many cases better than their competition.

This jointer replaced a very old Delta which had handwheels located under the tables. I liked the Jet because the handwheels are located in front of the tables. Some people find that adjustment levers work best for them, but I have always prefered handwheels because its easier for me to make small adjustments.

The unit arrived in excellent condition. There were no scratches, dents or missing parts -great job Jet! It was packaged in two boxes with the contents of each identified on the outside of the boxes. By the way, the instruction manual is located in the (larger) box that contains the jointer table and various other parts. The smaller box contains the base, and the base door. Everything is tightly packed in styro containers and wrapped in plastic bags. Jet even packs a small can of paint, two wrenches and an allen wrench to adjust the cutters (however, mine were set perfectly at the factory). The instruction manual is well written and has good picture references.

I put the unit on a shopmade mobile base that I made and had used sucessfully with the Delta jointer. I like it because it lifts the unit up about 2" and does not slip when you apply pressure or work with heavy wood. (I found the plans in a "Shop Notes" magazine a couple of years ago).

The unit went together with no hitches. The fit and finish is great. Everything lined up perfectly. The back fence was set correctly at the factory to stop at 90 & 45 degrees, so no correction was needed. I installed the belt, dust chute and belt guard and went through the steps to set up the infeed and outfeed tables. The outfeed table also was already adjusted correctly and this saved a lot of time. After that I ran several soft and hardwood boards through and was very pleased with the results. The units 1 HP TEFC motor ran remarkably quiet and the cuts were very smooth. The dust collection chute also worked fine with my shop system.

I would highly recommend this unit if you are in the market for a good, easy to set up and operate 6" jointer. Happy woodworking!

I researched 6" jointers and narrowed my search to the Delta or the Jet.

There's some disagreement as to the best way you adjust the tables and people have there favorite way to adjust the table and I listen to both arguments. I thought from the outset that I'd hate the lever and love the wheels.

The wheels on the Jet provide more precision while the Deltas lever seems more hit or miss, perhaps like having to tap a table saw fence in order to creep up on the adjustment.
When I went to try these two for myself I found the Delta to be extremely easy and smooth. Surprisingly accurate. I guess that may account for why many high-end jointers use a lever. The Jets wheels seem almost like a silly gimick in comparision. It's my personal first reaction when I tried them both, quite contrary to what I first assumed. I'm not saying there's a destinct advantage although it may seem so. It's my personal preference. Also note, that usually you leave the tables alone once you get them set.

Also, I originally liked the rack and pinion fence on the Delta. It's also higher than the Jets, but I haven't had any trouble at all with the Jet fence at all. I may have heard that the Delta fence might wear along part of the bed as you adjust it. With the Jets you have to lift it when you adjust it so you're not dragging it across the bed. That's actually a quicker action to perform. If you're joining edges you should move the fence to different positions across the cutter occasionally so you don't wear the blade in one set position.
The only benefit I could see with having this rack and pinion is sneaking up on a rabbet cut. Maybe the Rack and pinion fence looks more substantial, perhaps it's more solid if memory serves me.

Then there's the switch mounted higher on the Delta which I thought was a nice feature especially since I'm tall. Rather than the low cabinet switch on the Jet which seems very low.

When I finally saved up my money to buy a jointer I planned on going with Delta by a slim margin.
The Delta wasn't in stock and I was offered the Jet for $50 less plus a $50 rebate for buying the mobile base so I purchased it.

Assembly was very easy. the beds are heavy and you don't want to bang this around so it's to your advantage to get some help. Admittedly I did it all myself very carefully.
The beds were perfectly aligned with one another, no twist or bows. The motor is smooth, quiet with good power and no vibration.
Set up and alignments we're equally easy. My machine moved within the mobile base and I was taking only 1/16 - 1/32 cuts. It's the length of the board across the table and that downward push that can suddenly make that machine feel light when you actually use it. If I had the room or the extra money I think a nice 8" would provide enough heft as to overcome that but since I have niether here I am. If you can bolt it down permenantly that of coarse will take care of that. I've have learned to overcome this tendency on the mobile base, but it is a factor I have to be aware of when I'm joining.

Overall, I've used this machine so much now that i have wondered how I could have gone so long without it. It's been terrific.
So would I haved rather purchased the Delta now?
Some of the features that I once obsessed about aren't an issue once I began gaining practical experience using this machine and gained familiarity with all of its functions.
I saved some money as well, so no regrets.

Picked one up a couple months ago.

Everything was right on. Assembled it according to the instructions and it cut like a dream. I tested it out with some scraps of oak I got at my wood supplier. Great finish and perfectly straight after running them through a couple times.

Machine has little vibration. Not too loud. Plenty of power.

Like every machine that has the typical 'fan belt', the vibration can be reduced with a link belt, along with a reduction in noise. Hearing protection is a must with any wood cutting operation, just as important as safety glasses.

I went a long time without a jointer and have greatly increased the quality of my work with it. If you are looking to add a nice piece of equipment to your shop to help you produce better results, I would recommend this jointer.

This machine has all the right features. First thing to do is coat the fence and table surfaces with Slip-It or a non-silicon wax. It's a night and day difference when the wood easily glides across the table and when you have to force it.

For a 6" jointer it was the Jet or the Delta. For me, the Jet had the edge with the hand crank adjustment of the infeed and outfeed tables.

Update: Did some rabbiting cuts with it and it worked great. Seemed alot easier and safer than using a router. Finish on the cuts was excellent. Hogged out about 1/4" in a single pass in hard maple with no problem.

Hope this helped.

All cast iron was ground flat out of the box - well within the tolerances that any professional would want. There have been no issues with green castings warping over time. The motor has more than enough power to help the knives plow through the hardest woods. I would never consider a mobile stand for a unit like this. This should be bolted to the floor. One of the best tools I own.

I use mine almost every day on heart pine. You can tell the machine is obviously made tough, just by looking at it. Ran smoothly and did a great job. However, I wore my blades out and had to replace them. Still did a great job but now it vibrated, so I bought good Amana blades for the next replacement. Still it vibrated. I am not sure, but I have a hunch that the Jet people spin-balanced the drum AFTER the blades were clamped in the head, so now when you replace the blades it will always be out of balance no matter how good your replacement blades are.
What do I have to do to get this thing running smoothly again, remove the drum and get it rebalanced ?

We operate the Jet 6" jointer in our wood shop and we have found it to be a solid tool for the last 9 months. It replaced a craftsman unit from the 50's. Reading some of the reviews, it seems Jet is still suffering from a boonedoggle from a few years ago with a poor decision to keep up with demand for their large machines. They decided to use what is called "green" castings so that they could keep up production of their equipment to meet demand. "Green" means they used castings that weren't left to rest for about a year and instead used castings that were probably 2 to 4 months old. Being green the metal internally shifts. They ground these to tolerances, built up the machines and shipped them out. Then the consumer got it and found that the tables, fences etc. were twisted, warped and out of tolerance due to the metal shifting to its final position. We learned about this with a Jet cabinet saw bought 3 years ago. we had the table ground to spec twice in the first year! [(it was so bad the fence would bind!) Out with the Jet and in came another Delta Unisaw.]
This jointer has served us well and we really can't find any
real flaw with it except that the in-feed / out-feed tables are short for handling longer boards, we modified ours to extend our In/out-feed tables to help handle this problem when we run long boards which isn't often. We choose this unit over the Delta due to the "twist" adjustments instead of the handles on the Delta. The setup was fairly simple but we did spend some time getting it all aligned, we use a dail indicator to get all our tools dead perfect. So far the machine has maintained the accuracy of our set-up. Very important! The fit and finish is very nice. The blades are decent but we now use Freud blades with better run times between sharpening. Also watch out if you decide to go with a used Jet, chances are it is being sold due to being warped and twisted. So if you choose Jet equipment stay with new - our cabinet saw is out there somewhere.

I've had this jointer for more than five years now. It's a fantastic tool--my favorite in the shop.

Setup was a breeze--this was the first power tool I've had to set up on my own. Other than a little help from my wife to lift the jointer onto the closed base, I was able to assemble and tune the Jet by myself in less than an hour. The tuning was just about effortless, as everything was tuned within spec right out of the box. I refined a couple of things (blade adjustment and outfeed table-to-blade alignment), but those were the only adjustments, and wouldn't strictly have been necessary.

The Jet is very quiet compared with other jointers I've used--in fact, when my dust collector is running you can't tell the jointer is even switched on.

The Jet has plenty of power to cut thru just about anything. I regularly take up to 1/16" off of 3/4 to 3" stock in both hard and softwoods, and the jointer plows thru this all without breaking a sweat. I have used it to take off as much as 3/16" (not that I would recommend this with any jointer). I've done a little planing of hardwood and softwood boards up to 5 1/2" wide. The Jet does a great job of planing, but (as with any jointer, I would expect) you must feed properly to ensure you take off the same amount across the face of the board. I generally prefer a thickness planer for this task. I have not used it for rabbeting.

The front-mounted handwheels are blindingly simple to use, and very smooth. I much prefer them to the Delta 37-190's lever-adjust system as it's easier to make fine-increment changes. The only gripe I have about adjusting the tables is the 1/8" safety lockout mounted at the back of the jointer. You must loosen two knobs, then pull the lockout while you turn the handwheel if you expect to take more than 1/8" in a pass, or make rabbets. This isn't a problem, per se, but you must be careful not to accidentally force the handwheel when the lock kicks in or you'll damage the table mechanism.

The fence is very easy to use. It slides manually, but it moves very smoothly on machined surfaces, making it simple to adjust the width of the exposed blade. The angle is also simple to adjust. Occasionally the fence grab lever/knob will catch your knuckles while jointing pieces that are around 6" wide (especially when beveling), so I remove and reinstall the lever as necessary. The fence has stops for 45 degrees and 90 degrees, so making bevels is a simple setup. The 45 degree stop can be pivoted out of the way for making bevels of less than 45 degrees. The fence tilt mechanism is well-built with heavy cast-iron and sheet steel parts. All knobs and levers are heavy-duty and provide plenty of leverage for snug lock-downs.

Dust collection has been very effective. I discarded the 4" plastic dust port that came with the unit and installed a shop-made 6" port over the 6"x6" dust chute. Now chips never accumulate in the stand or on the tables and dust is virtually eliminated as well.

I've had the knives sharpened three times now. The jackscrew blade adjusters are great--easy to get a fine tolerance. Removing and replacing the knives is a no-brainer.

In five years of moderate use, I've not had to do any tuning other then adjusting blade height to compensate for sharpening. This is a very well-made and well-finished tool, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Great machine, well packed and complete. All parts are true, flat and machined to exacting standards. It looks, feels and functions like a quality product.

But now the but.

It is impossible, no matter how you try, to tension the belt properly. With the motor set up it just can not be done.

Solution, with the money you save on sales tax and shipping buy 4 feet of segmented belt, mount the belt by tilting the bed pulley under the belt BEFORE you mount the bed or fence. Once done put the 3 bed bolts in place, and you have a first class machine.

This is a nice machine that works well. I broke my depth adjuster in the first day I had the machine. This was purly operator error. Jet sent me a new one, which took about a hour to change.

I have been working mostly with 2" thick material, and one needs to be mindful not to push to fast. While I have not stalled this thing yet, I do notice a sharp decrease in blade speed. I wish the table was longer, this table is kinda short. Powermatic has a model that is similar with a longer table. It does not take much effort to tilt the machine with down preasure, this goes back to the short table issue. DO NOT put a moble base on this bad boy, I have one and this thing moves all over the place when you start pushing hard.

This machine does the job, if you can afford it, spend the extra money and get a real jointer, not it's little brother. If you are on a tight budget, this machine will work fine for you.

Assembled out of the box OK. Read all the instructions several times. Machine vibrated badly. Checked belt tension, OK per specs. By the way, belt tensiononing is a bear.It takes two people or a belt spacer jig to get it tight. After several attempts to get the vibration out, I replaced the belt with link material. Much better now. Looks like the original belt had a permanent bend in it, probably from sitting in a box too long. After a short period of time, I started to notice an increase in chatter. Tried the alignment instructions. This is something you don't want to do often! I bought a Jointer-pal and attached several rare-earth magnets to it. That holds the blades in position much better. Cuts cleaner now. Fence was not set to 90. When I have the fence adjusted to 90 using a 6" metal square, it goes out of alignment when the locking nut is tightened. When you finally think you have everything set right and locked, it goes out of alignment again when you tighten the main locking handle. What is going on? Jet needs to improve the fence and invent some kind of locking mechanism for the cutterhead when setting blades. It moves too easily when tightening the blade bolts.