Customer Reviews

DELTA 37-275X X5 Professional 6-Inch 1-Horsepower Jointer, 120/240-Volt 1-Phase

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Purchased this jointer over a Jet. Assembly was easy and the directions precise no missing parts. Degreasing the machine was a bear dont be afraid to spare the brake clean and shop rags. Set up after assembly was not bad. Belt alignment was a little tough because the motor moves up and down and laterally at the same time, but after first blood no problem. The fence was easily squared to table and the fence adjustments are simple and work well. The tables are flat to within acceptable tolerances (.005). The outfeed table was a bit tough to adjust, the adjustment wheel was difficult to move but once freed up the adjustment went quick. The knives from the factory were set perfectly. Once switched on you can hardly tell this machine is running. Smooth cuts are effortless and I have plowed through 16/4 maple and cherry with fine results. When working with 3/4 or 4/4 stock this machine isn't even breathing and the edging is flawless. I just completed two cherry tables and it is hard to tell were the joints are. I have had great results with up to 8' long stock for any thing over this the tables are short and snipe a bit. Overall it is worth the price and I do recommend this jointer, how can you miss with a five year warranty. My shop has a variety of tools and I will consider Delta for my next purchase.

Delta has been touting the X5 series of tools as the next best thing to sliced bread, and, in many cases this has been the truth. The X5 6" Jointer, leaves something to be desired. It is slightly more expensive than it's competition, and really offers little advantage.

It does the job, although it seems to have an easier time with heavier and thinner stock. Somewhere in between (about 6/4 thickness) is has a tendency to jam behind the safety cover that can be irritating. After a while you learn to push through the stock with your hand in position to give the cover a nudge if it starts to bind. Occasionally the blades will try pull the stock away from the fence (I think this might be the source of the jamming).

When things aren't being bothersome (about 99.9% of the time) the jointer does a fine job of putting a finished edge on rough lumber. The 1.5 horsepower motor isn't bothered in the least by heavy hardwoods. Feed side adjustments take more muscle than I would like, but they allow for great precision, and I rarely change the settings.

The thing I really don't like is the chip extraction design. Even with a strong air filtration system, the chips tend to bunch up rather than go down the chute as designed. They clog up, and than half the chips come out the top, and most of the rest drop inside the cabinet. This is something they really need to fix, since it interferes with smooth operation.

On the whole, a good jointer, but not a great one. Only the really rich own jointers that are big enough and long enough, and the 37-275X offers a compromise thatr isn't too hard to digest.

I recently bought the Delta 37-275X jointer. After having read all sorts of reviews about all sorts of jointers I settled on a Delta. For several reasons, the warrenty, the name, the price, and the good things I read about them. The grease was no big deal to me and the set-up was easy, including the all the alignments and adjustments. I followed all the procedures even though most did not need adjusting. They were dead on from the factory. I felt it was a good learning experience and a good way to get familiar with the machine.
Most of the work I have done so far on the jointer has been with 3/4", 1", and 1 1/4" stock. I recenly needed a smooth glueing surface on a 2X4 46" long. I checked all my settings before starting my work so I know everything is set up per factiory recomendations. I set the fence to the rear of the blades thinking that as I use the machine I will gradually move the fence in so I am using the cutters over their entire length with time. As the work piece hit the movable knife guards it jamed in place. It would not go in nor could I back it out. With the motor still running I had to let go of my work with one hand to turn off the machine with my work piece still jamed inbetween the safety cover the fence and force open the safety cover. I re-read the manual and they say nothing about work jaming in the safety cover. I have since found out that with the fence all the way to the rear of the blades cutting surface any work between 1 1/2" to about 1 3/4" wide will jam in the safety gate. It won't go in and it won't come out. My personnel opinion is this is a serious safety design flaw.

I purchased the jointer about a month ago from Amazon. Delivery was excellent, received within two weeks and the shipping company delivered into my garage. Set-up was fine, I did not experience the dificulties some have experienced during set-up. I have been using the jointer to build kitchen cabinets and have been very pleased with the performance. Glue joints are tight and seems are invisible with very little extra effort. I have made numerous woodworking projects prior to purchasing a jointer and now realize how important a good jointer is in getting things to fit tightly.

I looked at the 8" Jointer as well, but being a hobbyist, I could not justify the extra cost. There have been times that an 8" would have been nice, but I work around it and get excellent results from the 6". I would highly recommend this jointer. The only complaint I would have, and I am not sure if it is this jointer or all jointers, is that my dust collector sucks up only a small percentage of the shavings, and most of the shavings still discharge into my shop.

My jointer arrived via ABF Freight about a week after I ordered it. Assembly was easy, took about an hour. As with any power tool, the initial setup is critical - on jointers, adjusting the outfield table to match the blade height is most important. The outfield table adjustment on this machine is not as smooth as I would like (hence the 4 stars instead of 5), but after adjusting and testing a few times I was able to get it set perfectly. My other (small) issue is the difficulty aligning the pulley and setting belt tension at the same time; Delta uses a double-slot motor adjustment that is not optimal, but is doable. The dust chute can clog if you are not using a dust collection system, so if you start the machine and chips start flying out from under the cutter head guard, it's clogged up -you can reach up the chute and pull out the clog farily easily (with it off of course). Overall however, for the price, it's a good unit.

I purchased the 37-275X jointer September 2004 (and received it then also). I have used it making: a bedside table (with drawers and a shelf) of oak, a coffee table with an oak top and poplar legs, and a cherry pedestal. This tool helped me make my stock have a flat face and an edge perpendicular to that face. My glue-ups have been of excellent quality since using this tool.

Set up of the tool was easy. The pulleys were aligned by Delta, and I did not have to re-position the motor. (Several other reviewers of delta jointers complained about these two aspects of the setup.)

I have had problems with dust collection (like several other reviewers). I found that the dust collection had a sheet metal duct to drop the dust and shavings from the cutters to a dust collection port on the side of the unit. Savings had clogged the inlet to that duct. I poked my shop vac hose up the duct and removed the clog. After that I found that my DC was able to collect the dust.

I have had no problem with the bed or fence rusting. I wax them with furniture polish, now and again when the bed is no longer slick.

When I purchased the unit Delta was running a promotion to give you a free tool. I choose the mobility base. My shop is in my garage. I get a car's worth of space plus some extra wall space. I find the tool with the base easy to store, and roll out and use on my projects. I would rather have an 8" jointer, but lack the space for it. This is a good sturdy tool. I enjoy using it. I think it will work for many years.

Unfortunately, my 6" X5 jointer started off in bad shape. The motor would only spin up half the time. I adjusted belt tension and pulley alignment properly with no improvement. The fence was off by .008" after all possible adjustments. The fence handles never tightened properly, just spun in the cast iron. There were a few other more minor issues. Delta directed me to a local repair shop to fix the motor. This shop wanted me to load the entire machine instead of just swapping the motor so I decided that if I was loading it up I would do it once and return it. I own other Delta products that I am very happy with and plan to buy one of their drill presses this week. But, for this tool I decided to replace this jointer with the Jet unit which is working great. Given all the positive reviews of this jointer, I can understand if this was a one-off bad unit that I got. Hope it works out better for you.

I've been using this jointer for about 3 months now and I have nothing bad to say about it. It's handled everything I've thrown at it. It's easy to use and I didn't have to do much calibrating or aligning right out of the box. It comes with a pair of push blocks and I used the X5 promo to get the mobile base, which I highly recommend. I've got a small garage shop so the 8" wasn't really an option for me at this point. Maybe if my inner-Norm takes over I'll upgrade one of these days but not any time soon!
The only downside to the machine is that I'm still trying to remove all of the packing grease from the bed and knives. They really lubed this sucker up!

I just bought this jointer this January. I put off buying a jointer for years. Bad idea. I made the leap and bought this Delta X5 after a side by side comparison with a Jet, for very similar money. The actual Delta along side the Jet was not an X5. The X5 is a slight bit better, mostly cosmetic and handles, etc. The X5 is a marketing program, so I chose the mobile base. I actually saved money over other jointers because I would have had to purchase a base separately.

It came in two boxes. I took my time to assemble the tool. 3 hours later, I was cutting wood. It's a bit of a chore to clean all the protective grease from the machined parts, and some of the "spill over" to the painted parts. But when done and completely waxed, it's very cool. I've had no problem with rust pits as another post mentioned. I keep the tool covered when not in use.

After some careful alignment, most of which was checking some factory settings. There was not much adjustment. I did spend quit a while on the motor and pully alignment, making the pullies paralell and correct belt tension. I'm stunned at the results of face and edge jointing. When used with dust collection, it stays very clean. Many say "go to the limit you can afford when getting a power tool, so you won't have to replace it later." In this case it would have been an 8" jointer for several hundered dollars more. I'm perfectly satisfied with this 6" for the results I expect, and the size for moving it around the shop with other tools. It will do for many, many years. I also bought the DeWalt 734 surface planer, so this is the perfect companion.

I'm not a Delta devotee. I consider the best tool for each purchase, independant of name. I have several each of Jet, DeWalt, Porter Cable, and I will consider Grizzly in the future when I replace my old Craftsman table saw. But I'm very satisfied with this Delta 6" jointer. I would certainly buy Delta again if it is appropriate, and would recommend this jointer purchase again.

After a long and lenghtly reveiw of many jointers on the market and after reading all the reveiws, I settled on the delta which was my first choise, because I have been a delta fan for many years.
I purchased my jointer from the local woodworking store I deal with,I didn't get the free mobil base but that was ok because in my shop where it is set, it isn't going to be moved.
I got the machine home and started unpacking it, everything was in order, all parts were there, and as in other reveiws there was plenty of grease to clean but again it was ok.
A few old tee shirts and some cleaning fluid and all was well,I start with the stand and ran into a small problem when I found that one of the motor mounts was bent, but not a real big problem, I removed the bent motor mount and was able to straighten it with very little effort. I did find that as with the other reveiws that alging the pullys and getting the tension on the belt right was a little tough, but not all that bad. Once I had that done the rest of the machine went together very nicely, I did have to tweck the blades a bit but again not a real problem, gave me good practice. The instructions were very easy to read and follow, and the setup went very smoothly.
When I first turned the machine on it was very queit and very smooth running, there were no vibrations. I have run a lot of stock throught this machine and it is proforming very well, just what I would have expected from Delta.
I hope this reveiw has helped
Randy