As a retired woodworking teacher I've had the luxury of working with a number of different Jointer's over the years. I purchased this jointer for my own personal woodshop with the primary purpose of face planing my rough sawn lumber. Prior to making this purchase I reviewed all the more popular machines on the market knowing full well that the price point of this machine was about where I wanted to be for my little hobby shop. I would like to point out that the only reasons I couldn't in good conscience give this a perfect 5 star rating were little things, like an out dated and inaccurate manual and a bit more vibration than I would have liked. Overall though, the quality of the product will provide me with a lifetime of use and accomplish exactly what I wanted it to do.Delivery was a bit of a problem as Amazon didn't provide the trucking company with the correct phone number to contact us to schedule the exact delivery date. Once that was resolved, the delivery was smooth and efficient. My delivery guy came with a truck that had a lift gate, and a manual forklift so he unloaded it at the garage door and wheeled the pallet (two boxes shrink wrapped to a pallet) into the shop exactly where I wanted it. This is a heavy piece of equipment and it is best to have an extra set of hands on the day you are going to set it up. I am a rather large man so I did the set up by myself, but an extra set of hands would have made it much easier to move the parts around and put them together. Especially when you are picking up the bed assembly to attach it to the base. The base isn't all that heavy even though it comes with the motor installed, it can easily be moved into place. The fence assembly was pretty easy to install, and not too heavy. All together from the time I cut open the boxes, until I plugged it in for the first time I had a little more than two hours into it. Probably could have been done much quicker with an extra set of hands.The fit and finish of the components overall was very good, and it went together without any issues. The positive stop at 90 degrees was spot on from the moment I put it together. The out feed table was aligned perfectly with the cutterhead/knives, so there was no need for any adjustment. It did take me a minute or two to master the out feed table adjustments and I do not like the positive lock for the 1/8" depth of cut. I understand why the manufacturer installed this feature to keep inexperienced woodworkers from trying to take too deep of a cut, but if you are not careful in the initial set up/use of it the positive stop can become 'wedged' in place and a pain to get back out. Be sure to pull the pin out and twist it from springing back into place before you play around with your depth of cut on the in feed table. I personally like to keep my depth of cut around 1/16" or less depending on what I am working with. Very rarely would I ever go to a full 1/8" depth, and so far the 1/16" rule of thumb is working very well.My first run was with a piece of red oak, and it jointed the edge of the board perfectly. Next I stepped it up a notch to some hard curly maple and it did an amazing job on the face of the maple. Anyone who has planed or jointed curly maple knows how easily it will chip, and this jointer with it's brand new knives gave me a perfect face without any tear out or chipping. Since then I have been using it to clean up one face on my rough sawn white ash from the family property, and it is working to perfection. Exactly what I purchased it to do, so I am very happy with it so far.Again, my only serious complaint about this machine is the rather heavy vibration, but I am going to play around with bolting it to the floor and see if that doesn't resolve the issue.The bottom line on this machine for me is that the price fit exactly where I was at and it was worth the money. I would recommend it for any small hobby shop, but would probably go bigger and better if you are going for a more serious application than being a weekend woodworker. Another minor positive was that they included two hand held push blocks as an accessory, which definitely make face planing much safer. I was pleasantly surprised to find them in the box.

The jointer came in two boxes on one pallet, and the delivery was wheeled into my garage by the driver. The packaging is substantial, and nothing was damaged or missing. One box has the base, which is a heavy piece, but manageable by one person. My neighbor dropped by to help me carry the jointer itself into the basement workshop (you can not do this by yourself - so stop thinking about it). I believe the total weight is 260 lbs. It took me a couple hours to clean the parts, assemble, and do an initial adjustment. A good part of this time was assembling the HTC mobile base and getting the base to fit snugly. I did assemble it slightly different than recommended, but it works fine. The HTC base is strong and works well.The jointer is substantial and well made. Mine is a slightly different model and stock number than ordered, but not a material difference. I called the company Jet, prior to fully unpacking, and they helped me to know exactly what I had. I also searched their web site and found the owner's manual, which was very helpful. The main problem was that printing had not kept up with changing product numbers, and it scared me a little.For the home workshop the 6" jointer is probably the sweet spot. I looked at the 8" at Woodcraft, and they are a beast. I really like the cast iron construction for the bed and fence, which seem to be flat and true. The red finger shield is well shaped and functions correctly. I also like the turning handles on the front, that is a nice feature. I believe I read that there was no gauge to show the height of the infeed table, but mind does have a small gauge with measurement increments. This definitely works better than any portable or bench top jointer.I have two minor grips. It would be nice if the on / off switch was higher and easier to reach - the larger models do have an extension up above the beds, and I can see why. Secondly, on the fence, just at the outfeed table, there is a slight recess covered with a plastic plate. I am not sure yet what it's purpose is, but if the wood is a little bent, the leading edge can snag on that tiny edge. One of the keys to nice planing is a smooth consistent motion across the blades, so the snag is a small problem. This only occurs on the wide side, when jointing the narrow edge(holding the wide side against the fence) there is no snag at all. I could also be pressing the board too hard against the fence, so I am still learning.The photo shows the very first set up and use, I have since added a simple vacuum system. Jointing does generate some large debris. I set up a simple (cheap) cyclone system into a large plastic bucket and powered by a small shop vac. I had to get a 4" to 2" hose adapter, and had to go into plumbing parts to get a 4" to 4" flexible adapter to attach the first one to the jointer. I was concerned that my vacuum would not be able to keep up with the jointer, but it does clear the debris shut and the vacuum hose very well. The plastic bucket fills pretty fast this way.I am happy with this purchase, and hope to get many years of regular use out of it.

I did a considerable amount of research to arrive at my decision of purchasing this Jointer. I had a hard time choosing, since I am a bit of a perfectionist, but understand that this tool does only ONE thing for me...planes the board edge (I have a dedicated face planer). The struggle was the cost verses the utility. This was jointer was the result. Highest quality Jointer in this price range.The machine arrived with little fanfare and was on-time with no damage. It was on a pallet with two boxes shrink wrapped to the pallet. One box (the stand) was 74lbs and the other (the upper table/cutter head) was about 150lbs.I opened both boxes to verify the contents. The contents did not exactly match the assembly instructions; however, nothing was missing since some of the "described contents" were already attached to the machine.The stand box was best unloaded by turning it upsidedown onto the floor. It was actually loaded into the box that way (bag opening is on the bottom). This worked out well since I had also purchased the "Adjustable Mobile Base for Power Tools HTC-2000-$59.95)" since the unit weighs 225lbs assembled. Since the stand was upside down on the floor, I started by assembling the mobile base; and attaching it to the stand. This was helpful since I then didn't have to lift an assembled 225lb machine onto the mobile base. This took about 30 minutes. Once complete, I was able to lift the table portion onto the stand portion and begin the final assembly (This assembly was very straight forward with no surprises). It took about 30 minutes to accomplish this portion of the assemby. I then familiarized myself with the adjustment procedures for the in-feed and out-feed tables, and the fence. I then ensured the two fence stops were set for 45 and 90 degrees respectively and verified the blade height with the out-feed table height. This process took about 15 minutes. So from completion of opening and inventorying the boxes to planing a board edge, the time was about 1 1/2 hours. Perfect joint, no snipe, very smooth operation. Success.

I was disapointed. Initially the unit came with severe damage to the base cabinet. JET could do themselves a favor and pack the base with much more protection for the handling it will receive during shipping. The damage made the base a parallelogram instead of rectangle. The only added protection to the base is a thin sheet of styrofoam over the front where the switch is located. AMAZON was excellent in fixing this although they had to redo the entire order, base and machine. A week or so later the new unit came. In the meantime the original unit was picked up separately, a few days later the same driver brought the replacement. Note to AMAZON, you can save some fuel and labor expense in coordinating these pick ups and deliveries. So the replacement unit base was also slighly damaged but acceptable. I had a friend help me to mount the unit to the base and assembled the rest of the tool and immediately found that the infeed and outfeed table were not properly aligned. Referring to the manual this is a cumbersome and labor intensive procedure. After a few hours of trial and error, I got acceptable results. The fence has positive stops for 90 degrees and 45 degrees. I found there to be too much "Kentucky windage" involved here. also after about a week of meking smooth edges I noticed that the fence had a significant amout of play in it from end to end. I examined the adjustments and lock downs and found no way to reduce the play. Conservatively, I measured the play at the far ends of the fence at about a one sixteenth to an eighth of an inch. I called the JET customer service number and got through to a 'tech-rep'. I explained the problem to him eveen referring to a specific page in the owner's manual where the exploded diagrams were located. He listened and made some notes and took down my contact information. I waited over forty-eight hours for a response before I lost patience and contacted AMAZON. I have NO BEEF with AMAZON, even though the original packaging was disposed of, they made the necessary arrangements to retrieve the JET Jointer and issue me a full refund. Maybe my experience is isolated, the tool gets good reviews, and I did attempt ' due diligence' before I pulled the trigger. I have invested in a 'glue line' table saw blade and will see how it goes from there. It's a shame that I am old enough to remember when a person could buy quality tools. It seems these days, that no matter what the price, the manufacturer just wants to squeeze as much profit out of everything that is sold. The main reason i purchased from AMAZON, is that in past transactions they have been more than fair in my purchases and there have been many. I really try not to take advantage of them.

This is a great jointer so far. This arrived quickly and I am very happy with shipping speed. Everything arrived as it should except for the base, which has two nice dings in it. This doesn't affect the performace, but it looks like someone smacked it with a hammer on the top left corner of the base, as well as on the right side. I am going to try and get a replacement base, so I'll update when I get that sorted out. Otherwise this jointer is exactly what I was looking for. Tunes up well, cuts well and looks good. I have only had it for about a week so I can't give an in depth review, but for one weeks worth of use I am pleased and can give some insight on this unit. When the unit is running it is pretty smooth in regard to vibration, when I turn it off it does have a fairly significant bit of vibration as the motor slows. I don't mind that as long as it doesn't vibrate while running at full speed, which it doesn't. I did order a link belt to try and lessen any vibration. The 90 degree stop is set with a bolt which isn't really accurate. This bolt tends to shift quite a bit as the stop is set, which makes it fairly difficult to set dead-on. I don't trust a postive stop and always check prior to use, so I don't really care but with a slightly better bolt and more finely machined threads this could be a lot more accurate. I didn't even bother to set the 45 degree stop since I don't trust it and I will be checking the angle prior to use anyway. Aside from that I am very happy with this machine.UPDATE: Amazon issued me a percentage refund for the damaged base and I am happy with this solution. Amazon was very polite and promtly addessed my issue. I would have prefered a perfect base but refunding me some cash suddenly made that dent go away! I bumped this up to the five stars for this reason. Thanks Amazon.