The jointer seems like a great choice to me. Helical head is really a necessary feature in my opinion, as it’s quieter, wears slower, gives a better surface on curly figure woods, etc.
Really need to stick with a heavy casting parallelogram style machine for hive use, otherwise it won’t hold adjustment. There are few similar class machines that have bad reputations for that (grizzly and jet)
There are other helical head options, like Oliver Machine at $2700, Powermatic at $3500, etc. This Laguna is a pretty well regarded machine that should serve us well.
As for the planer, again, I don’t at all see the argument for replacing the 100% functional 13" planer we have in the shop right now, as it works perfectly, has decent dust collection, the knives are cheap and easy to replace, and it cuts a nice smooth surface (particularly on the slow feed setting). Also, 13" width is not at all limiting when we are talking about having an 8" jointer and our big bandsaw has only 9" resaw capacity.
Even if we did feel a new planer was something we needed, we could easily pick a model that made more sense with the sizes of the rest of our machines and would cost several thousands less. Even just picking the 16" Laguna instead of the 20" would drop the cost by $1000. This is why I’d really like this split into two discussions and posted as two seperate votes.
Before I posted this vote I knew it would be a controversial vote. It’s a huge vote. No question. I understood that the vote might not pass. No problem. The reasoning behind posting this vote was to help improve Hive13 and not for my benefit.
The woodshop is our busiest area. It probably also has the potential of attracting more new members than other areas. More new members equals more money to buy cool new tools and expand our capacities. Not having functional milling equipment is a huge hole in our capacity and greatly limits the number of new members for the woodshop. The jointer that is currently at the woodshop is non-functional. It is also on loan to the Hive from our treasurer. The planer that is currently at the Hive is fine for a garage/hobbyist shop. It is also on loan to us from a different member. A member who has been ordered to discontinue his normal use of the Hive. It is completely untenable to continue to use this planer. The past several woodshop certifications that I’ve done I’ve had to bring up to my space and use my equipment for surfacing.
I assiduously followed the procedures documented in the wiki for voting. In fact, I went a step beyond and spoke with Jim Dallam, our Treasurer, first to make sure we could afford a procurement this large. In fact, he said our budget could sustain a substantially larger amount of money spent. Attempting to be a good steward of Hive13’s money I chose to post equipment that I feel is the best value for the hive. Equipment that is much more durable. Equipment that will stand up to the heavy use that any shared pace will throw at it and maintain walk up readiness. Equipment that will provide a superior end product Equipment on par with the new table saw. Equipment that is not overkill and will be used by most woodworkers at least occasionally and some woodworkers regularly. I posted a discussion before posting the vote and I took feedback from that discussion prior to posting the vote. The planer was part of that discussion. Whether or not the planer was discussed further is outside of my control.
As good as these machines are most of my work will still be done in my fully functional shop. Yes, I will come down and use the 8” jointer on wider boards. Yes, I will come down to edge joint any lumber that is so highly figured that my straight knife jointer tears out too badly. That being said, my equipment works. I have a jointer. I have a planer. They work. It doesn’t hurt me if the decision is to not pass this vote. I produce damn good work with my existing equipment. Work that is impossible to produce with the Hive’s current status.
I will continue as warden/woodworking mentor as best I can with the equipment we have. I will be answering concerns posted on Discourse over the next few hours to the best of my ability. If you have other questions about why the planer and jointer need to be replaced jointly, please mention me in the post or contact me directly. If you have question about why I chose the equipment I chose the same goes.
I passionately believe that filling this hole in the woodshop with this equipment is best for Hive13.
Why do we need to replace the “perfectly good” planer?/Why do we need to replace both the planer and jointer at the same time?
The planer is not ours. The planer belongs to a member who had his membership temporarily suspended. If that suspension was right or wrong is somewhat immaterial, he very definitely feels it was wrong and that he is being singled out for special adverse treatment. There was at least some talk that his membership should be terminated. That planer sits there on his goodwill. If he feels wronged, which he does, he could take the planer at anytime with no warning. To continue to rely on his planer is untenable.
A larger floor model machine offers much more stability than a tabletop portable “lunchbox” style planer. Also on the lunchbox planers snipe, where the cutter digs into the work piece, is a constant problem that with constant and meticulous adjustment can be minimized. Because the larger floor model machines the pressure rollers, that feed the lumber through the planer, are designed differently. According to the reviews snipe can be totally eliminated. Even if it’s not eliminated snipe will be greatly reduced and will not require constant adjustments making the Laguna planer much more walk-up ready.
Our current planer uses disposable blades which are extremely easy to damage and rather a chore to replace. Even a knot or a particularly hard chunk of intertwined grain can and sometimes will damage the blade. The proposed planer has 4 sided carbide cutters. Carbide is much harder and will not get damaged as easily or often as disposable blades. If they are damaged it’s a quick easy job to rotate the individual damaged cutter 90 degrees and have a fresh cutting surface. There are 138 cutters on the cutterhead.
Due to wood movement and internal stresses in the lumber you almost always need to run the first face through the planer as well. Running a face that has surfaced using a helical cutter through a planer with straight knives will damage that face so it just doesn’t make much sense to have a helical jointer and straight planer. Much better to have a straight jointer and a helical planer.
The ability to utilize figured or other difficult lumber. If I had tried to run this moderately figured tiger maple through our existing planer there would have been tearout across the complete board making the board unusable. More highly figured or lumber with more tangled wood fibers would be even worse.
We need larger floor model machine because it offers much more stability than a tabletop portable “lunchbox” style planer. The large machines start at 15 or 16 inches. Also on the lunchbox planers snipe, where the cutter digs into the work piece, is a constant problem that with constant and meticulous adjustment can be minimized. Because the larger floor model machines the pressure rollers, that feed the lumber through the planer, are designed differently. According to the reviews snipe can be totally eliminated. Even if it’s not eliminated snipe will be greatly reduced and will not require constant adjustments making the Laguna planer much more walk-up ready.
A large planer is great to have when you are doing large panel glue-ups, especially edge glue-ups with more than 2 pieces where cambered clamping cauls are going to be of minimal use to keep the panel flat and aligned. This is especially true of edge grain glue-ups where its not unheard of to have upwards of 20 pieces in the panel. I cant tell you the number of times I’ve lamented, with much non PG language, not having a large planer.
The PX|16 planer would be quite adequate but there is only a $900 difference between the PX|16 and the PX|20, $225 per inch. The difference between the JX|8 PRO 8” jointer and the JX|12 12” jointer is about $4,000 or $1,000 per inch. There was at least one person, I think 2, who were really pushing for the 12”. The larger planer is much more useful than the larger jointer. I believe that $225 per inch of additional planer capacity is well worth it.
If you have any other questions or need further information please leave a post or contact me directly.
We need larger floor model machine because it offers much more stability than a tabletop portable “lunchbox” style planer. The large machines start at 15 or 16 inches. Also on the lunchbox planers snipe, where the cutter digs into the work piece, is a constant problem that with constant and meticulous adjustment can be minimized. Because the larger floor model machines the pressure rollers, that feed the lumber through the planer, are designed differently. According to the reviews snipe can be totally eliminated. Even if it’s not eliminated snipe will be greatly reduced and will not require constant adjustments making the Laguna planer much more walk-up ready.
A large planer is great to have when you are doing large panel glue-ups, especially edge glue-ups with more than 2 pieces where cambered clamping cauls are going to be of minimal use to keep the panel flat and aligned. This is especially true of edge grain glue-ups where its not unheard of to have upwards of 20 pieces in the panel. I cant tell you the number of times I’ve lamented, with much non PG language, not having a large planer.
The PX|16 planer would be quite adequate but there is only a $900 difference between the PX|16 and the PX|20, $225 per inch. The difference between the JX|8 PRO 8” jointer and the JX|12 12” jointer is about $4,000 or $1,000 per inch. There was at least one person, I think 2, who were really pushing for the 12”. The larger planer is much more useful than the larger jointer. I believe that $225 per inch of additional planer capacity is well worth it.
Your justification for a larger planer makes sense to me. I am sure some people still might not find a larger planer as useful as the current smaller lunch box planer is good enough for their needs.
It may be a point of discussion to understand, what size planer would serve us best? For cost per inch perspective, a larger planer makes sense to me.
Can you share a few examples of comparative planers and pricing?
Neither of these have the DRO that the Laguna has.
Both of these have an open feed so it is possible to access the the cutter heads while the machine is running. It seems to me that this poses an additional safety risk over the enclosed Laguna. It may not be a great additional safety risk but when we’re talking about a shared space like the Hive then every little increase in safety is rather important. At lease that’s the it seems to me and that’s why I supported the SawStop even though I wouldn’t have spent the extra money in my shop.
The woodshop is starting to become somewhat crowded so machine footprint and placement is something we have to start thinking about. Neither the Jet nor the Powermatic have mobility capability engineered by the manufacturer the Laguna does. With equipment this heavy, if it’s going to have at least some mobility, safety becomes a factor. I’m much more comfortable with mobility solutions engineered by the equipment manufacturer rather than some generic mobility base.
Both the Jet and Powermatic machines have fixed cast iron infeed and outfeed tables. Again this poses a space issue. The Laguna has extendable rollers that can be retracted when not in use thus reducing footprint. When I first starting looking at planers I was quite frankly skeptical of this setup. But after some research and testing I found that the rollers worked very well indeed. I found, through hands on testing, that the rollers posed no issue at all. I read reviews of the Laguna planer and didn’t find one had a serious issue with the rollers. In fact a few praised the Laguna setup.
And finally, I very much like Laguna. I have two pieces of Laguna equipment, the PX|12 portable planer and the 1412 bandsaw. The ease of setup, tuning, and use of this equipment has been an absolute joy. This is very much a personal opinion so take from it what you will.
Sorry for the novella length replies but this is a big vote and concerns deserve complete answers.
Doug, sorry for dilly dallying on my vote. Wanted to make sure I make the most informed choice.
While the 5.5k planer seems expensive, I agree with the perspective to match equipment caliber and having high quality equipment available that most members are unlikely to buy on their own.
Absolutely no worries about “dilly dallying”. This is a big vote and deserves big thought. I have a bit of an advantage in that I’ve been thinking about this for 20+ years and changing my thoughts as new technologies and machines come to market. I made the fundamental error in believing my seemingly, (at least to me), innate knowledge base is shared. A common if erroneous pitfall that goes hand in hand with expertise. A great educator learns not to fall into that. Unfortunately I am not a great educator.
If we plan and budget with some patience, we could easily have bothe the 12" jointer, which has weight an stability benefits over the 8" in addition to be larger, AND the 20" planer by this time next year without having to pinch pennies at all.
The 12" planer would ensure that the largest logs we can resaw in our shop can be faced and squared safely, and would be a much better proportional pair to the 20" planer.
I also looked at the “exposed cutter head” concern about the larger jointer, and I believe there is a big thick guard behind the fence that covers it, making that not an issue.
Would anyone really be upset about not having the nicer planer for under a year so that we can get both nicer machines and not want to upgrade again in 3-4 years?
Often enough that I feel it makes sense, particularly since we now have that larger bandsaw so we can resaw larger lumber or logs.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had several projects since I joined the hive where I needed a much larger jointer. And 8" is really not much bigger than the 6" one we have now.
There are also cheaper 12" jointers, I’m seeing some in the $5k range new, and we could keep an eye out for used ones.
I vote no. Jointer makes sense right now, but there are plenty of other things I’d like to see money thrown at (like…doors) before a purchase that takes up the rest of our discretionary spending for the rest of the year. A nice planer definitely seems doable in the near-term future if we break up the vote, as Kevin is suggesting.
This leaves about $3,500 in the discretionary fund right now. We have a monthly discretionary income of ~$3,000 a month. This does not wipe out purchases for the rest of the year, in fact it leaves us with ~$15,000 in discretionary funds for the rest of the year.
Many of the new members that join the space join because they are interested in using our woodshop. A jointer & a planer are core items for use in a woodshop.
There is literally no dissent that our current jointer is inadequate in most areas that make it a jointer.
The planer the hive owns is equally inadequate. We have a planer on loan to the Hive from a member, but @DougS has done a good job outlining why we should consider replacing it as well.
The best argument I can see for the existence of Hive13 is that it is a way for members to pool our resources to buy better tools than any one of us could buy individually. As a shared workspace, there is an additional requirement that the tools we do buy be reliable, sturdy tools that will last.
I think that Doug has done research here and he has addressed the pending questions that have been asked in a way that makes sense. I agree with his proposal to buy tools with carbide helical heads. They last much longer, are much easier to maintain, and work much better than straight knives.
The sizing of the machines also seems valid, especially considering the price differences in moving up to even the larger machine sizes.
In answer to Gotham’s question about how often a huge jointer is needed. Not often. In fact when I spoke to the people at Mueller Equipment there answer was “why? I don’t remember the last time we sold a 12” jointer but I guess we’d be really happy to sell you one."
The fact is that with a little practice, some skill, and a lot of care you can nearly double the width of the face you can plane. So on an 8" jointer your true capacity is just about 15" which makes the extra $4,000 a really steep price to pay.
There’s one more area of concern that I would like to address. That is the idea of making this vote two votes, one for each machine. As a general principle, unless there is a specific reason not to, I’d agree. However, in this case there is what I believe to be a couple compelling reasons not to split this vote.
Functionality. The functionality of these two machines is literally the flip side of the same coin. You plane the first face on the jointer then flip the board over and plane the second face on the planer. I felt that the current planer that we have access to is so inadequate that when my previous planer became too much of a problem to deal with I spent my own money to buy an approximately $900 planer rather than use the current planer. In fact, I bought a Laguna PX|12, the baby brother to the planer in this vote.
The other compelling reason, in my estimation, is being a good steward of the Hive’s money. If we replace only the jointer and limp along with the current planer the new expensive jointer will be of very limited use. We will have between $3,500 and $4,000 dollars of the Hive’s money just sitting there waiting to be fully useful. Maybe there’d be a vote passed for a new planer in a month. Maybe a year. Maybe never. To use the new jointer I’d have to cart lumber back and forth between my shop and the Hive it so I would just continue to use my jointer and planer. Those without access to a better planer would have even fewer options. To top it off Jim Dallam thinks we have the money available to go ahead with both machines. It seems wasteful not to go ahead and upgrade our entire lumber surfacing equipment.
