Looking at Jointers and thicknessers

[Paul Atzenweiler]

I certainly agree with your observation from earlier that manufacturers tend to save their best features for their larger tools. I would think there would be a market for small high quality tools, but it could be they have offered them in the past only to have the buyers pass for a larger tool of the same price range. Manufactures like Festool and Mayfell seem to do well.

[Chris Hall]

I certainly agree with your observation from earlier that manufacturers tend to save their best features for their larger tools. I would think there would be a market for small high quality tools, but it could be they have offered them in the past only to have the buyers pass for a larger tool of the same price range. Manufactures like Festool and Mafell seem to do well.

Both Mafell and Festool (Festo Tool Technik) have offered larger stationary machines at different points in time. Here's a Festool chain mortiser:

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A Festo tenoner/slotting machine:

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A Mafell chain stationary mortiser:

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For whatever reason, both those companies seem to specialize only in portable machines at this time.

[john verge]

I have both a mafell portable mortiser and makita mortiser. The mafell cuts cross grain and the makita cuts clamped with the grain. These two machines nicely take care of most holes that i have to put into timbers. Both are portable and i feel that portability is more preferred than stationary. For tenons on timbers i use either a larger mafell circular saw or mafells portable band saw which can cut up to 12" in depth or so. I think that a stationary tenoner may be more preferred than a portable system as the one pass approach to create the tenon may be much quicker. However mafell offers a table system that sees their portable tools attached to the table creating sort of a poor mans cnc unit. I feel like at times taking the tool to the timber makes most sense from a production point of view however, i have no ability to know this as i personally cannot compare the two systems in this regard.

[Chris Hall]

I have both a mafell portable mortiser and makita mortiser. The mafell cuts cross grain and the makita cuts clamped with the grain. These two machines nicely take care of most holes that i have to put into timbers. Both are portable and i feel that portability is more preferred than stationary. For tenons on timbers i use either a larger mafell circular saw or mafells portable band saw which can cut up to 12" in depth or so. I think that a stationary tenoner may be more preferred than a portable system as the one pass approach to create the tenon may be much quicker. However mafell offers a table system that sees their portable tools attached to the table creating sort of a poor mans cnc unit. I feel like at times taking the tool to the timber makes most sense from a production point of view however, i have no ability to know this as i personally cannot compare the two systems in this regard.

Well, it depends upon the scale of the equipment - the German-made Hundegger being one timber cutting system where the wood is moved through the machine - and the scale of the material you're working (furniture-scale or large timbers.

I've noticed a lot of N. American timber framers are locked in a mindset where they think the only way to work the material is to bring portable machines to the wood, while in Japan and Germany, where timber carpentry is more widely practiced and did not die out largely between 1900 and 1980, you see a lot of larger stationary machines often used in timber carpentry, for jointing, planing, surfacing, with portable machines used as well.

Personally, I tend to agree with the Japanese approach - if the wood can be put through a stationary machine to joint and plane, then I think the results are going to be better if the joinery is meeting the faces of the timber (i.e., as opposed to square rule practice using housings everywhere). I prefer working with fully dressed, square and straight material in most instances. And where the wood is too big for the equipment, then use portable power tools and hand tools.

With furniture work I find myself using a mix of strategies, though stationary equipment does the bulk of the work.

Put a few thousand into Mafell Mr. Verge, haven't you? They make good stuff.

[john verge]

Yes sir, frightening actually. Definitely a solid product line. The machines have served me well thats for sure. Thats a good point you make on the overseas approach to framing. The square rule approach is really awkward at best yet provides a system for dealing with wood which is out of square etc... I must admit , it's pretty hard to argue with the fact that dressed material is the more desireable form for the framing material to be in prior to lay out and cutting.
Are you aware whether the french scribe technique is used solely for non-dressed material or would they also use it after their timbers are dressed?

[Chris Hall]

French scribe can be used for any sort of timber, but it is intended primarily for timbers which are irregualr and/or distorted. if the timbers are dressed, the technique of developed drawing, transfer to bevel gage, etc., comes into play.

French scribe might seem like the one all-purpose tool to have, as it deals with any scenario, but the disadvantages are, as with most scribing systems, that a lot of space is required to lay the parts out in relation to one another, and then a lot of careful placement and shimming of the timbers to get them ready for scribing, a process that often must be repeated several times for each timber. So it is not a quick process by any means. If the timber is continuing to move, then the scribed marks will be inaccurate after a while.

Dressing timbers to a predictable form makes their layout much more predictable and lets the layout be done without recourse to full scale parts arranging on the floor, and let the layout on the scale drawing correspond perfectly with the layout on the timbers.

[Yxoc]

I have been scanning the various sale sites now and then. I found this which looks attractive:

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/hornsby/ ... 1041864542

It's a tilting top combination which Chris mentioned is the less desirable embodiment of the combination machine, but it's a 350mm capacity (or 14 inch) which is quite large for a thicknesser and jointer and the price seems nice for that sort of capacity.

It's an SCM, aren't they a good brand?

[Chris Hall]

Mini Max is one of SCM's brands, the rough equivalent of Felder's Hammer brand.

I have an SCM planer, and it is quite good, but not as good as a Martin. It is a little less costly too of course! The same can be said in general of the Italian stuff compared to the German in most woodworking machine categories.

I think the quality of the Mini-max will be fine for your uses, and it will give a good cut quality. I'd be interested to know what kind of cutter head it has on it, and then price out the knives. Does it have rubber infeed/outfeed rollers, or metal? What are the power requirements? Dust collection requirements?

It looks to be in very good shape - if you can swing the price, I would say it would be good step into the jointer/planer arena.

With the type in which the tables are flipped down to plane, up to joint, you need to get in the habit pattern of always making extra sticks for anything you are processing. It is easy to get caught later on in the making of a thing if you screw up as some point and need to replace the stick - the planer is unlikely to have been left at the same setting it was when you milled the sticks.

[Yxoc]

Chris,
I appreciate the time you always take to give a thoughtful reply. So do I understand that your preference for the side by side combination machine is based on work flow and the ability to get repeatable settings rather than quality or accuracy? It would make sense, the advantage of being able to joint the wood on one side of the machine and then walk around to the other side to do the thicknessing without having to alter settings for either operation.

I am at the disadvantage of not knowing what this machine retails for, new in Australia, so I don't know where to start with the bargaining. I guess that about AU$5000 is my budget for a combo jointer/planer. Would that kind of money get me better bang for buck importing from Japan I guess is the question.

[Chris Hall]

So do I understand that your preference for the side by side combination machine is based on work flow and the ability to get repeatable settings rather than quality or accuracy? It would make sense, the advantage of being able to joint the wood on one side of the machine and then walk around to the other side to do the thicknessing without having to alter settings for either operation.

Yes, that, and the fact that when you flip the jointer tables up, the dust hood needs to be swung around 180˚, and when you go from planer to jointer mode and need to lower the jointer tables, the planer table must be lowered a certain amount beforehand, which means you lose any setting you had.

As for pricing, why not contact these folks so you at least know what a new one costs and can weigh the used price against its condition accordingly: http://www.machines4u.com.au/brand/minimax/