JET JJP-8BT, 8-Inch Planer-Jointer Combo, HSS Knives, 120V, 13A (707400)

I managed to assemble this sturdy table-top unit (despite the substandard documentation.) Next, I ran a warped (it was cupped) piece of 14 in. x 5 and 1/2 in. x 7/16 in. aspen through the jointer operation 4 or 5 times at the 1/32 in setting.The planer has a scale and pointer that indicates the distance between the planer table and the cutter head. I ran it through 4 or 5 times and now have a nice and flat 14 in. x 5 and 1/2 in. x ¼ in. piece.For the jointer, send the work through using one of the two push blocks (included with the machine) in your left hand and a push stick in your right hand. Jet does not say this but my basic woodworking book said this is the best way (unless the piece is very thin to begin with.) I would not use just my hands except on a VERY thick work piece.The fence seems strong and accurate and can be angled up to 45 degrees.Jet tells you to move the wood through in the direction of the grain. It also states that the use of a 2 ½ in vacuum or 4 in. dust collector will greatly improve the results. Adaptors are included and the 2 and ½ in. exactly fit my 6.5 hp Shop Vac which picked up about 90 percent of the waste/shavings from the two operations.My initial ratings are:-Documentation---** (barely adequate)-Packaging------**** (thick Styrofoam)-Quality---------***** (so far)-Value----------***** 2 in 1 table top ($329 free ship)-Durability-------***** unknown so far-Ease of Use-----*****-Warranty-------**** (3 years but defective parts must be sent back pre-paid ship for replacement)-Customer Support unknown for now, however:I will soon find out the quality of support as one of the two thick 1/8 in. plastic casings was cracked, probably by UPS tossing it around on the way from Knoxville TN to Northern Pennsylvania. Fortunately the machine did not seem to suffer any other damage.There were no Pan Head Machine Screws as the documentation stated but all screws and nuts need to be tightened with one of the 4 included allen wrenches and/or the included two-sided metric wrench. See the January 31 2009 review of the 10 inch model for more about assembly.The cutter-head knives settings did not need to be adjusted (you use the included knife setting gauge to determine if it is set to the proper height)I am off to the local sawmill for some rough lumber and. after a quick comparison between an on-line store's pre-planed and pre-jointed board-foot of ash ($11) and a rough one ($2) means this Jet should pay for itself in a short period of time even though I am just a DIYer. If it can handle rough lumber than I will be more than satisfied with this purchase. I will try and update this review after a few weeks.

As others have noted the assembly documentation is pretty bad. I think it took me an hour to assemble a few simple parts. After I finished assembling I also noticed that the infeed and outfeed tables weren't coplaner. Tech support was good and the guys sent me the short document on how to fix the problem (if you're buying this machine go ahead and request this document now). The procedure can be summed up as loosen the outfeed table and reef on it until it's coplaner then tighten it down. I was never able to make it fully coplaner but but by nearly doing a handstand on the end of the table I got it to within about 0.005" over 12" so close enough.Unfortunately, the knife blades are set to the outfeed table so by moving the outfeed I had to reset the knife blade height. The knife blade height is supposed to be set by a pair of jack screws (the base of the blade rests on the screw heads) but the jack screws on this machine were too short to raise the blade to the proper height for the infeed table position. At this point I should have called tech support and asked for their advice but I'm 3 hours into setting up this thing, I have a stack of oak planks to joint and I'm not in the mood for human contact. Instead I lightly tightened the blade holder and tapped the blade to the correct position with a piece of soft maple. It took several tries for each blade but it was done.The fence is cheap and slightly cupped but sturdy enough to hold boards in place and about what I'd expect for the price of the machine. After I got the machine set up it puts a great edge on a board which is exactly what I wanted. I don't intend to use the planer function so I can't comment on that.Now that everything is set up I give it 4 stars for function. (To get 5 stars it would need a better fence and better adjustments on fence, and outfeed for level/parallel or come setup to begin with) Unfortunately, the setup hassle was pretty bad and the blade adjustment will continue to be painful until I replace the blades and get longer jack screws so I deducting one star (I debated deducting two) for that.

I have been using this tool for a year now, and I'm ready to review it. On the whole, it is really very good for a weekend woodworker with a small shop. I'd buy it again and I'd recommend it to anyone else short on budget and short on space. It strikes a balance of price and quality. If it were more expensive, I wouldn't buy it. If it were lower quality, I wouldn't buy it. I have a one car garage I use as a shop, and I have to be careful about my tool purchases because I don't have much room at all. I opted for this because I had no room for a full size jointer and a separate planer. I would recommend this to anyone in my situation, because I have a small budget and and even smaller shop. It does its job and does it well enough for me. To make the following assessments, I used a good combination square, straight edge, and an angle cube.It is surprisingly well built for what it is. The jointer tables and fence are aluminium BUT the tables are flat and coplanar, which is essential. The fence is easy to square to the table, but it is out of flat by .25 degrees. I have yet to figure out how to fix this. But, it hasn't caused me any trouble. In fact, I just made a very flat glued up dough board and a chess board, which tells me my joints were good.The planer has served me reasonably well, too. when it showed up, it planed boards a few hundredths of an inch thinner on one side. After careful and painstaking adjustments, it planed boards a few hundredths of an inch thinner on one side. Oh well, it still gives good enough results. I think it has to do with the outfeed table (which is a weak link and made of stamped steel) being twisted. I'm going to replace this with mdf or something if I ever feel inspired. Snipe isn't too bad on short boards (a few feet) so long as I don't touch it until its done cutting. with long stuff, I just count on loosing a few inches at the end, but I hear that is the same with all small planers.