Advantages of Parallelogram Jointer
MRGreer
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
I’m in the market for an 8″ jointer. I’ve read reviews in FWW, Wood, and Woodworkers Journal, and naturally everyone has their favorite. What are the advantages to the parallelogram jointers such as the Delta DJ-20 (37-365X), Powermatic 16100, and Grizzly 0490? Since Delta has not had very good reviews since all of their stuff is now made on the Pacific Rim, I have considered the PM but it’s well over twice the price of the Grizzly. I stopped at a Grizzly show room and looked at the 0490 and it looks to have a very nicely machined bed and good finish. But what advantage do these jointers have over the dovetail way jointers? Is it just that the bed stays closer to the blades? Is there really a benefit here? Just wondering.
Thanks,
Replies
they are supposed to be easier to keep in adjustment...I just spent the better part of a weekend shimming and tweaking my keyway type jointer to get the beds in plane with each other and the cutterhead...what a pain in the ####...after that i would have gladly paid the premium for a parallelogram style machine...
Four point adjustment of each table is a big plus in my book. This means an easy adjustemnt of each table. Also if a table is warped it can be swapped or reground and realigned. On a dovetailedway jointer, tables must be ground as a complete umit mounted on the base or they will never line up properly. Some deviations on dovetailed way jointers can be shimmed but for the most part if off more than .010" the tables should be reground. All the expensive European jointer use the parallelogram set up. I've had about a dozen jointers reground over the years so I've had plenty of good things to say about parallelgram jointers. I actually like the inclined ways on old Oliver, Crescent, etc jointers even better as it's even simpler to remove and grind tables and reinstall. The tables on a paralleogram jointer are a lot more trouble to remove but it is doable. I'll always remember taking the table off a 16" SCMI jointer. The 16" Oliver is a cakewalk.
True about the infeed table following the arc of the cutterhead so it keeps the throat tighter but it's really not the reason the parallelogram table is better in my opinion. On the dovetailed ways type bed, the table isn't significantly further away to worry about this.
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