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The jointer came in a large crate and a box. The box contained the stand and motor, and was roughly 100 lbs, the crate contained the jointer top and fence, at around 300 lbs. My rather large friend Steve and I managed assembly on our own. (actually Steve just helped move the top) It was packaged very well, there was no risk of the fence gouging the tables in shipment.
Assembly presented some problems. First the documentation was pretty good about getting the machine roughly together, but was horrible about the wiring. It indicated that you do the wiring last, I wish I'd had done it first. The wiring of the motor is darn near inaccessible once the top is on. The best access is from the bottom. The wiring diagram included seemed to be for a different motor, and was completely useless. Fortunately I've done some 220 work before, and got it right on the first try, I can certainly see people having troubles.
We assembled the jointer directly onto a htc2000 mobile base, which made it easier, pulled the truck up to the door of my shop, and lifted the top off of the truck right onto the base. This jointer would be slightly more difficult to get into a basement shop, but nothing as bad as my PM2000 table saw would be.
Quality - Overall very good, other than some paint touching up, the jointer is in fine shape. The castings are rough but for the bed faces, but I don't mind really. The fence mechanism works well, but you have to be careful to not scratch the bed when moving the fence. The knives are beefy, and they came nicely set.
Value - I put a 3 here, as I think for the money this jointer usually sells, it's probably not a good choice. It's too close to the price of better and bigger jointers. Now at the price I got it, it's a no brainer. It's definitely a value to have an 8" jointer in the shop, if you have space. I didn't, but made it work.
Documentation - 2, why? Wiring information was useless, otherwise a pretty good manual.
Overall Impression - 4. My reasoning here is that assembly is always a huge pain for these large tools, but once they are together, that pain is quickly forgotten if they perform well. I am including some images here to attest to this jointer's performance. I edge jointed some 8/4 poplar, and it was perfectly square after 2 1/32" passes, but more impressively I jointed a 7" wide piece of curly maple that had been rough planed. The result is stunning, perfectly flat with no tear out. (sharp knives, sure to eventually tear out on curly stuff). I am very excited about getting to use this monster on some projects. It's a 220V only jointer, if you are considering it for your shop, realize that you'd better have the power available.
Here's the rough planed side of the curly maple...
And the freshly jointed side....
Thanks for reading....
