Accessories

Great delivery
I just received this. Was a bit worried about the delivery but I can't say enough good things--thanks Amazon. Delivered to home; driver had lift gate and pallet jack. Unloaded and moved up driveway into my garage. This is a far cry from the last jointer years ago that was brought to the back of the truck and then my wife and I had to unload while the driver watched (with amusement). The jointer was well packed and everything went together easily (you do need two people to lift the tables and set down on the base though). Set up and ran a piece of maple through it--quiet and left a glass smooth finish. Can't wait to run some knarly stuff through to see if this if the helical head/inserts are everything they're cracked up to be.

I'm pleased
I bought the Jet Helical Head Jointer from a competitor a few days before Amazon listed it. Overall I'm very pleased so far.

Delivery is in two boxes, one large, the other massive. All parts were reasonably protected and undamaged.

Assembly was straight forward and took about an hour. 2 people are required to safely lift the jointer bed onto the stand. All required assembly tools are included, though I choose to use a 14mm socket on my wrench instead of the provided 14mm open ended wrench. One of the washers wasn't the right size (inner diamter too small) but otherwise everything was reasonably packaged and easily available. Wiring in the switch for 115V is as easy as pluging it in. 230V takes a little more work.

The fence isn't dead flat from end to end which doesn't worry me much personally. There is a few thousandths of an inch twist in the fence which is a little more concerning, but even that isn't bad.

Some other reviews of helical head jointers talk about "lines" showing up on the jointed face as a result of the individual cutter heads. On a piece of 4" oak, I could in fact detect one line a couple aobut a 1/32" wide - but only when I used a machinists square with halogen backlighting. I certainly couldn't feel it or see it with otherwise. I might consider pulling the cutters from that area, cleaning them, and reseating them to see if that changes anything. In any case, it's nothing like having a nick in a more typical 3 knife cutter head. I could not find any scalloping at all when edge jointing at a brisk (but not blistering) feedrate. Is the extra price worth the new cutter head? Hobbyist or pro, I think so - changing knives is ridiculously easy and fast as compared to setting blades, not to mention finding a nearby shop that can even sharpen your blades.

I chose to put the switch assembly in the lower position as I like to use my knee to turn the machine off and keep my eyes and hands on the work piece.

So far I'm happy and have no significant complaints. The helical head cutter is an evolution in jointer design, but not particularly revolutionary, therefore 4 stars.