W Canaday wrote:

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:38:37 -0700, Vince Heuring wrote:


HF 7" Jointer owners: How do you like your jointer?

Would you buy one again?

YES ... but I don't think I'll ever need to unless I someday hire a
helper.


How hard is it to adjust the knives?

I don't have anything to compare it to. Didn't seem unreasonably tough to
me. Then, too, in a former life I was a die-maker. That might have a
bearing on things. I just use a large rectangular magnet to hold the blade
the same height as the outfeed table and tighten the blade down. It's
automatically parallel with the table because it shared a plane with the
magnet, which shared that same plane with the table. Checking with an
indicator showed .001" variation in ht. / parallelism. It's all good from
what I can see. YMMV. You might want to look into getting better steel in
the blades. Then again, I might want to look into cleaning my raw stock a
little better in the future. Blades chip and are a hassle to remove,
sharpen, reinstall every time I get a little careless.


Is there a DC port?

NO. Buy a universal DC port from Rockler, Woodcraft (etc), cut a
hole in some hardboard, fasten it to the hardboard and screw the hardboard
to the dust chute. There ... you're in business. Should take about 20
minutes once you get home with the plastic dustport.

How was it shipped? Can two people wrestle it off of the truck without a
lift gate?

I picked mine up at the store. It took two of us to get it into my pickup
truck, but I got it out by myself by sliding it to the ground. I opened
the box outdoors and carried the parts into the basement separately. My
advice? Flip a neighbor kid a 5-spot to help you carry the box into your
basement. No basement? Use the money to buy a pizza, instead.


They have it on sale for $219, which makes it interesting to me.

Please no comments about HF and HF jointers from others. I'm well aware
of the spotty reputation of HF tools.

Actually I find the tools to be just fine ... it's their customer
dis-service department that irks me. It took me almost a month of frequent
prodding to order replacement parts for my lathe. Now I am waiting on the
order to work its way through their fulfillment warehouse and onto a UPS
truck.

In the meantime, unable to wait any longer, I bought a second copy of that
lathe. From what I am now seeing, the first lathe was probably pooched
from day one. But it DID run that way for over a year of near-daily use.

HTH

Bill
Not an owner, but a question to one! Where did you find a store that had
the 7" in stock? Mine carries the 6" and the ads state the 7 is a catalog
only item. I was wondering if they also had the 6, so you could compare
the two?
Thanks