Not...

Jointers come in 4,6,8,and 12 inch models. The most common hobbiest is
the 6" If you can afford it 8" is better.

I bought mine at an estate sale, so I saved a bunch. You use it for
more than edging. You face joint one face, before sending it to the
planer. The jointer will flatten one face, the planer will make the
other face parallel to that flattened face.

The idea of a wider planer is to take glue ups and clean them up. since
most hobbyist units are only 12-13 inches you work in groups of glue ups.

On 4/7/2012 6:44 AM, dadiOH wrote:
wrote:
I've been looking at jointers and planers for a home shop. It seems
that all of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the
planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as
large?

So that you can get a board of reasonable width to a given thickness and
still have the sides parallel. You can skinny one down on a joiner but the
sides are unlikely to wind up parallel.

Joiners are best for getting a straight *edge*; consequently, width of the
machine is of less importance. You can get wide joiners
too...12"...16""...all you have to do is spring for the big bucks.