Please read my post on "cheap machinery" posted yesterday. It will reveal
some of the pitfalls of buying cheap machinery.

On a used joiner look for:

1. Tables should be flat and both infeed and outfeed tables should be on
the same plane, though the latter can be corrected by fidgiting with them
the former can only be corrected by expensive machine shop work. If the
tables are not flat pass on it at any price.

2. The cutter head cutouts (where the gibs and knives are seated) should be
either equipped with jack screws (to raise and lower the blades which must
be set flush with the outfeed table) or there should be small springs to
keep the knives raised so they can be set flush.

3. Fence should also be flat and straight. You can use a straight edge to
check this. Fence should be perpindicular to cutterhead--if it isn't make
sure it can be adjusted so that it is 90 degrees to cutterhead and knives.
Note that you can correct a warped fence by adding a plywood or hardwood
fence which you could bolt to the existing, warped fence. An untrue fence,
however, should call for a big reduction in price.

4. Try to make a heavy cut to determine if the motor bogs down on you--The
depth of cut should be determined by the size of motor--Don't try to take
3/16ths off if it only powered by a 1/3 HP motor.

5. Cast iron, machined pulleys (sheaves) are a lot better than die-cast or
stamped sheaves.

6. If you plan on joining boards of any length stay away from short beds.
If you make doll-house furniture a short bed will be OK for your purpose.

7. If you plan on running your boards through a planer after joining them
the witdth of your jointer should equal the size of the boards you plan on
planing. There are tricks, however, that some woodworkers use to get around
this, i.e., jigging up a planer to join a board; jigging up a router to do
the same thing.

8. If you have a dial gauge you can check both the cutterhead and the motor
shaft for trueness.

9. Make sure the Infeed and Outfeed tables move up and down. Note, that
some small, inexpensive jointers have a fixed outfeed table.

10. If you plan on rabbeting with your jointer you will have to get a model
designed for this. They are recognizable by the cast-iron projection on the
infeed table.

There are a lot of very knowledgeable people in this group and I'm sure some
of them will see all sorts of things I have missed but at least I have given
you a starting point. Good luck and stay away from Harbor Freight cheapo
jointers.

Joe

"habbi" wrote in message
...
What are some things to look for when buying a used jointer. Are there
models to avoid, what about those bench top models with aluminum tables?