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

Would you buy one again?

How hard is it to adjust the knives?

Is there a DC port?

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

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.

--
Vince Heuring To email, remove the Vince.

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

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

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

The motor never worked. HF was not able to support it . This was partially
my fault as I did not try to use it until a couple months after purchase and
the packaging had already been discarded. Lesson learned.

Eventually I put an old sears table saw motor on it and made a home made
base. The bed was a little shorter than most 6's and I as unable to find 7"
knives except from HF and those were worth less than the 5-cent deposit on
the aluminum can from which they were pressed.

With a new motor and 6" freud knives it actually performed pretty well for
me for about 7 years. I recently upgraded to an eight.

Would you buy one again?

No.

How hard is it to adjust the knives?

Maddening. meditate first, then be prepared to spend about an hour. They
provide a basic jig, but the knives rest in little springs, you have to hold
the knives down with the jig (against the spring) while you snug up the
bolts with your other hand. That's not too tough... it's crossing your toes
and praying that the snugging the bolt doesn't shuft the knife position that
makes it tricky.

I just changed the blades on my YorkCraft YC-8J two days ago (it's very
fresh in my memory). It's still very fussy, but jack screws are a much
better system, because you can snug the bolts eough to provide just a bit of
friction and the use the jack screws to push the knife up to the proper
height.

It took me about 20 minutes to reinstall 3 knives.

Is there a DC port?

I don't recall, as I made my own base.

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

Common carrier, Yes around 160 lbs.


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

Oddly, one thing that was uniqiely good about that machine was the unusual
fence locking took place at the end of the infeed table. Consequently, the
machine has a rather shallow footprint. Most other machines have a rack and
pinion to set fence position that extends almost a foot behind base of the
machine. That makes it eneficient to position the machine against a wall..

Cheers,

Steve



--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:48:52 -0600, Randal wrote:

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


I confess to reading too fast / too late. I have the 6" model. My bad. My
earlier comments apply to the 6" model only. I have no experience with the
7" model.

Sorry for the mixup.

Bill