WOOD Magazine – October 01, 2019

woodmagazine.com 45

Hammer A3 31, $5,700

866-792-5288, felder-group.com/us-us

Pluses

+ Changing from jointer to planer and back proves easy with this machine.

Simply lock the jointer fence midway over the cutterhead before lifting the

tables.

+ A microswitch prevents accidental startups when changing modes.

+ The planer left so little snipe we could quickly sand it away. (It sniped a

few thousandths more in jointer mode.)

Minuses

• The 120mm dust port requires an adapter (not included) to connect 4"
  or 5" flex hose. We wrapped it in tape to build it up for 5" hose.


• The 20"-long power cord is shortest in the test.


• The jointer depth-of-cut scale has no numbers or fractions to indicate
  increments.


• It takes 73 handwheel turns—the most in the test—to raise the
  planer table 6^1 ∕ 2 " from its low point for rotating the chip-collection hood
  to the^3 ∕ 4 " board-thickness setting.

Grizzly G0634Z, $2,955
800-523-4777, grizzly.com

Pluses

• Boards glided easily on the polished-smooth cast-iron tables, our
  favorite among the test group.


• This machine left so little snipe in both planer and jointer modes that
  we could quickly sand it away.


• With separate chip-collection hoods for jointer and planer modes, you
  can use shorter flex hose to connect to a dust collector.
  Minuses

• To change from jointer to planer, you must remove the fence and
  cutterhead guard before tilting the (separate) tables.


• The planer depth-adjustment handwheel rotates counterclockwise to
  increase the depth of cut—the opposite of the others and all dedicated
  planers—a source of frustration when making tiny adjustments.


• We found the jointer-table adjusters difficult to reach, and they require
  a hex wrench to lock.


• When changing or rotating the insert cutters, dust easily falls into, and
  builds up in, the counterbore around each screw.

2019

WOOD

®

Magazine

TOP

VALUE

Jointer/Planer

Combination

2019

WOOD

®

Magazine

TOP

TOOL

Jointer/Planer

Combination

liked them. Grizzly uses a familiar “pork-

chop” guard, below, on its machine.

Aluminum jointer fences on all the test

machines reduce weight, making change-

overs easier. They all f lex a little, but we

never found it affected accuracy. Still, we

recommend rechecking the fence angle

every time you reset to jointer mode.

Planing

The planer portion of each machine sits a

few inches lower than a typical stationary

planer. In some cases, the chip-collection

hood or jointer outfeed table impedes access

to the infeed table, above. However, the

Grizzly has separate hoods—improving

planer infeed-table access—so you simply

swap the hose from one port to the other.

With all the 12" units, you must engage the

feed rollers before planing, and then disen-

gage them before switching back to jointer

mode. Each planer has one feed rate, with

only the Jet moving boards at less than 20'

per minute.

The chip-collection hood limits access to the planer infeed table on several

machines (Rikon 25-210H shown here) when planing 2"-or-thinner boards.

European-style guards cover the full cutterhead, and raise and lower for
different board thicknesses.

(Mobile base not included.)

(Mobile base not included.)