Best Jointers For Woodworking

Discreet and discrete, jam and jelly, Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman. There are some things that seem like they’ll eternally get confused for one another. In the woodworking world, two pieces of machinery that can cause confusion are jointers and planers. Since this equipment can cost well over a thousand dollars apiece, it’s worth knowing which is which. But, if you’re trying to choose between the two, the bad news is that these two expensive woodworking tools are often used in conjunction with each other. If you have a planer, you’ll probably want a jointer. The same goes for the other way. But it’s worth first running down the basics of what these machines do.

In very basic terms, a jointer is used to flatten and smooth a piece of wood. A planer is used to make surfaces thinner and parallel to each other. When you look at a piece of wood from the side, it may be a different thickness at different points of the wood. Even if you’ve smoothed it and removed deformities with a jointer, you’ll still need the planer to get each side of the wood to be completely parallel. A jointer and a planer, when used together, will get you pieces of wood that are parallel and have properly aligned corners. While expensive in the short run, surfacing your own wood can save you money in the long run. When you buy pre-milled wood, you’re paying a premium and may not even get ideal results.

If you feed a piece of wood through a planer without first using a jointer, you may still have some deformities, such as a bow (wood that has a curvature to it). Of course, it all depends on what your applications are and what kind of wood you’re buying. But in many cases, you’ll want both a jointer and a planer.

If you’re just getting into woodworking or you’re looking to upgrade the jointer you have, we’ve picked out some of our favorite jointers. Some of these are full-size options that will suit a large woodworking shop, and others are compact enough to fit on the counter in your garage. Best of all, several of these options are affordable enough to ensure you have money left over for all the other equipment you might need. These are the jointers to get.