CUTECH - 40180HB 8" Spiral Cutterhead Jointer (Black Table) (Rating: 5)

Link to product

https://cutech.tools/collections/jointer-with-spiral-cutterhead/products/8-spiral-cutterhead-jointer-black-table-cutech-40180hb?variant=31617287913575

After running 300+ boards through this jointer I can only say one thing, it is an amazing bench top jointer. If you approach as that, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. I bought the 8" model with carbide cutters, the black coated table, and the extensions. I was a little leery of a benchtop 8" jointer being powerful enough but it proved my doubts wrong. Now, keep in mind, I am not a production shop. I usually run whatever boards I need at that time through the jointer and planer so timelines and production rates don't really figure into my projects. With that in mind, I rarely cut over a sixteenth of an inch at a time with most cuts being a thirty-seconds. I have run oak, maple, walnut, pine, and something that was very hard that I don't know what it is and it handled it fine - as long as the cut and feed speed weren't too aggressive. I am going to talk about a few of my observations:
1. Assembly - This went pretty well. The instructions are garbage and I could barely read mine but you really don't need them. The assembly is pretty intuitive. Some reviewers talked about problems squaring the fence. I didn't have this issue. I may have been lucky, but I had the fence installed and squared in less than 10 minutes. Double checked with two different precision squares. My out feed table was not coplanar but it was close - the adjustment for this is also pretty easy. About an eighth of a turn on a bolt and it was dead on.
2. Dust collection - I have this hooked to a 1.5hp SuperMax system with a 4" hose and there is almost no fugitive dust. A few times when I ran 8-10 boards through at a time I saw a little off to the side but I am going to say 98% efficient on the dust collection.
3. Noise - it's loud, not much else to say about that.
4. Table coating - In retrospect, I would not buy the model with this again. It doesn't hamper anything but I don't think it really adds anything either. I coat the table with paste wax and boards run fine.
5. The fence - while it was easy to install, there are two issues. The two levers to tighten the fence in place can interfere with each other making moving and adjusting the fence a bit of a pain. Look at the included picture. In addition, the extruded aluminum fence isn't as solid as I would like. If you put too much side pressure when you edge joint, you can deflect it a slight bit. You quickly learn how to adjust your pressure against the fence but it is something to be careful of and has never caused me any inaccuracies on the boards. Since, in all the years I have used a jointer, I have never had a fence set other than 90 degrees, I may build one this summer that has a bit more integrity and is fixed at 90.
6. Cutter head - I purchased the carbide cutter blades and haven't rotated one yet. They are still sharp as ever. I can't comment on the HSS but I think I would spend the little extra cash and get carbide.
7. Extension Rails - these are a really a nice feature and work pretty good. Make sure you align them with a good straight edge. My infeed was dead on but I had to adjust the outfeed a very tiny bit. There are multiple ways to do this but I made a very small wedge on the 3D printer and got it perfect. It was probably okay without it but I am very picky about things like this.
8. Power - it has handled every type of wood I have thrown at it, and as long as I adjust my depth of cut and feed speed, it has flattened it all. If you plan on taking much more than a sixteenth out of hard woods regularly, this isn't the jointer for you. It will do it but it will struggle. Woods like pine or fir, you can take larger amounts off with no problem.
9. Table - I built my own table because I didn't like the ones for sale I saw on the web and it doesn't come with one or the option to buy one. It can easily be bolted to about anything that is sturdy. It come with some decent push pads that I use when using other machines.

If you want to see more of the jointer table take a look at my shop progression page
https://www.lumberjocks.com/Knotheadwilly/workshop

Overall, this is a great jointer for the price. I could have spent $200 more and still would have been happy. It is solidly built and aside from the few negatives listed above, it warrants 5 stars because of the price point.