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Its simple to use and works great. I've made a few bookcases using screw fasteners, and wanted to clean up the connections. This thing is the cat's meow. Move over Norm, I have at least ONE of your Yankee workshop gadgets now. :-)
I did do a quick fix to the fence which worked and the rating jumped from a 1 star to 3. I too made the mistake of buying this tool. The annoying noise and the dust collection system I can live with but the slipping fence is totally unacceptable. I just drilled and tapped two holes on the face of the fence opposite the existing tightening lever and put in a set screw in each and now no slippage. One hole probably would have worked just fine but the aluminum fence is soft and doing two holes was no problem so what the heck.
The other irritating feature about this biscuit joiner is the sound the motor makes. If you are able to achieve a square fence adjustment and you have just about stripped the screw to get the fence to stay in place; after 2 biscuit slots being cut, it will start slipping on you.
Inexpensive price tag, nice blade, fairly stable base for biscuit jointing smaller stock (NOT requiring the adjustable fence). Even with those nice features, this tool causes a LOT of aggravation.
This biscuit joiner has a lot going for it. There is a flaw to this simple system -- IT DOESN'T WORK.
The most irritating thing about this tool is the fence. It uses a single screw on the side to create enough pressure to hold the adjustable fence in place.
It doesn't take much pressure at all to get it to slip, either. I would spring for the Porter Cable or DeWalt joiners.
This time really reefing the fence lock down. As other reviewers have pointed out in their colorful fashion, the 2 main failure points of this tool in my opinion are: 1. #2 problem: The dust port (as mentioned in other reviews also) is awful. While trying to buscuit boards for a table top, the fence (which I thought I had tightened to the point of near over tightening) gradually slipped across 7 buiscuits, each cutting at it's own special height.
While it is probably there for strength, it catches the shavings and proceeds to completely block the chute every time. Very dissapointing. So I re-aligned it and tried again on scrap. Almost since the moment this thing came out of the box, I wished I had spent the extra money to get the Porter Cable 557. There is no easy solution I can see for the fence problem. Worked fine with no slippage.
Cutting red oak, ash, and cherry with the bag *OFF* allowing material to free flow (since it was plugging up with the bag on) the unit would only get through 1-2 cuts without jamming up. The problem was a baffle in the middle of the dust port.
Save your coins a little longer and buy the Porter Cable. The fence very poorly designed.
I solved this one with a rotary tool and cut the baffle out and it works fine now. Slipped again.
Thrird time I used some channel locks for leverage to tighten the fence. The other more minor complaints like the noise and ergonomics are minor compared to these major problems.
Just don't buy the PC biscuits for either machine as they have over a 40% failure in the batch of 1000 I just bought.
Four years out, it continues strong. I haven't experienced the issues with noise that several reviewers have noticed. I purchased this as a first plate jointer to get some experience with how they can be used in my projects. It has an annoying tendency for the chip chute to clog up from time to time, which takes a bit of effort to unclog. Considering many of these jointers can go for double the money, and that my projects are relatively basic, this seemed to be a good match. I think this is a great unit for beginners or as a backup unit.UPDATE FEBRUARY 2009 - When I bought this unit, I figured it'd be good for maybe a year or two. But it does great work, and with a little bit of care ensuring your alignment is clean, it works well. Wish all of my tools were as bulletproof.
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