Hello,
I’m a member of the Victoria Makerspace a hop skip jump and BC Ferries ride away from Vancouver. We’ve been having issues with constantly destroying planers and we’re exploring more robust and sustainable tool options for our space. I noticed on your communities website you have a Hammer A3 jointer/planer and I was wondering if any of the wood enthusiasts here could comment on this piece of equipment, and how it has held up in a community workshop. Has it been a hardy tool or does it constantly break and need repairs? What kind of policies and systems are in place at your space regarding use of this tool or other planers? Really appreciate any help, happy to return the favour with some inter-makerspace knowledge sharing if there’s anything anyone wants to ask, or check out our talk forum!
Hi @seandaniel
Phillip here and resident woodshop committee member at VHS. i feel like i’m pretty qualified as one of those enthusiasts youre looking to speak to as i usually onboard new members within the woodshop and help actively maintain some of the woodshop tools we have in our shop.
TL;DR: I’m pretty happy with having access this machine. Its pretty easy to service when it needs it and it cuts really well.
The A3 hammer has been incredibly reliable for us and has been a great machine with minimal downtime over the last few years i have been a member. To maybe make this a bit simpler i’ll put my experience in a list of pros and cons for you. While my list on the cons might seem long I do think th is is a high quality machine that sees alot of use at VHS.
Pros:
- Reduced floor plan over having 2 spearate tools
- Helical Cutting heads >>>>> straight planer blades all day every day. Its much easier to maintain sharp blades, They leave a cleaner cut, and are significantly quieter over straight blade jointers/planers. I don’t think i’d purchase a planner wihtout a helical cutting head ever again.
- 12 inch cut capacity is great - especially for a jointer
- Cut quality is fantastic over a typical “lunchbox” styled planer. Snipe is minimal and usually sands right out.
- I often run 12 inch boards through this machine regularly - and it has no problems in processing boards that wide at a time.
Cons:
- The european bladeguard is pretty different to those “porkchop style” blade guards. I do see on occasion some members push the blade guard completely out of the way for their own convenince. I hate that it happens but i can’t monitor everyone’s usage at all times either. This takes some time to get good if you’ve only used the porkchop style blade guards.
- Planers put out a serious amount of woodchips. The A3 hammer outputs to a 6 inch dust hose and for a very long time we had limited dust collection capabilities in the woodshop. Meaning we couldn’t realistically run both the tablesaw and planner at the same time. Upgrading our Dust collector to 2500 CFM dust collector made a huge difference in both air quality and cleanup. Upgrading your Planer/jointer should also mean you have to rethink your dust collection plans.
- 12 inch cut capacity can feel limiting - especially for the planer. You can usually find a very good planer that has a 20 inch capacity in the price range of the jointer.-
- bed alignment does need some regular maintenance and checking (usually 2-3 months).
- turning on or off the feed rollers on the planer side requires some effort.
Hey Sean! Nice to see someone from the Victoria Makerspace on here!
Just to add on to Phil’s thoughts…we also ask people not to bring in reclaimed wood like pallet wood or other dodgy wood sources because of contamination with nails that can damage stuff especially planers or be otherwise toxic (e.g asbestos, mold, lead paint etc). The woodshop committee and folks like Phil have also done a great job of encouraging people to politely offer up advice or help when they see stuff going on that could potentially damage equipment or people!
We also try to encourage people to speak up when damage happens because it’s better to point out stuff that can be fixed rather than leave damage for the next person. Also that’s how everyone can learn when things go wrong. I’m sure you folks do the same over in Victoria.
Should add the space isn’t perfect for sure and stuff happens. Given the size of our membership though things are run pretty respectfully. Misuse of equipment has lead to a few people getting banned from VHS but that has been pretty rare.
Thank you both for your replies @Phillip_Ma and @Janet! Cool to connect with other people in BC doing similar things as our space.
We’ve managed to destroy 2 or maybe 3 lunchbox planers in the last few years, and our current dewalt lunchbox planer has broken down multiple times in the last two months. Although we have lots of mechanically savvy members who repair the tools and replace broken parts, so much tool downtime is undesirable and the volunteer time to do these repairs is quite valuable. We’re north of 200 members now and the woodshop is one of our most popular spaces, which is great that so many people are making stuff, but creating issues for tool longevity. We’re in a conundrum because the cheaper lunchbox planers are less of an investment and risk if they do break, but not as amenable to withstanding frequent use by people of a wide range of skill and experience as is the case in a community workshop, whereas larger more “industrial” planers are more investment and risk, but likely able to withstand the use in a community workshop better.
Really appreciate the extensive pros and cons list, a helical cutter head is something I’ve seen universal love for in my tool research, it’s great to hear you’re happy with this tool.
We too have a “no pallet wood” policy, and a “nobody will ever be mad at you for reporting you broke a tool” policy to ensure all damage is reported and other members are aware of broken/unsafe tools so they aren’t used. We’ve also rolled out a built in house tool-card access system for expensive/dangerous tools, where members can’t use the tool until they’ve been trained and checked out by more experienced members and demonstrated competence, and a tool access card is used to enable the tools to be turned on.
Dewalt’s 13 inch planners are supposed to be really good but they’re probably also better suited for a single user in a shop to themselves. When I Toured Maker Cube in Langley BC a few years ago they were using a dewalt lunchbox planer too.
Having a saw stop and a really nice jointer and planer in my opinion does draw in new members as does owning some quality tools. Its a hard pill to swallow but if it draws in more members and are built with some quality in mind it’s worth the investment.
Ah it’s so great you have a tool access card. Also nice job on over 200 members. We are very similarly sized I think. We’re heading towards that sort of thing in terms of card access. For now we have mostly “you get the combination lock code” for the plug lock once you’ve been either checked out (users with previous experience) or fully trained (beginners). Our laser cutter has authentication though which has been good.
Hey while we are chatting. How do you lot handle dust and fumes management? We are still wrestling with improving air quality across the space.