JET 15-Inch Planer, Helical Cutterhead, 3 HP, 230V 1Ph (Model JWP-15BHH)

Recently bought this planer through Amazon. The seller was ACME tools. The new planer itself is superior to any planer I've ever owned. Earlier in my life, woodworking was a hobby, so I had a bench DeWalt with extension tables, which despite the advertising, still had snipe and lacked power. After I started my business, I bought a JET cabinet based 3HP, 220V 15 inch planer with 3 knives. It didn't do a bad job, but it was very noisy and occasionally labored planing wider hardwoods. Jet introduced the JWP 15 BHH late in 2018 and I immediately gravitated to it after reading great reviews about helical head planers. So, I sold my old JET planer and bought this new JWP 15BHH. This unit does not disappoint in any way. It is super quiet and the 3HP motor is smooth and has yet to display any signs of labor with larger hardwood boards. The best part is, it does a great job, that is much smoother and no snipes. Typically planers with knives will have some occasional tear-out, especially with multi-grained oriented wood, but helical heads shear the wood so you have a smoother cut. It has two speeds of feed rate and the height operation is one of the easiest I've ever used. I love the fact that the height adjust wheel is facing up, as I found the side wheel knob intruding. The switch is conveniently located up front and planer is equipped with both an in-feed and out-feed steel tables. IMO, JET has engineered a great product.

The planer has been great, but one of the first things I noticed and why the review is only getting 3 stars from me is, upon recieving the planer the state of the box was great no damage,(1) however after I open it up all was fine until I looked inside the cabinet, 3 out of the 4 foot plates were completely broken off and the feet themselves were also damaged, as I inspected the foot plate I can only summized that a 5 year old must have done the welding to attach them as it looked very poorly done, I was a bit let down, because there is no way they are doing complete quality checks on their products, fortunetly for me I dont need the feet as the cabinet will be resting in a mobile base, other than that the planer has been working like a champ

Not a perfectly smooth surface, but good enough for milling. I wasn't happy to see that they changed the side of the machine for the dust collection port. I'm not sure why you would design dust extraction to be on the same side of the machine as power. Most people would work on the side of the power switch and now have to work around that, unless you want to spend the extra cash to buy the advertised one on machine left. Overall it was the best choice as I didn't want to deal with gearbox leaks and other random quality issues on Grizzy and make the step price jump for other brands.

The helical head is a huge, positive upgrade if coming from a planer with straight blades. A higher quality cut with much less noise. Unlike the Jet jointer, this machine comes wired, which is better for the buyer. If the infeed/outfeed tables are adjusted properly, you won't have any snipe. This planer is a good value compared to it's counterparts currently on the market.

The media could not be loaded. I had high hopes for this planer. It came in today after waiting 9 days. It seems it was only half way manufactured. I called support because the rollers were not functioning. They had me remove the side panel. The chain and sprockets had fallen off. I put those back on and realized the washers and bolts were missing from end. You can see this on my photo.The bigger problem is the off button did not work. I had to pull the power cord to shut it down. (See video)The gas strut also appears to be missing something from the top of it as well.I am afraid to find out what else is missing. They are doing a return (no offer to swap me out one that they confirmed was working either). You would think Jet would want to make it right and retain a customer. Apparently not.

First off, my entire shop (this is my hobby, not my occupation) is Jet tools. In general, they are a good value, not top of the line but good for the money. I've been mostly happy, a couple of bumps but nothing drastic. When I got this, I put it together per the instructions, and noticed that boards were very difficult to feed. I wanted to give it a bit to see if there was a "break-in" period. It did not get better, so I emailed customer service. 4 weeks went by with no response. I emailed again, and got a response "we can't fix this over email, call us." When I called, the customer service guy had about as much energy as the board I was planing, and clearly talking to me was a major inconvenience to his day. He informed me that these machines were not "plug and play" and that I had to make adjustments to the rollers. In the instruction manual it states that they are adjusted at the manufacturing facility. There are directions to adjust "if necessary" but it's a process, and not one that I feel comfortable doing, involving making a gauge block and using a feeler gauge (if they're going to ship this unadjusted, they should include these tools) . I'm not a machinist, I expected for over $3000 this would come in working order after assembly. The overall customer service experience will probably push me towards another tool manufacturer in the future.

The Guide Post rusted up in a couple days , cleaned scotch brite post, lubricate , still rust bad , Top Platform also rusted .Hard to push lumber thru , can only plane 1/16" or less at a time, takes many passes to dress a board. ( using Cedar)