JET 13-Inch Planer, Helical-Style (JWP-13BT)

Feb, 2023 There are 26 cutting heads on a six sided spindle, secured by 52 hex head bolts. I spent almost two hours replacing all of them. The 26 cutters are arranged in 6 groups of 5,4,4,5,4,4. Rockler now sells carbide cutting heads in pkgs. of 10 at a cost of 30% more than the steel heads. This is an update to a previous review of the Jet Planer. When the machine was new it could plane teak stock with ease on a 15 amp breaker because the knives were sharp and perfectly aligned. After using it for a day or two the rubber feed rollers had trouble pulling the stock through the cutting head and the 15 amp fuse began to blow repeatedly. The stock was also being pulled in at an angle where when the knives were sharp the stock went through straight. To fix the problem, I switched to a circuit with a 20 amp breaker and used the included hex tool to unscrew and rotate all of the knives 180 degrees. (The knives are reversible and have two cutting edges.) This returned the machine to its original condition and it planed teak as it did when I first took it out of the box. I attached a video showing the six sides of the cutting spindle and the way the knives are attached to it. Unscrewing and rotating all of the knives took me an hour. There are also pictures of the crank that adjusts the cutting head up and down and a picture of the wheel that makes it possible to precisely adjust the thickness of the finished board. Final thoughts on the Jet Planer. This is a good tool that has sub standard steel knives. It works longer on soft wood than it does on teak. But for my teak planning jobs it is only good for small projects. For about $180 I can buy a full set of knives, but it takes an hour to install them. Carbide knives are not available. The De Walt planer does have carbides blades available.

I have ordered other tools from Amazon that were just put in a box with little to no support packaging. Jet uses formed styrofoam that does a great job of protecting the planer and the tool works great.

Bought this to replace an old Delta bench-top planer. I think the spiral design with segmented cutters reduces tear-out and provides a smoother cut. It also creates much smaller chips, which should minimize clogging. I've been using it to plane 12' lengths of white oak and it has pulled the boards through with ease. There is some snipe at the beginning and end of the boards, but that is to be expected on pieces that long and heavy. The chip chute did a great job of directing the chips to the dust collector.

Had a cheap wen planer for 6 years and loved it. Thought upgrading to a jet product would make planing smoother. Wrong. Found out I can’t plane past 1/2” with this unit, then now the entire lower surface is angled and nothing planes correctly. I have ruined over $500 in projects in last two weeks trying to adjust. Everything planes at an angle. Don’t have time to take the entire thing apart and try to fix so it will be going in trash.

As per normal, I will give the short and sweet review and then I will expand a little more for those that may want more detail below... Short and sweet - If you don't have a ton of space and you want to get a good solid planer, this seems like it will be a good fit for you. I have been using mine for about two weeks and I have to say that I am very pleased overall. I am surprised by the amount of snipe that I am still getting on my boards, but I haven't done any adjustments yet. The overall quality of the finish out of this machine is extremely impressive... When I run wood through it, I barely need to sand the finished boards. More Detailed Version - I purchased this because my Dewalt was starting to have some issues and was actually catching/ejecting boards. I tried to fix it and was unsuccessful. After looking at options, I found this little planer out there and decided to give it a try since it is from Jet and came with helical head blades already installed out of the box. I had also heard that the maintenance should be pretty easy on this machine in comparison to some of the others (Dewalt). It was more that I wanted to spend, but I decided to pull the trigger and get this. So far, I am extremely pleased for the most part. 1) It tends to run quieter than the Dewalt did. Not quiet enough to run it without hearing protection, but definitely quieter. 2) The boards come through with a much nicer finish than my previous planer. In fact, there have been several occasions in which I have done nothing more than just a quick sanding before using the planed boards out of this. 3) I love the positive stop system that is employed here. It takes the guess work out of prepping boards. So, if you are working on a project, and you know that you want your boards to be 3/8" thick, you can easily set the positive stop for 3/8" and then work your boards down to that thickness. It's a feature that most nicer planers have, but is typically absent from cheaper planers. 4) The dust collection on this unit is pretty spectacular. I have mine hooked up to a 4" hose that pipes to my small wall mounted dust collection system and it runs perfectly. Hardly anything gets ejected out of the front or back at all. Very clean operation. 5) It's small. It's almost the exact same size as my previous Dewalt lunchbox planer. I have mine fixed to a mobile cart that I can easily put back under my mitre station when I am not using it. It folds up nicely and has been working perfectly. So, to summarize... If you have a ton of space and extra money to spend, you may be better off going with a bigger planer. Jet offers several larger options as does pretty much every other manufacturer. But, if you have a smaller shop and need things to be mobile, this is a good option. As I said before, I built a small mobile cart and attached this unit to that cart. It works perfectly in this capacity.

I was astounded at the ease that this planer (& helix blades) dressed my 2x10 ash lumber. I have a 16” floor planer (220v) but needed a smaller planer. This bench-top unit out performs my larger planer hands down. Helix blades eliminate the sniping and chipping of grain seen with standard straight blades, plus there’s less down time due to blade sharpening. Also, this planer is MUCH quieter. Lastly, the dressed lumber requires very little sanding. I should have made this purchase long ago. Update June 2024. Still 5 Stars. I’ve routinely ran lumber 12” wide x 12 feet long, including Ash, Oak, Mahogany & Maple. The planer performs exceptionally (despite my lack of consistent maintenance). It is important to secure the planer and provide solid level surfaces for inbound/outbound feeds.

Very disappointed in the quality of the blades. Not one but every single blade went blunt after planing some clean maplewood. Not only that but I had to flip every blade around and one bolt head holding a blade even stripped inside the head. I doubt strongly this original parts supplied by JET as I worked with a Dewalt for the longest time that outlasted this JET series by a year on the same blade.

Love this machine. The helical cutter head chews through anything. I’ve run hundreds of board feet of maple and walnut through with no issues. The quality you expect from Jet.