A little while back, a Rikon dealer in Canada ran a special on the Rikon Jointer-Planer machine and I decided to take the dive. Here is a little background on the decision.

A little while in the making

So I did have a “Full Size” 8” jointer in the shop. A Delta DJ20 8” jointer to be more precise. It did serve a fine job for the time it was in the shop and is the only jointer that I have owned so far. It was pretty solid, heavy but wanted to replace the cutting head for a helical head for a little while but never bought it.

Other than that, never really had a grudge other than replacing the knifes when came time. And a bit on the space it took in my small shop, but it had the tables to support longer stock.

For the planer, I had a Dewalt DW735 planer on the Dewalt Stand, which made it mobile in the shop, which was very precious. I had it for quite a while and had to replace the internal dust conduit as it eroded with the dust. There was a hole in the conduit and blowed a whole lot of dust inside the internals of the planer.

It also had straight knifes and had no real bit issued with them. The changing was pretty easy also with the hex key, same tool to open up the internals of the planer. Having a Helical head would of been nice but never got to that upgrade.

Quite frankly, was looking to replace the planer, just a few quirks starting to fail on the unit of about 15 years. Can’t complain too much. I have been also looking at saving some space in the shop and combo machines had some appeal for a little while. Save space and upgrade the 2 tools that do most of the first grunt work in the shop

The Trigger

When the dealer ran the special on the Rikon Unit, specially that it had the Hellical Head and a 12” capacity, I put in the call pretty much right away. That was in April 2022 I believe and it just came in. Not that I was in a big rush as I still had the separates units to continue working on the projects I needed to work on.

It adressed the space issue and upgrade aspect mentioned earlier. As I write this, I still have not plugged in yet, waiting for the electrical part to be taken care of.

In the end, I gain 4” for the jointing capacity (versus the Delta DJ20), but loose 1” for the planning capacity (vs the Dewalt)

First Impression

I have not run it yet, but here are my comments so far from unpacking :

• Packaging was pretty well done in a wooden crate. All solid there

• The finish on the tables is nice, somewhat rugged. I like it to the touch but will see when running lumber on the tables.

• Some minor adjustments had to be done on the jointer tables, but the adjustments were pretty easy to do and with a few turns of set screws, everything was back to parallel

• Manual is OK I guess. It could be a little detailed on some sections but you get by.

Some other comments

Yes the jointing tables are short(er). They are shorter then a jointer on it’s own. But for the size of project that normally go through the shop, it should not be an issue. Long stock does not typically go through the shop that much. Not to say it is impossible, but less common. Think this should not be too much of an issue.

The motor is a 3 HP, definitely an upgrade on the jointer side and on the planer side. I expect it to be a bit less noisy then the universal motor in the Dewalt unit. Nothing against it but was it ever noisy.

Now time to get it hooked up and make some saw dusts