Innovative design on blades. Good strong motor. Easy set up.

You can be tempted to buy an 8 inch jointer for this price . Stop if you are a professional woodworker. This is not a production machine. After 20 minutes working the motor and the belt will get hot.

That said if you are not going to use this machine continuously but just once in a while this is good value for money. Out of the box the machine had flat tables. No adjustment required, but the fence will take a good hour to setup. You need to take some time to get your angels right. The fence is basically the drawback of this machine but is not to the point that will make it unusable.

If you are a hobbyist and you will not overload the machine then this is perfect for you. It is not expensive and will get very respectable finish. Do not expect to joint hardwoods with just one pass. Do not expect more that 1/64 or a 1/32 on hard woods.

The spiral head is not a helical head but it does the job. You can upgrade the HSS cutters to carbide. It is actually cheaper to buy carbide than the original HSS blades.

It is very loud and you need at least 2.5 inch dust collector but that is normal for any jointer.

I have seen other more expensive brands that have models that are very similar, if not the same model, than this one but just a change of color.

So overall, if you are a weekend woodworker this a good solution for you.

Youd be hard pressed to find another 8" jointer for under $500. There might be 1 or 2, but they are nearly the duplicate as this one (including the Rikon 8" thats near $200 more).

It works well enough for a hobbyist woodworker. But dont expect perfection. First off, the fence is trash. Mine wasnt flat (it was slightly concave), and the mounting and adjustments arent conducive to accuracy. I was able to get it really close to perfectly square, which is good enough for my needs, but its not 100% square to where you get no light under a square.

The motor isnt especially powerful so dont expect to take deep cuts of hardwoods as fast as you can push it. Face cutting any more than 1/32" requires pushing the piece through slowly, even in softer woods. I keep it set down to 1/64" and do multiple passes to flatten and square boards up. This works well.

The cutter bits that come on the cutting head arent that good. They are HSS instead of carbide, and a few of the bits dinged and dulled after just a20 or so passes on various workpieces. Do yourself a favor and get a decent set of carbide bits (The stock bits are 14.25mm but 14.3mm bits work fine and are easier to find).

If you are low on space/money and just want to square things up and dont mind doing multiple passes, this will do you well. If you need to take deep cuts in hardwoods or need exceptional accuracy, save your money and get a higher end floor model. This is a good bargain for a home woodworker or weekend warrior, anything more and you might be disappointed.

I was looking at several comparable brands (Rikon, Grizzley, and WEN) 8" jointer. They all seem to have the same specs and look. Might all be made from same manufacturer. (not sure) I read many reviews and most seemed to complain about the fence. Maybe by the time I purchased it, the QC department made a fix. I put the fence on and it was square right from the attachment (90°) I use my jointer outdoors and normally do not attach anything to the dust post but you will need to with this jointer. The shavings do not blow out on their own. Seems to work well with the vac attached. Other than that, for this price point, I think it is a great deal on a bench top Jointer

I have limited space, so finding a benchtop jointer was my only real option. Pricing is also one extreme to another. Either you'll pay $300-$500 or over $1000. After reading all the reviews concerning the fence I was skeptical, but based on my experience with WEN I figured it was a worthwhile shot.

So far I'm extremely happy with the jointer. The fence was almost perfectly square out of the box, although the table needed some adjustment. Once it was dialed in, every board coming off the jointer has been perfectly square. The fence is solid, and doesn't move. You really shouldn't be putting a lot of pressure against it anyway, because the face you place on it should be perfectly flat and smooth.

The jointer is quiet and cuts well, dust collection is damn near perfect. I wouldn't recommend planing more than 1/32" at a time though.

If you're on the fence, go for it. WEN is great in the space of affordable, rugged tools. I've resawn 8/4 white oak on my WEN bandsaw and it took it and kept going. Solid company, solid tools.