Newest Customer Woodworking Product Reviews

Chris from the Beaverton Rockler store here. A couple weeks ago I was grilling our JET rep on why the new 1221VS wood lathe seemed so expensive, a $100 more than the competition. Today we received our first 1221VS for the store. Personally I own the competitors lathe and have been promoting it since it's release a few years ago. I now have to change my tune. The new JET 1221VS lathe blows all other competitors out of the water. I would think it would even be hard to put them in the same class anymore. Quality of machining is superb, fit and finish is excellent, power is glassy smooth, indexing head is very solid, bed is BEEFY! The quality of this machine is what you would normally find in high end stationary lathes. If you're in the market for a new lathe and don't have the room for a floor standing lathe, the JET 1221VS cannot be beat.

The quick release tool ports are made of two parts a flexible rubber boot and a rigid plastic port, they come apart too easily under the weight of the very heavy expandable hose combined with a dust collectors suction. The hose clamp keeps the boot on your machine and the rest falls off.

Don't blame yourself for breaking off screws, they are extremely cheezy. I had to buy better quality screws locally to get through the job. Otherwise the hinge itself is OK. I would buy these again, but I'd never try to use the screws that come with it.

Brush works great. The only problem is now to get the tray you have to get the kit which has another brush with it.

The cleaning solution is fine. The blue tub is 14" in diameter, which is very large. That's a fault for two reasons: First, it takes too much fluid to fill for a 12" or 10" blade, let alone for a smaller blade! and second, it is pretty large for storage when shelf space is limited anyway. If you're running a good ol' sawmill, the tub would be too small, but for the normal woodworking shop, better to just get the cleaning solution and find a couple of nesting RubberMaid tubs that fit the blades we normally use.

I found the Rockler Dovetail Jig to be a very nicely made item, but some of its engineering quirks have kept me from wanting use it in my shop. First of all, I found the set up to be very finicky. One important set up point, the gauge for setting the depth of the router bit, is inexplicably placed where it cannot be used without first removing the template it is printed on and thereby negating all your other careful set up work. The second, and far worse problem, is the use of odd sized shanks on the supplied dovetail bits that require use of an additional collar (also supplied) so that they will fit a 1/2" router bit collet. I am a very experienced woodworker and had problems with the bit spinning inside this collet on both my Porter Cable and Milwaukee routers. In one instance, the bit became loose enough to drop down and not only spoil the piece I was working on, but actually cut into the mild steel of the jig base in the process. I have never had this sort of problem in over forty years of using a router. At this point, the jig is gathering sawdust beneath my work bench until I get a 1/4" shank replacement for the supplied dovetail bit that I can trust to be held securely in the router collet.

Easy install. Casters move easily. Installed on two different benches.