JET’s JSSG-10 wet grinder works well at times, but it’s plane sharpening jig is poorly put together.
JET’s JSSG-10 wet grinder looks like a swell package. The housing encloses the motor and has a little drawer for the grader and honing compound. The support arm is extended, and all the jigs are shiny. It has variable speed and a torque control.
The storage drawer under JET’s sharpener is very handy, allowing you to keep your accessories close by when in use and put away when you’re not using it.
In isolation, this is a swell sharpener. But its performance just doesn’t match the Tormek’s. Even after truing the stone, I found that chisels and plane irons sharpened with the straightedge jig were a couple degrees out of square. Aligning the tool in the jig with an engineer’s square didn’t improve the accuracy. This is a problem that just shouldn’t happen with a sharpening jig.
The waste from sharpening on JET’s grinder is dropped off into a waste reservoir, which is easy to clear out.
Another performance issue is power under load, which is lacking from the JET. Apply too much pressure to the tool, and you’ll slow down the stone. It’s possible to stall it completely.
Like most wet grinders, JET’s tool is messy, and its wheel is ultimately underpowered compared to similar wet grinders.
The problem, I think, is the smooth-tire drive wheel. The drive shaft’s traction on it is tenuous, even when you increase the torque control setting.
