Which one?

As to the bed length thing. I use a cheapy craftsman that I got for free not a terribly long bed. I haven't found it to be an issue as I rarely joint something more than 3' long. If I need a really long piece to be straight (all I can think of is for a bed rail maybe) I would try to buy a piece from the lumber store that was straight enough to use. I just don't find a frequent need for a huge jointer. Notably I don't build cabinets maybe that is where you would need that kind of functionality. As far as horsepower goes it all depends on your expectations. If you are straightening a lot of rough twisted up wide boards the extra will probably be notable as you will want to take a pretty good bite per pass. If on the other hand you deal mostly in smaller stock and don't expect to need to remove lots of wood per pass then you will probably never see a difference.

Is the HP honestly rated on either motor?

Barry

The difference may actually be in the motor.

1. Make sure they both have Induction motors vs Universal. You want induction if you will run this for lots of hours and most stationary equipment should be induction (IMHO).

1. HP ratings are pretty bogus these days. If they are both induction, the next thing to look at is the amps. It's not a bullet proof comparison but is usually pretty valid. More is better...basicially.

Beyond that if you can get efficiency information or know how to run the calcs on amps/watts/torque/rpm, etc. that can help in the comparison.

Do you buy 3' long pieces from the lumber yard often? Naturally a 3' long jointer will handle 3' long boards very well. But I believe most people that buy a jointer do so to straighten boards 8' or longer. If most of the wood that I bought was 3' or shorter I think I would make room in my shop by getting rid of the jointer. It is very easy and perhaps faster to straighten the edge of short pieces of wood on the TS.

This works perfectly well and you don't need to plug it in.

I have the Jet. Power (it's 1 H.P.) has never been a problem, even face jointing 6" wide lumber, although Jet recommends not trying to remove more than 1/8" per pass. My machine is set to take 1/16" at one time, and it rarely gets changed. The only problem i had was it came with a bad belt and i replaced it with a link one shortly after purchasing the machine. It's been a joy to use. --dave