Replies

1. 
   Glaucon | Feb 21, 2006 09:49pm | #1

   I bought the Grizzly 8" jointer with the carbide spiral head (G0593) about 2 months ago. It arrived in good shape, no issues of damage during shipment. The manual is just OK, but everything else was fine.

   I found that it cuts smooth and true from the get go.  Tables are flat and coplanar, the heads are well aligned. In some recent reviews of jointers, the reviewers noted that many of the non-spiral head knives were not sharp, and that the spiral head knives did not cut a perfectly smooth surface. I cannot comment on the former, but I have not had any problems with the latter on cedar, oak, bird's eye maple or cherry.  Everything, including the figured woods have jointed to a near finished surface.

   Having said as much, I would point out that having the jointer leave a "glass like" surface was not (and is not) one of my main reasons for chosing a jointer- spiral head or otherwise. I can always use my planer or a smoothing plane or a card scraper to dress the surface.  What I wanted from a jointer is a perfectly flat surface and edge, at 90 degrees to each other.  In my view, that is the primary job of the jointer- everything else is a bonus.  The reason that I chose the spiral head is that carbide lasts much longer than HSS for this application, and knife changes are easy and painless. Even with the new indexed knives and use of jigs, changing HSS jointer blades is tedious to me. I suspect many WWrs put it off until it is well past time to do so. Too, you can change and set your knife, only to hit a knot that same afternoon, notching the blade. With the carbide inserts, you simply rotate the insert 90 degrees and go back to work. Given how long carbide lasts, it is not a very frequent occurence.

   Just my 2p,

    

   Glaucon

   If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...

2. 
   forestgirl | Feb 22, 2006 07:57pm | #2

   You asked for "any advice" and this falls into the minutia category, but it might save you some grief later on.  When replacing the little inserts, be absolutely sure that the mating surfaces are perfectly clean.  In an article I read recently, one of the company owners (Grizzly?) mentioned that an incredibly small particle can throw off the cuts of the inserts.  A teeny, tiny piece of grit or whatever under the insert.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) 
   

1. 
   Glaucon | Feb 22, 2006 10:00pm | #3

   Just blow out the cutterhead with some compressed air and you're good to go...Glaucon

   If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...

3. 
   PJohn | Feb 23, 2006 10:38pm | #4

   2-1/2 cents, if it'll help any:

   I bought Griz' G0500 at its phase-out sale this winter, and am truly impressed. Operating smoothness, runout, planar alignment, flatness, flex, fit & finish - the whole nine yards are up to snuff. Would buy another Griz in a heartbeat. As Glaucon says, "square and straight" are the bedrock values of jointers - good workpiece surface quality is just a little bonus. Longest is goodest, if all other factors are equal.

   Personally, I believe that carbide inserts are a terrific industrial invention for many types of machine tools, and have specifed them time and again in my career. However, I'd think really hard about their probable cost/benefit ratio in a jointer if not intended for an industrial/production setting.

   I chose the steel knives to save a few hundred bucks. (Have always had 'em, and they seem to do the job. How much wood can one person shape, assemble and finish on a spare time basis? Does my jointer run 8 hours a day, 220 days?) If I find later down the line that the decision was inappropriate, it's really not too punishing to convert the Griz to a spiral head. I've always been a plane and scrape guy, and can't envision actually going straight from jointer to finish anyway.

   Best of luck -

   ---John