Last week I decided to sharpen my jointer knives on my DJ-20, so I took them out and asked myself, “Who am I kidding?” So I ordered a Shelix. I haven’t received it yet, but am wondering what I am looking at for installation. How much needs to be removed and how long should it take?
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
and now www.flairwoodworks.com)
– Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer
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I have a tiwany jointer from the early 80s that I put a spiral head into . I had to do some machine work . but a Shelex will be like replacing bearings on your jointer. Pop the belt remove the head and bearings . check the bearing no. ,get new bearings . put new bearings on the new head when it arrives and install .
I installed a Shelex in my off shore planer also . That was a great improvement.
I have installed 2 byrd shelix heads. planer and jointer.
If you had byrd put on the bearings for you? it's a really easy job. If not your going to have to press new bearings onto the head first. took me 2 hours I think from start to finish. had to readjust the fence and infeed and outfeed heights. installing the head only took 15 mins.
I'm not familiar with the DJ20; 8" right? I had to take my 6" off the stand and flip the bed over to get at the head. guessing the 8" jointer is pretty heavy you might need help with that part. hopefully you can get at the head without taking it off the stand?
The DJ20 is an 8" jointer. I ordered the head without bearings, as my bearings still have lots of life left in them. I sure hope that I can change the head without taking it of the stand. We'll see. Delivery should come next week...Thanks,
Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I re-used the bearings off my existing planer head as well... it worked out ok but getting the bearings off and re-pressing them without special equipment was impossible.
I had to find a local machine shop and have them do that part. it was only like $50 once I found somebody who would do it. also had to replace a seal on the gear box for the planer. But when I did my jointer I just had them put the bearings on for me. it was worth the $25 bryd charged me.
it's well worth having bryd do it. cost is minimal. jointer should be easier since there is no gear box.
Chris,
If you are going this far, take the time to change the bearings. Go to a reputable power transmission distributor and buy set of quality bearings. Don
The Shelix for my DJ-20 came with a set of bearings, but one of them had to be field installed. As I recall, the bearing has to go into the bearing block before the shaft goes throughh the bearing. I remember starting it with the drill press and finishing it with a deep socket of just the right size and a dead blow mallet. Trying to get the old ones off would seem to be a veritable impossibility without more specialized tools. Also, when you re-install the bearing blocks into the jointer base, make sure the blocks and their seats are very clean. Mine wasn't parrallel to the table and I couldn't figure out why; I had a chunk of planer shavings under one of the blocks. I remember torquing them as you would an engine head, though this might have been overkill.
Attached is a copy of the parts diagram. As you can see, there's a retaining ring that must go in before the shaft goes through.
Edited 5/14/2009 3:55 pm ET by Quickstep
I have to say thanks for this post. After many months of rangling I have finally got a shellix on order for my Hammer A3-31. After reading this now I am trying to source the info for the correct bearing to have them pressed on at Byrd.
Thanks again. You most likely saved me some headache time.
Brad
Good idea. Their directions are to use a hammer & tap the bearings off of the old head, if you plan on reusing. Never did manage to get the bearings off of my Delta planer head. Beat the stink out of them. No movement at all. They also claim you can tap the bearings on the new head. That didn't work for me either. Had to borrow a press from one of the local mechanics to get the new bearings on the new head without destroying them.
Unless you know exactly what you are doing it is very easy to wreck a bearing by even lightly tapping on it with a hammer to remove or install it. It would be near impossible to get bearings off the head by hammering without ruining them, and probably the shaft also, in the process. I find it hard to believe that someone with any machine shop experience would recommend the practice in a set of instructions. Unfortunately the damage would be hidden and wouldn't show up until the machine was back in service.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998-2007
I agree. The instructions for the Byrd head in my DW735 was to tap them out using a dead blow hammer. Ridiculous.I took the shafts to my good friend who is a Swiss trained machinist and he pulled, tested and reinserted the bearings in the new head. And he used dedicated equipment to do so. BTW, he heated the bearings to a certain temperature (in a dedicated bearing heater would you believe..this chap's machine shop is something to behold) prior to reinserting.Cheers,Peter
Better life through Zoodles and poutine...
Brad,
Not to hijack the thread but why did you decide to change the head on your Hammer and how do you like it? I have been looking at that machine, among others.
Chris
I am working with a lot of Jatoba and found a bit more tearout than i like. I sent out some Jatoba samples to test the cut quality with a shellix and I was very impressed. Still not ready for a finish, but the tearout was reduced significantly. Dont get me wrong, the machine has been great right off the crate, but I guess I have to admit to being a bit fussy.
Brad
Thanks, and I share your aversion to tear out. I find it a real pain to fix. Are you happy with the Hammer otherwise? Did you consider any other combo machines?
Chris
The Euro combo machines are great if you are short on space and want to save a few $$ for comparable separates. Overall I am happy with the A3, but I do plan to add an industrial planer when I have a bigger shop. I know many that have had great luck with the Minimax version too. I didnt look into the grizzly, and honestly I dont see how they can meet the euro quality for the $$ they sell them for. Another downside of a grizz combo is they dont have all of nice accessories, but many dont need the little gizmos.
Brad
Brad,I'm thinking that I should have forked over the extra $50 or whatever it costs for Byrd to supply the cutterhead with bearings... Time will tell. Does Byrd not have the right bearings?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I'm pretty sure that both can't be installed in advance on the DJ20
Chris,
Take the knives out of your old head, take that with bearings, and your new head over to BC Bearing Engineers. The can provide the bearings you need and probably direct you to a quality machine shop who can do the change for you.
I had to change the drum on my Vdrum sander and decided to replace the bearing as the one supplied oozed a little grease for the first few months. The shaft of the damaged drum was so badly pitted by the pulley set screws that I had to use a lot of force to remove the bearings. Fortunately I was going to replace them.
The ID of the inner bearing race is machined to a tighter tolerance that the ID of your pulley.
And while you are in the upgrade mode, you might as well:
- inspect both pulleys. If they are cast rather than machined steel, now is the perfect time to change those as well.
- inspect the belt and change it if it is not a Gates or high quality equal.
You will be amazed [poorer, but amazed none the less :-)] at how much vibration can flow from crappy belts and pulleys.The folks at BC Bearing can help you.Don
Don,That sounds like solid advise to avoid undue headaches and cursing.Thanks,Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
I look forward to hearing about your results. Both the change over and your opinion on the performance of the new cutter.I have been working with teak lately and it did not take longer for the edge to come off of my planer and jointer knives.
I had previously purchase a set of carbide knives for the jointer and have will install them this week. I flipped the planer knives but don't expect them to last long. I am thinking of going the non maniufacturer route for some carbide replacements.
Did you consider this option at all?Don
I wrote a review of the spiral carbide cutter in my new G0593 8" jointer, comparing it to my Powermatic 6" that I had installed a Shelix cutter in. FYI, I bought the Shelix cutter upgrade WITH new bearings already pressed onto the Shelix cutter. Upgrading the cutter was relatively simple operation.
Does anyone know of ANY example of ANYONE, who has performed this upgrade, that was not entirely satisfied with the outcome??
Don,I'm expecting the cutterhead to arrive later this week (hopefully today or tomorrow). I will certainly provide feedback on the change-over. I may even time or document the process.I'm pretty sure that jointing the lignum vitae for my plane body really killed my knives. Go figure. I did not consider carbide replacements. I like the ease of setting the spirals. The other option, which I didn't investigate and don't know if it's available as a retrofit is a Tersa head, which auto-sets the knives.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Well, today I got my Shelix in the mail. She's a heavy sucker! Installation went well and took about two hours. I documented the process and posted it to my website (it's quicker to load than on this site for some reason). I have more photos if you like. And if you have any questions, fire away.http://flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2B3CECCE825F255A!760.entry
Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
If you have to asemble the bearing to the shaft and accepted method is to heat the inner ring of the bearing with a light bulb until the bearing inner ring is about 180 to 200 degrees. ( this temperature will not temper the steel inner ring and will not effect or hurt the gease as this is an accepted running temperature under load.)This will expand the inner ring enough so that using a a tube that aligns with the face of the inner ring you can tap it into place as long as the outer ring is not restricted. This tapping will not put any load on the balls or pathways. The bearings are designed to go on with a line to line fit to .0004" tight. Make sure the ring used against the face of the inner ring does not contact the seal or shield on the bearing.
In my case its been quite the ordeal. Byrd does not have the specs for my head and Felder wouldnt release the specs along with a drawing until a confidentially agreement was signed by both myself and Byrd. That started about 3mo ago, but now we have all that sorted out. I am trying to track down the specs for my bearings now, but may end up taking the stock head out and sending it to my rep to remove them.
For yours, I bet the specs can be found with a little research. BC Bearing has all the bearings you need, but unless you have the specs they cannot help you. Dont be surprised if the bearings are expensive. They are not your run of the mill type bearings. If you take the head as Don suggests it will be pretty straight forward.
Brad
Brad, I'm in the very early stages of research regarding the Byrd head for my Hammer A3-31. Do you have any documentation regarding the conversion for the A3-31? So far I have not found anything.
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