Jointer question

[ictoos]

I'm thinking it's time to upgrade from my little delta Benchtop 6" to an 8". I'm partial to the Grizzily line.

Questions:
1) Recommendations including alternates to the Griz.

2) What the heck does a parallelogram bed do for me?

3) I don't do enough woodworking to warrant a spiral head cutter. that having been said, any great arguments for splurging anyway?

Kerry

[Beamer]

I own the Grizzly G0586 (so do several other members).

I LOVE my jointer. My only problem with it is that I have a 12" resaw capacity and would like a 12" jointer, too

Parallelogram beds have two purported advantages:

1) the infeed table raises and lowers in an arc rather than a straight line. This means the edge of the infeed near the cutter head stays pretty much the same distance no matter what height you have it. This is reputed to help reduce some tearout, though I'm not fully sure how much.

2) their claim to fame is adjustment. With normal jointers, the tables slide on dovetailed ways with jibs to keep things stiff. These surfaces wear and need periodic adjustment (though if you never move your infeed table, you won't likely wear the jib much). The parallelogram mechanism relies on two bosses that rotate as the table moves - creating that arc - and so don't have much of a wear surface and shouldn't ever really need adjusting once dialed in.

Spiral Cutter Heads - their big advantage is when dealing with highly figured woods prone to tearing out with regular straight blades. It should be noted that just because a cutter head uses indexing cutters in a spiral pattern, the orientation of those inserts may not offer much of any reduction in tear out. There are some, the Shelix from Byrd, that tip the cutters so that they hit the wood at a slight angle which produces a sheering cut. These have much better tear out reduction.

Worth it? That's up to you, really. For me, I never change my jointer's infeed depth. It's at a very thin 1/32" - it's pretty shallow - and I just make multiple passes as needed. The lighter cut can help quite a bit with tear out, for sure.


I didn't bother with the gizmos mostly because my jointer is a coarse tool, not a fine tool. It's not gonna give me finished surfaces - not meant to - it gets me flat and square and that's it. Any surface off the jointer is gonna be scalloped due to the rotation of the cutter head. You'll have to sand/plane/scrape those surfaces prior to finishing anyway so I figure all these extra costs for nifty features ain't quite worth it to me.

[rrich]

Kerry,

As tempting as it may look, I would avoid the combination Jointer/Planer from well just about any source. They are a pain to switch between functions.

I have a Grizzly band saw. (19") It is the one made in an ISO 9001 factory. The saw is much, much better than the Laguna that we have at school and also better than an old old Oliver band saw also at school. All three saws are about the same size.

Every time that I have looked at Grizzly products at trade shows, I've been very impressed. The fit and finish has been as good or better than most other machines at the shows. Sometimes the other machines are two or three times the Grizzly price.

As for the special cutter head... There are three types of cutter heads. (Straight knife, spiral (Curved) knife and indexable knives also in a spiral pattern) If you can, get the indexable type. The reason is that it offers the advantages of a spiral cut which is great with figured wood. The other advantage is that, do you remember that board with that small nail that you jointed? Do you remember how you had to either sharpen or replace the knives? Well with the indexable knives you just rotate the knife 90° and joint away. The last time that I looked I thought that the replacement knives were rather cheap when compared to full width knives.

[Stretch]

I'll just second what the other guys have said. Nearly every Grizzly tool I've used has been well worth the purchase price. (The lone exception being the radial drill press) I've used the G0586 jointer for nearly four years at work. It's a great tool. When I upgrade my jointer it will be what I get.

[Ruffnek]

Good to see you back posting, Kerry, and I'll be interested in hearing how the finish on your potting bench is holding up. We had a, ahem, discussion on outdoor finishes here recently and I touted the one you used as the ultimate.

As for jointers, I went from the 6" aluminum bed Delta benchtop to the 8" Grizzly GO586. In a perfect world, I'd have both, a 6" jointer and a 12" jointer but then I'd also have a huge shop to house them in, too.

For what I do, the 8" with dovetailed ways is more than adequate, much more. I do move the infeed table...from 1/16 to 1/32 depending on how much wood I have to remove and how many pieces I have to joint. I'd say that 90% of the time, however, it stays at the 1/32 depth just because it's a better cut when face jointing.

I bought a set of knives last fall but haven't installed them yet. I jointed a bunch of Bois d'Arc for a rocker I was making and figured it would dull the knives but I haven't noticed any difference so far.

I think the indexable cutters, like the Byrd head, are the cats meow and you would likely never have to change them...just rotate any damaged edges. That's a lot of money to pay, though, just to see the jointer spit out Byrd turds.

I think that a couple of hours every two or three years to install new jointer blades ($50 at Grizzly) is a small inconvenience for the money saved.

[brburns]

I have a DJ-20 and really like it. I got it used, so that's why I got a Delta and not a Griz. I wish I had a spiral cutter head on it. I seem to get nicks in the knifes quite easily. I have noticed that with the byrd head on my planer, I don't get the nicks in the inserts.

[art3427]

I go to sleep at night dreaming of a brand new 12" jointer with tables that reach from one end of the shop to the other. I do nearly everything from salvaged lumber and that often requires major surface prep. The one I dream about also has an indexable head 'cause no matter how hard I look, I always miss one nail when I'm pulling them. Maybe I'll expand my dream to include a good metal detector too.


art

[lexrex]

Kerry,
I have the 490x from Grizz. It's a great machine. Pretty much a DJ20 clone. The parallelogram is actually no easier to adjust IMO. It might hold better but adjusting it is still a tedious task. That said, the 8" bed and the Grizz spiral head make a huge difference coming from the Delta 6" JT360 I had. It's all the machine I need and wanted. Only thing I can't figure out on the 490 is why the infeed is longer than the outfeed. It hasn't caused any problems, just an oddity.