Gotta love craigslist!

[AndyR]

I'm pretty worked up!
I drove about 5.5 hours today roundtrip to pick up these two tools from a very nice man outside of Chicago. It's a Grizzly G0550 open stand 15" planer and a G1018HW 8" x 65" bed jointer. They were about three years old and never used (never setup actually). The price was great $350.00 for the jointer and $400.00 for the planer.

I'm wondering if any of you have any experience with the Grizzly brand of carbide spherical cutterhead as opposed to the Byrd brand that they also carry? Looks to me like the cutter heads on the Grizzly are arranged in a spiral but are still all facing parallel to the face, where on the byrd the individual cutters face the angle of the "helix" which to my way of thinking would result in a more shearing cut...
http://www.grizzly.com/products/searchresults.aspx?q=byrd
I may upgrade the jointer first before I set it up. I hear good things about these.

Now I have to leave these alone for a few weeks and finish my side job—gonna be hard.

 

[nametrux]

Great find! The good stuff don't last long. Have found a couple, but most are gone by the time I see them.

 

[jdboy9]

I haven't used them yet but I have read a lot and I would suggest going with the byrd. Mainly for the reason you stated.

Wow very good buy I'm jealous awesome deal.

 

[woodshop]

Right place at the right time Andy... good catch

 

[Ted J]

I'm pretty worked up!
I drove about 5.5 hours today roundtrip to pick up these two tools from a very nice man outside of Chicago. It's a Grizzly G0550 open stand 15" planer and a G1018HW 8" x 65" bed jointer. They were about three years old and never used (never setup actually). The price was great $350.00 for the jointer and $400.00 for the planer.

I'm wondering if any of you have any experience with the Grizzly brand of carbide spherical cutterhead as opposed to the Byrd brand that they also carry? Looks to me like the cutter heads on the Grizzly are arranged in a spiral but are still all facing parallel to the face, where on the byrd the individual cutters face the angle of the "helix" which to my way of thinking would result in a more shearing cut...
http://www.grizzly.com/products/searchresults.aspx?q=byrd
I may upgrade the jointer first before I set it up. I hear good things about these.

Now I have to leave these alone for a few weeks and finish my side job—gonna be hard.

A Byrd replacement is gonna run at $800 through Holbren Tools, and from other reviews I have read on the Grizzly's the stock cutter seems to work just fine. Of course, would you be able to tell the difference, or I should say do you want to spend $800 to find out. good find though.....

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I would use them both, BEFORE makeing a decision to buy a sprial head. You do understand that sprial heads don't plane/joint as smooth as std. knives don't you?

Rob

 

[AndyR]

Yes, I've been thinking about it and it does make sense to try the straight knives first. I was under the impression that the carbide cutters cut smoother with less tearout...especially on figured woods. Is this wrong? Or is it one of those "6 of one half a dozen of the other" -matter of opinion debates?

Thanks for your opinions.
Andy

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Yes, I've been thinking about it and it does make sense to try the straight knives first. I was under the impression that the carbide cutters cut smoother with less tearout...especially on figured woods. Is this wrong? Or is it one of those "6 of one half a dozen of the other" -matter of opinion debates?

Thanks for your opinions.
Andy

From what i've seen, sprials don't leave as smooth a surface at good quality sharp std. knives, but i also will agree on "some" woods they may not tear out as much.

I think planer design has as much or more to do with that, then the knife design. My Woodmaster planes better than my brothers Grizzly, and it's also better than my older Delta...

Rob

 

[Brmorgan]

From what i've seen, sprials don't leave as smooth a surface at good quality sharp std. knives, but i also will agree on "some" woods they may not tear out as much.

I think planer design has as much or more to do with that, then the knife design. My Woodmaster planes better than my brothers Grizzly, and it's also better than my older Delta...

Rob

There are many factors in getting a smooth cut - feed speed, depth of cut, moisture content of the wood, cutterhead RPM, cutterhead diameter, number of knives in head, bevel angle on knives, and straight or spiral design. The common consensus is that spiral cutterheads will cause less tearout in figured wood, but I don't think straight knives would be a big issue for average cases like quilted grain, etc., just really wild burl grain and the like. And a good jointer/planer with a slow feed and very very light passes can do a perfectly fine job in all but the most extreme cases anyway (that's all we had for decades...). As for the difference in performance between straight or angled spiral cutters, I'm inclined to agree that the angled ones would produce less tearout, or at the least would present less of a load to the motor. I do have a magazine around here somewhere that did a detailed comparison between the different types, maybe i can find it.

That's an amazing deal on those machines. What

 

[woodshop]

For years I had the standard strait knives in my standard 15" 4 post planer. As Bmorgan said, that's all we had (for most of us anyway). I bought another 15 inch 4 post but with a Byrd Shelix spiral cutterhead about 2 years ago and I have to say I will never go back to knives again. I was so impressed that I promptly converted my 8" jointer to a Bird cutterhead also. It is true that IF you have sharp clean knives on non-figured wood, you will get a slightly smoother cut than with the spirals... but I also agree much has to do with the design of the planer. At any rate, I would be hard pressed to notice much difference as far as surface smoothness goes from either my Byrd planer head or the jointer than when I had knives on them. Main difference I can applaud though is how much longer they stay sharp. Those little cutterheads are solid carbide and they have 4 sides, so to change "blades" you rotate them. Takes a while to do the whole head, but so be it, they self align, no setting anything but torque. Thus although they are expensive, you basically get 4 sets of knives from each set of spirals. Did I mention they stay sharp a long time? I bought this planer Jan 2006... and I am still using that first set of sides. Granted I'm getting ready to turn them in Dec, but I'm just very impressed. I run a lot of wood through my planer. When I had knives, I was changing blades every 4-6 months, often keeping them on longer than I should have because I can procrastinate with the best. Inevitably one or more of the blades would get a little nick in it, and from that point on, there would always be that slight nick mark down the board at that point whenever anything was sent through the planer. I havn't gotten a nick in one of my little carbide inserts yet, but if I did, I would just replace that one insert, nick mark solved. Bottom line is, although they are pricey, blades last at least twice as long as knives, and you essentially get 4 sets of them. Thus if you do the math, it is actually cheaper in the long run. They are not the be-all end-all of jointing and/or planing, but as I said, I will never go back to blades again. One of the best upgrades I ever did.