Grizzly 12" Ultimate Jointer - G9860

[Pwk5017]

Continuing with my theme of reviewing my tools, here is my grizzly jointer review. I purchased this jointer used about 15-18 months ago and have processed about 3,000-4,000 bdft of lumber with it. Enough time and use to feel experienced to write the review. Keep in mind this tool came to me 7-8 years old and via freight delivery on a pallet. Other than it being used, i should have an accurate representation of setup and unpacking.

 

Accepting delivery was nothing short of sketchy. My machine was mostly assembled on the pallet, and i think grizzly ships them assembled in a crate. It is ungodly heavy. The kind of heavy that makes your mind imagine scenes of unrecoverable mangled limbs in the event it tips and falls on someone. I think they list the shipping weight at 1300lbs. My PM209 planer is around 800-900lbs and i would consider that manageable weight. This jointer is the opposite of manageable. I moved it off the pallet with another person onto numerous furniture dollies. You honestly need 3-4 people to move it comfortably and safely. Once on the dollies, it broke them when we took it over a lip into my garage. Yet again, do not underestimate this machine's weight. Now that i finally got it into my basement shop, i occasionally dread the day i need to move it again. The next shop has to have a large access door at grade for forklifts and pallet jacks. If you buy this machine new or used, please proceed safely with unpacking and moving it. I was 27 and quite strong at the time, and this machine broke my spirit.

 

Delivery/Setup

Setup was very easy. Despite the freight journey and all my hassle moving it into my shop, the tables were dead on co planar. Atleast, as dead on as my lee valley straight edge could measure. This machine came from an old HS shop that closed up, and i doubt the shop teacher was a master machinist with a wide array of expensive precision straight edges to set the tables. He was more likely an ex-cabinet shop guy working on a tight school budget. With this assumption, i presume the machine went to that high school perfectly setup, survived for a few years in the program and finally arrived at my door perfectly setup. It was my first impression of the machine and i was impressed. Like stepping up to a cabinet table saw, i appreciate the bigger tools for maintaining their settings over prolonged use. I dont want to check my jointer tables monthly for coplanar. Next, the fence is moderately easy to adjust, and the guard is straight forward to mount and adjust the spring. In my DJ-20, the guards spring mechanism relied on you tensioning the spring and then making sure to fit the wire end of the spring into a hole within the cavity. It sucked and was a poor design. This guard is easy to remove when needed and reinstall quickly. Thats it, the machine comes mostly assembled, so it is pretty quick to get it up and running.

 

Performance

Im very pleased with the machine. It flattens stock exceptionally well. 12" is nice, but sometimes leaves me wanting more. The mass is simply amazing. Between the weight, base, and design, there is absolutely no vibration or chatter in the cut. In the same vein, the 4 knife 4" cutterhead has the mass and cuts per minute to leave a nice finish with little effort. The 3hp motor seems more than adequate for most use. Ive taken 1/8" passes on 15" wide boards with the guard off and the struggle was more on the human end feeding the 8/4 board than it was on the motor. Im glad it is 3 and not 5, because it shares the same 20amp circuit as my table saw. NEC allows a double receptacle for 20a 220v lines, so this is a convenience for me. The table length is 84", if i remember correctly, which is long enough for 6-8' boards. It feels a bit short with the 8-12' boards ive jointed. It gives you an acceptable flat/straight board, but at 12' ive had a bit of a bow in the jointed board. You can argue my abilities to control the board through the process, but that's a long board for the start and end of the operation on 40" tables. This is what i never understood mismatched infeed/outfeed table lengths. Great, a long runway for the start of the cut is important, but so is having a long reference surface for the end of the cut. I like that grizzly made them equal. Overall, 84" is a good jointer table length for general use. I have looked into the Aigner support tables that bolt on and off the tables. If I had the room to leave them in place permanently, i would buy them in a heartbeat. Still, normal 8' and under boards are easy to control and get great results over the length. The infeed table adjusts effortlessly with the hand wheel and locks into place. I find myself adjusting the height frequently with projects. I almost always joint at 1/16" cut depth, but if you have a 1/2"+ bow in an 8' edge you can imagine how annoying it would be to take that many cuts. My last comment on the tables is the segmented chipbreaker/table immediately adjacent to the cutterhead. I think it is called the chipbreaker, but correct me if im wrong. In any case, on big machines they segment the tables for noise concerns, which i appreciate. Unfortunately, i attribute some minor blowout in reversing grain to the lack of support here. I only see this on edge jointing where sometimes the edge falls on locations where the segment gap occurs. Perhaps i would get blowout on the end of the board regardless, but in those circumstances the board is unsupported for 3-4". Not sure if im qualified to comment on the quality of the cutterhead design, but it is massive, seems balanced, and i like the design for setting the knives. The rear of the machine has a pin with indents for locking the cutter head in 4 identical positions for setting the knives. The knives are easily set using the oneway dial indicator jig, cutterhead indents, and jack screws. Despite being 12", this is by far the easiest jointer knife setting ive ever dealt with. I can do four knives within 1-2 thousandths in 15-30 mins. And it is relaxing to do. The last feature on the cutterhead is you have to grease the two bearings occasionally. They suggest every 40 hours of operation, i think. I never owned or used a grease gun before, but now i do. Something slightly peculiar to callout as i never did this on other machines. I have no interest in swapping out for a byrd head, but i dont think one exists for this machine. The fence is where i have my first legitimate issue with the machine. I dont like it. The fence rarely holds a true 90° setting over the course of a couple weeks or month. In fact, i am in the habit of checking it prior to every project, because i have zero faith in it. You may notice i keep a 6" machinist square on the machine at all times. It doesnt get out of whack by a ton, but you can see how it goes out of square by a smidge. A smidge is all it takes for sucky panel glueups. It is the same general design that was on my old delta DJ-20. I would much prefer the rack and pinion fences on other higher end machines. If I paid retail for this machine, this fence would really grind my gears more than it does. The electric controls are good. They are mounted in that ridiculous arm that extends off the machine. It seems about 20x larger than it needs to be, but it serves well for holding my square and some chalk. I like the safety feature of locking out power at the switch, and the switch being away from wayward knees. My only critique is i like the stop/twistlock switch on my powermatic planer much more than this. The powermatic allows you to lightly tap it to kill the power without engaging the power lock feature. The Grizzly goes into lockout mode 9/10 i hit the button. Kind of annoying, but not the end of the world. Finally, the dust collection is fair. They have a fabricated chute with integral pipe/duct that does a 90° turn at the bottom of the machine ending in a 4" connection. Granted, 95% of tools come with a 4" port, but those tools are also easy to retrofit a 6" port onto. With all of these integral dust collection design, they made it nearly impossible to retro a 6" line onto. Instead, i have a 7" main to 6" flex hose to 4" reducer in place. It annoys me because it should be much better with a 6" connection, and i get a bit of chip ejection off every cut that really adds up over months. If this was my forever machine, i would take it apart and make it 6" to the cutterhead, but it isnt. 

 

Closing Thoughts

I think the first one has to be, "is this worth the $4000 when the GO609x is $2925?". As a regular joe consumer, i really dont have the answer to the differences between the machines. The less expensive one has the perceived "better" cutterhead--segmented versus straight knife. The table length and width is the same. Fence looks like it is the same. The GO609x weighs about 300lbs less, which is our first tangible difference to associate with the G9860's cost. Motor HP is the same. Wtf is the difference between China origin(GO609x) versus Taiwan origin(G9860)? Who really knows what all the factory certification comparisons mean? How about stress relieved tables versus non-stress relieved tables? I asked Grizzly all these questions prior to buying the used machine. They didnt offer informative responses, "it's better" is all i got. Cool, but HOW is it better? Furthermore, how do the two machines compare to Powermatic 1285? The light commercial/large hobbyist machine category is sparse when it comes to reviews and discussion. In fact, the market itself is sparse. This is how i ended up taking a chance on the used ultimate grizzly. Used 12"+ single phase jointers are very rare. Especially ones that havent been beaten to death and at a reasonable price. Comparisons aside, i can attest to how well this machine performs. I like to believe it is up there with any other of the light commercial offerings, but it really doesnt matter as long as it keeps truing rough lumber.

[Tpt life]

Thanks P. 

[Pwk5017]

38 minutes ago, C Shaffer said:

Thanks P. 

You bet! Probably long winded, but i know i rely on tools reviews when i make a purchase. I wish more guys reviewed stuff like this, because a lot more is on the line when you are dropping $4,000-5,000 on a tool versus $500 on a DW735. 

 

Next couple months will have the PM209hh, supermax 37x2, and Laguna Italian LT20, I think. The PM209 will be interesting, because a local woodworker i talk to just bought the 1033 grizzly planer. Actually, now that i think about it he bought the GO609 too! I should update after i see both machines in person. 

[Tpt life]

Grizz gets both rave reviews and heavy bashing. I think there is a differential between entry level and mid grade tools with regard to QC etc. It is very nice to hear a review of the mid grade. Every review helps inform. 

[JosephThomas]

Thank this is very helpful. Keep 'em comin. 

How did you find out the high school was selling the jointer? Did you make contacts ahead of time, or did you just happen to see the for sale ad?

[Pwk5017]

1 hour ago, JosephThomas said:

Thank this is very helpful. Keep 'em comin. 

How did you find out the high school was selling the jointer? Did you make contacts ahead of time, or did you just happen to see the for sale ad?

Yes, I was discussing another tool at the time. The seller is a retired woodworker turned part time tool liquidator. I think he buys up smaller shops or school shops and then parts them out. Well, he mentioned he was looking at a HS shop to me and thats when i discovered the griz. I dont want to mention how much i pay for tools anymore, because its too easy to recognize my floors--had people on CL find my posts here and know what i paid for the tool originally--but it was a good price. Even with $300-350 shipping, it was a good buy. All the local school shops ive seen have been CRAP. Curious that this school went ahead with a 12" machine, somewhat overkill for HS kids, but shut the program down 6-7 years later. 

[ben_r_]

On 11/23/2016 at 0:40 PM, Pwk5017 said:

All the local school shops ive seen have been CRAP. Curious that this school went ahead with a 12" machine, somewhat overkill for HS kids, but shut the program down 6-7 years later. 

Maybe overkill for the students, but if the funding was there and the shop teacher was allowed to spend it and he/she wanted a larger/fancier machine, I can see it making sense. Or maybe it was donated.

[RichardA]

I've had a couple of conversations with folks in the tool business lately, and one stands out.... It was a Griz customer service manager.....  His and all the others seem to be of the opinion that the tools from Taiwan have way better quality control than those that come from China,  He based that on the complaints and returns..... Seems that the Chinese stuff gets returned twice as much as the other.

[Pwk5017]

Felt this tid bit was worthy of an update. Shortly after writing this review, i considered a used 16" single phase jointer. I started my due diligence by looking for reviews on this euro 16"er. Well, i was shocked to see one pro comment on adjusting the swing of the blade guard. He said the guard pinging into the fence will knock it out of alignment, in his experience. For those that endured my wordy review above, my biggest complaint featured the fence's poor ability to hold its settings. I had the guard set to cover the entire cutterhead, which did result in it tapping the fence lightly on each pass. I altered it to miss contacting the fence by an inch and to date the fence has held its 90° setting. I still keep an eye on it, but there is a chance this simple alteration cured my biggest gripe. Something to consider for everyone that owns a porkchop guard.