Props to Grizzly


Tom King

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In running some sash parts today, when we got to the thickness planning part, I wanted everything to the nearest thousandth for other steps in the process to go as accurately as I wanted.  My big planer wouldn't do it, although it came close.  Portable planer, a first model portable Delta, could get within three thousandths, which  is better than I thought with the sheet metal bed.

 

I had bought a Grizzly 13" planer/molder off Craigslist a while back.  It hadn't been used to amount to anything, and I only wanted it for a molder.  The first owner had only used it as a planer, and the knives looked like he might have made one piece of furniture with it, and run everything down the middle.  When I bought it, the first thing I did was take those blades out, and used it for some molding. 

 

I decided to stick those knives back in it to try it, and was able to run everything on either side of the narrow worn parts of the original knives.  Long story short, we sized almost two hundred pieces today-stiles and rails including some extras, and every piece I checked with the digital calipers came out dead on, better than even to one thousandth.  It made a pretty nice finish too.

 

I was really surprised.  It hadn't been used enough to hurt anything, so everything is still nice and tight with it.

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I'm taking lots of pictures, and plan to write an article on it.  I'm doing it differently than I've ever seen anyone else do it.  So far, everything is working out like I had hoped it would.  Heart Pine ( out of reclaimed old beams) is notoriously hard to get good joints on work like this, because it tends to break chunks out very easily. Copes are especially trying.  I know some millwork places that won't even try it.  Test pieces run with the Boxwood carriers show that it can be done in any sort of order, and produce perfect joints.  I hope it will all go like that.

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