Slippery slope


chrisphr

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Hummmm.... That $27's looking pretty good at the moment... :)

 

 

 

BTW: While the one-way jig is great for setting knives, you can save the $90 and go old school... The 12" ruler trick works equally well...

 

Edited by hhh
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Let me add a wrinkle...Grizzly jointers suck.  Go for the PM...now you're at $3059

Sorry dude.

Oh, right you are!  Do I want these boards flat-ish and squar-ish?  Hell no!  FLAT and SQUARE, so desperately need a Powermatic jointer.  

Here is the rub.  Isn't it an insult to have such perfectly milled lumber, then make cuts on a contractor saw?   I honestly don't know how I get by.  Let's plus up that $3k jointer, with a $3k p table saw.  A must.

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What is so bad about Grizzly Jointers? That's where i am looking for an 8" one. They are affordable. I tend to think that it's going to be better than my 6" benchtop Delta with a bed so short that I can't joint anything over 4 feet.

I just see it being 5+ years before I can swing something higher than $1000 range.

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I'm not gonna go on a Grizzly-hating rampage and start making blanket statements and generalizations...as much as I'd like to right now.  I have quite a few Grizzly machines and I've built a lot of stuff on them over the years.  The first maybe 4-5 years I owned them I encountered very few problems.  But for the last year or two, every time I'm in the shop it seems like something else goes wrong.

In the last year, I've spent more hours working ON my Grizzly jointer than working WITH it.  Quite literally.  Add my current bandsaw issues...yeah, not much of a fan at this point.

Don't get me wrong...if you're just starting out and Grizzly is all you can afford...which was exactly my scenario at the time...by all means...it's better than nothing.  But if you have any flexibility in your budget, I strongly urge you to explore alternatives.

I will be upgrading all of my Grizzly machines in the years to come, as needed.  Too much maintenance for a guy who hates maintenance.  If you're handy with mechanicals and you like taking machines apart and rebuilding them on a fairly regular basis, you're gonna save yourself a boatload of money.  I'd rather spend the money up front and spare myself the headaches.  Call me lazy.  I prefer woodworking over troubleshooting...and breakdowns get in the way...big time.

 

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What is so bad about Grizzly Jointers? That's where i am looking for an 8" one. They are affordable. I tend to think that it's going to be better than my 6" benchtop Delta with a bed so short that I can't joint anything over 4 feet.

I just see it being 5+ years before I can swing something higher than $1000 range.

Eric hit it pretty much on the head in his last post.  I have the same jointer that he does.  I've had it for about 2.5 years, and I've been running into problems recently.  If you search the forums, you'll find plenty of posts by me lavishing praise on my jointer in terms of value, and highly recommending it.  I've definitely had a bit of a change of heart since dealing with these issues.  The more I explore the internals of the machine, the more I see poor design and materials.  It's like bizarro festool.  

But I still don't hesitate to recommend it with qualifications.  If you can't afford a better machine, well, you need a jointer, and it's better to have this one than to wait 5 years to get something better, IMO.  It's a fairly simple machine, and it works very well...when it's working.  

For my own case, I've decided that as soon as this jointer craps out, I'll upgrade to the PM, and I'm very unlikely to buy another grizzly machine of any kind.  As Eric said, YMMV.

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I'll be the voice of the bear. I have a Grizzly G0593 with a grizzly spiral head. I bought it used from a guy that owned a custom cabinet/furniture company. He used to do offices and desks for politicians. I bought it without the opportunity to plug it in since he moved it into storage when he closed his shop due to health reasons. The machine was in good condition, everything looked like it should. I took a shot. The machine is now about 6 or 7 years old, with about 18 months of use on it from me. It's rock solid, I haven't had any issues or had to make any adjustments other than maybe resetting my fence stop to 90. I used to have a 15" grizzly bandsaw, that wasn't worth a damn. I had it for 6 years and every time I had to use the bandsaw I hated life. Luckily of those 6 years 3 of them were in storage. There stuff isn't terrible by any means, but it's materials, fit and finish and things like that, that are skimped on from the manufacturer to cut costs.

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Just out of curiosity, what level of usage do you guys put your jointers through? I can't see me ever doing more than 3-4 projects per year. Probably under 1000 bf/year.

Same.  3-4 projects a year.  I've probably done about 12 projects since I've had the jointer.

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Same ^^^...a few projects a year.  Very light hobby use, never abused.  It's junk, plain and simple.  You can get junk to work for you...but only for so long before it starts falling apart.  If you like working on machines and pinching pennies, then it's a good fit for you.

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Middle ground on jointers... PM's younger brother Jet?  Or any other good brands that aren't quite the "gold standard"?

I'm not sure about jet but i have owned a general international jointer and a delta dj20 and i liked them both, never had issues. Sent from my SM-P550 using Tapatalk
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