Cliff Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 26 minutes ago, Brendon_t said: There is absolutely no way of knowing if this is even remotely true. Do you have blinders on? I have no idea what their failure rate is. I'm not going to waste time looking it up either - it's probably not something that is published. But it's pretty easy to extrapolate based on positive reviews, general company success and acceptable business practices wouldn't you think? I'm sorry that I didn't bring real statistics to a conversation on a website, I thought everyone was pretty well clued in about accepted failure rate. At the very least, I would hope you've seen the short explanation in fight club about it. That's why you read reviews from one person that says "Complete crap, didn't work out of the box." and another review that says "Had it 10 years, still works great." So no, I have no published statistics, and I apologize if you thought I was saying I did. What I and everyone else has to work off of is reviews. Youtube, lumberjocks, amazon, reddit, um, even right here there are positive reviews for Grizzly. http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/product/485 - I only clicked 2 of them, but both were fairly positive. There are reviews from people that have been on the very podcast associated with this website. Matt Cremona has a 12" Grizzly jointer. Shannon has a Grizzly 20" planer if I remember correctly. Jay Bates has the 0490 I think. Even if you think the reviews at lumberjocks are from complete hacks you'd be hard pressed to deny that Cremona doesn't know a good machine. I'm sorry that you had some bad buys, but it happens to everyone in all brands and the less you pay for the item, the more expected it's going to be. That doesn't mean the entire company is worthless and makes nothing but crap. But it's super easy to trash them whenever something doesn't work out for you. It's certainly unfair to make blanket statements about a class of machines that are in the "affordable" category. 25 minutes ago, Al Capwn said: Cliff is right in some regards - each company has an expected mean-time-between-failure or failure rate, and we are dealing with a small sample rate. However, I would "educated guess" that Powermatic's failure rate is a lot lower than Grizzly's, but that comes with an increase cost in price. Ya thats what I was trying to get at. I don't need to ask anyone to know PM's failure rate is a lot lower than Grizzly. As we should absolutely expect. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Tpt life Posted January 15, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 Yeah, I bought Grizz because of machines that I have seen work flawlessly for a decade. Cliff is dead on and the responses are jerky so let's keep the forum from the jabs. The burden is on for those gentlemen to prove that every machine fails prematurely. If not, then there is a success/failure balance. PM also has that ratio. I am pretty sure it was Don who talked about shipping PM stuff back. There is no doubt in my mind that that PM has a higher pass/fail rate. There is no doubt in this forum that Grizz is a keep your eyes open gamble. It has been proven here that even Festool and Laguna have failures. Thanks for documenting the failure, but don't pretend there are no successful machines coming from Grizz. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxdabroxx Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat60 Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 LOL...After all this information I wonder if anyone has changed his mind about grizz or PM..Id be lying if I said Id rather have a grizz but thats whats going to happten if Im lucky to have the cash for them when the time comes..I have also seen some grizz tools such as a shaper and plainer last fine for years .Who in there right mind wouldnt want a PM if they could afford but thats not saying grizz wont last some time.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keggers Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 I just came in from my shop where I used my Grizzly jointer, planer, bandsaw, cyclone, and my over head dust collector. They all started when the button was pushed and worked flawlessly - as they have for the seven or so years since I bought them. I'm in my shop seven days a week and run my equipment every day. When I was ready to fill my shop with equipment, I bought all Grizzly machines. That's because a friend recommended them. If he'd recommended Powermatic I would have bought all PM. I can't honestly say that I'll replace my existing equipment with Grizzly when they die but I'll sure lean that way since PM is priced close to three times as much as like Grizzly machines. One thing for sure - they are all machines and one day they will all break. The only thing I've had to repair is the starter switch on my tablesaw and I think I'll soon have to replace the tires on my bandsaw after years of use. There is no doubt that PM is a higher quality product but it should be at those prices. I'm sorry you are having so much trouble Brendon. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 I wish SawStop would get into more woodworking machines. The quality of their saws is sure good. Brendon, that's pretty discouraging to have that happen, but on the up side you'll end up with a fairly new reconditioned machine to sell Do they expect you to pay shipping to send it in for repair? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minorhero Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 It sucks your saw broke but its not exactly uncommon for them to break at the tensioning point. The good news is that its well supported so you can buy a replacement part really easily. To me it looks like the sliding housing is the item that broke. That is literally a $9 part. Likely you will pay more in shipping then the actual cost of the part. http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0555LANV/parts I am a huge proponent of buying used old woodworking machines that were made in america and fixing them up. And I love a good hating on chinese made machines. That being said, pretty much all the machines like this have the same flaw. They use cheap pot metal for the tensioning mechanism. Every single delta 14" bandsaw made from before the 1980's (and probably a few after) did the same thing. The tensioning mechanism is frequently broken on those as well. The grizzly is just an old delta clone. Generally you will want to get into something bigger like an 18" or 20" to really put some abuse on a tensioning mechanism. Assuming this one wasn't simply flawed that is. If it was then getting a new one and installing it will be pretty easy. I am surprised you had bearings fail on you though. They are not made by grizzly but cranked out of a factory somewhere else and pretty standard. How exactly did they fail? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted January 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 I find it comical that grizzly owners take it as a personal attack when you document an obvious premature failure. Tires, all bearings and tensioning housing gone to crap in 1 year. That is premature. Your machine may work fine, great. This one is crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 6 minutes ago, Brendon_t said: I find it comical that grizzly owners take it as a personal attack when you document an obvious premature failure. Tires, all bearings and tensioning housing gone to crap in 1 year. That is premature. Your machine may work fine, great. This one is crap. It sounds like it might be a good machine now that you have replaced half of it how much you want for it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 Well, now you all have convinced me that I need to hang it up until I can afford to outfit my shop with all Northfield and Oliver machines. ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minorhero Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 I actually don't own a grizzly or any machine that was made after 1975. I do however take apart every machine I buy, clean every nut and bolt, paint it, and put it back together. I have a pretty jaundiced eye towards machine failure. In other words, It doesn't phase me because every single machine I buy comes to me broken. I own powermatic, walker turner, delta, and several brands you probably have not heard of because their makers went out of business before man walked on the moon. Equipment failure is a part of life and is not really based on time owned but rather based entirely on how hard and how often you use it. If you ran your grizzly every day for 8 hours a day I wouldn't be surprised that you have had breakdowns. It is after all a hobby machine and not a commercial production machine. If however you ran it a half dozen times then it is very surprising unless you are doing something wrong. I would be interested in knowing how the bearings failed though, they really should last at least a decade of regular use and it wouldn't surprise me to hear you getting twice, maybe three times that long out of them. For multiple bearings to fail in less then a year means 1) they were improperly installed, 2) you use your machine almost nonstop, 3) they were improperly made (this is the least likely as I said they are cranked out in huge batches and generally made to pretty decent tolerances), 4) you did something to them extraordinary and that caused them to fail, or 5) there was nothing really wrong with them when you replaced them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 29 minutes ago, Brendon_t said: I find it comical that grizzly owners take it as a personal attack when you document an obvious premature failure. Tires, all bearings and tensioning housing gone to crap in 1 year. That is premature. Your machine may work fine, great. This one is crap. Dude, lighten up. I am glad you post this. I don't have a band saw and am logging all of this discussion. It's too late for the Eric thing. I think my Shop Fox is a clone of his jointer. That helps me be wise. You got called out a bit because a whole model failure makes a bad product, but they make many products. The only way you find the bad is if someone buys and uses it. Sucks it was you. Very sorry about that. Disgusted they want you to disassemble and palletize it. That says more to me than a lemon machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 2 minutes ago, C Shaffer said: Disgusted they want you to disassemble and palletize it. That says more to me than a lemon machine. Indeed. I would call them again and convince them of how absurd that would be. @Brendon_t Just for my own knowledge, I wanted to ask, were you using a riser block on it when this happened? A comment you made earlier combined with @minorhero 's last post about how hard you use a machine had me wondering... I am pretty easy on my machines since I don't get a lot of shop time and don't really try to push them beyond their basic capabilities, so I'll be curious to see how my grizzly BS does over the years... 21 minutes ago, minorhero said: I would be interested in knowing how the bearings failed though, they really should last at least a decade I just received a replacement bearing from grizzly because one of my bearings was seized-up out of the box. I don't see how I could have done anything to cause this, although I'm not perfect. When I'm in the shop tomorrow I can snap a pic or 2 if you're curious...it looks fine, just won't rotate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 A lot of things can go wrong before the machine reaches the end user. Especially when it is made in the far east, shipped to the US, possibly repackaged & rebranded, and delivered by guys who see the word FRAGILE as a challenge ( no offense meant to any delivery drivers in the crowd, I'm sure you are the good ones that back up the driveway and help a brother unload). Brendon's saw may have been flawed in manufacture, or damaged during transport. Judging from his posts of late, I doubt he's had time to 'overwork' the machine. The only thing this really says is that it sucks to be Brendon these days. Sorry, dude! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted January 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 45 minutes ago, C Shaffer said: Dude, lighten up. I wish it was more common but I don't get butt hurt from the Internet. When I said it was fun, I mean it is funny ha ha, not funny stupid. My intention with posting the issue is to give information to future buyers.that happened to bring out criticism that indicated I was talking crap about all of grizzley. I never once have EVER said grizzly as a whole makes crap and nobody should buy it. I am sharing my experience with the saw as well as CS,which happens to be more important to me. Not what happened but what a company does to fix it. So far between the 3 individuals I was bounced around to today, I am not impressed with that aspect either. 40 minutes ago, JosephThomas said: Indeed. I would call them again and convince them of how absurd that would be. @Brendon_t Just for my own knowledge, I wanted to ask, were you using a riser block on it when this happened? @minorhero Yes, I have a riser block installed. I bought it to raise the head as I'm a tall guy and don't like to bend down to see around the bearing housing group. On a 1-10 scale of how hard this machine is used, 1 being sits unused and collects dust,10 being a production shop that runs the machine 5+ hours a day, I'd say it's a 3. I have made three projects this year that used the bs. Resawed a few times for veneers I'd say the motor has run less than 1.5 hours in the last 11 months. @minorhero I don't know specifically what is the deal with the bearings. I happen to be an ASE master tech so would be fairly confident in saying I have not done anything mechanically wrong with the operation and installation of the bearing sets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat60 Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 I cant say I,d be to happy about it ..Next one will be good ....I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenskye Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 Brendon if you are getting bounced around, maybe you should try again with customer service people, but take names. If you still get nowhere, go higher up the chain. With warranty ending soon, they may be purposely dragging their feet. Hope you get it worked out to your satisfaction, because you may have gotten a lemon from the start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted January 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said: Well, now you all have convinced me that I need to hang it up until I can afford to outfit my shop with all Northfield and Oliver machines. ? Speaking of, just saw a 12" Oliver converted to segmented cutters on CL today. It was powder coated black, sexy, huge and was listed sold in 3 hours. Didn't sound bad for $1800 to me. 12 minutes ago, mat60 said: I cant as I,d be to happy about it ..Next one will be good ....I I may understand this better when I didn't go to happy hour with the work crew. 8 minutes ago, Woodenskye said: Brendon if you are getting bounced around, maybe you should try again with customer service people, but take names. If you still get nowhere, go higher up the chain. With warranty ending soon, they may be purposely dragging their feet. Hope you get it worked out to your satisfaction, because you may have gotten a lemon from the start. I have been taking names and notes, I had to get off the phone after 30 min because I was getting irritated and didn't want to be a jerk to the CS ppl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 Since I have a similar saw I was thinking about this post a lot and kept returning to your 2nd photo...it appeared to me that the tension was set much higher than it should be for a 3/8" blade at first glance so I wanted to review the manual and setup videos that grizzly posts... I was thinking about a couple things, someone correct me if I'm wrong: The manual talks about using the flutter method and the deflection method to tension the blade properly, it doesn't say you should rely on those marks on the back. In the video, when they de-tension the blade, the red tension indicator is all the way to the bottom, and it moves upward as you tension the blade... To me, this means: when the top surface of the red indicator reaches one of those measurements, you are already at, or near, the tension needed for that size blade. When I look at your photo, it looks like you have already passed above the tension for a 3/4" blade, not 3/8". Perhaps most importantly, they don't refer to the notches as discrete markers to reference off of, but rather 'ranges'....this should tell us that it's not accurate enough to trust, just something to get us in the ballpark. I guess what I'm trying to say is, were you relying on those markers, or did you use the deflection or flutter method to tension it? Here's a link to the manual: http://cdn2.grizzly.com/manuals/g0555lanv_m.pdf Here's a link to the video: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted January 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 The photo is really worthless, the blade is under zero tension with the marker up that high. When it snapped the case, it popped the posts out that hold everything together and that's just where it landed. I was tensioning it using flutter and as said above, the blade was still whipping about half an inch side to side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
estesbubba Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 So you were adjusting the bearings with the saw running? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 After careful study I need to ask, how sure are you that the blade was an appropriate length? The broken casting appears to have only barely shifted, the tension appears on the high side even for a slack blade, and you say your blade was still whipping. Mike also asks a good question. It also does not look like those jam nuts should be tight to the casting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted January 16, 2016 Report Share Posted January 16, 2016 (edited) ==>^^^ Everyone understands how bandsaw blades are made, right? That if you order a 200" blade, about the only length you can almost always be guaranteed NOT to get is 200"... For a variety of reasons, the actual length will probably fall within a range of 199+" & 201-"... Why should you care about this? Well, for many, you don't... But for some, you do. Mostly it depends on the throw of the saw's trunnion. For example, my PM1500 specifies a 153" blade. However, the saw will only tension properly up to and including 153 & 3/16, but not beyond... So I've got to order 152 3/4" blades and they will arrive somewhere between 152 1/2 and 153... That's why you should ignore the tension settings based on the saw's built-in scales... They are 'calibrated' (and I use the term loosely) against a blade length that you almost never exactly get... As for G's quality against PM or any other machine, I'm staying out of this one... Edited January 16, 2016 by hhh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 10 hours ago, hhh said: Everyone understands how bandsaw blades are made, right? Allow me to be the first to state clearly: NO. It might as well be an alien mothership. The whole saw, not just the blades. Since I just got a bandsaw in the shop last week, might be time to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 I have a Grizz bs and really like it. I may eat my words tomorrow. I'm like others, I think you're getting the shaft from customer service, or lack there of 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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