Vintage jointer upgrade

[Pwk5017]

Been a few weeks, but finally got my new jointer calibrated and wired up. I was waiting on a 10hp VFD to get here to power the machine, which accounted for most of the delay. I previously had a 12” grizzly that was a fantastic machine, but I always had my eye on the used market waiting for the right 16” machine to come around to upgrade to. I’m in a basement, so things are tight and 16” is just about the biggest machine I could get. I know everyone says an 8” jointer will cover most of your needs, but I found my 12” machine to be lacking more than I’d like. Maybe I’m lucky with my lumber supplier, but boards wider than 11.5” aren’t incredibly rare. Anyways, I figured 16” would handle 99% of my needs and waited and waited for the right one to come around. By “right one”, I mean something preferably European with less than a 9hp motor and either an insert head or a tersa head. I’m running my shop off a 60amp subpanel, and 7.5hp plus my cyclone is just about the max I can run at once. I missed out on a fantastic buy in Arkansas and then another in Florida, when I finally read a listing in Long Island for a 16” machine with zero badging or branding. All I had to go off of was a serial number and a model number “PF-500”. I went round and round with the guy on price, while taking a gamble on the machine’s origins. Turns out the guy listed it incorrectly Like I inferred from the model number and this is a 500mm cutterhead. I was also happy to discover the cutterhead is a tersa like I guessed from one crappy photo. It was a bit of a calculated risk, but for about a grand I have a massive jointer...in my basement. I won’t bore everyone with the story of moving it, but it was hellish. Tool weighs about 1700-1800lbs.

After having it in person, it is definitely Italian and from the late 80s. Oddly enough, just this week the identical machine popped up on woodweb for $5500. It is a cassedei, which leads me to guess this was produced by Griggio or SCM and then badged Griggio, Casadei, Paoloni, etc afterwards. This is my first experience with wiring a VFD as a phase converter, and I am a believer now. With this 10hp unit, the 3 phase motor produces its full power rating. Jack Forsberg sells a variety of units, and has a fellow Canadian walk you through the programming over the phone. I’m competent with working on machines and most electrical needs, but programming isn’t my thing. If you are thinking about converting a 3 phase tool, this process was dead simple. The guard that came with it was a segmented plywood POS, and I spent 45 mins yesterday morning making a plywood bridge guard for it. Eventually I might take the time to make a swing away segmented porkchop guard, but this guard works very well. Overall, it’s a bit of an oddball machine without a manufacturer label, being 500mm instead of the more common 510mm, shorter beds for a machine this size(100” long), and only a 5.5hp motor, but all these oddities made it a perfect fit for me. 118” jointer beds sound awesome, but I’m not in a 4,000 sqft space. Same goes for a 9hp motor. Im sure that is fantastic for taking full width deep cuts, but I can’t power that. I won’t say much about the performance of the machine, because I Have only surfaced about 50bdft of walnut so far. 

 

I snapped a pic of the grizzly as I was moving it, but I wish I had a side by side comparison. 

[Tom King]

Awesome!!!   I would have bought it too.

[Pwk5017]

Haha yes, hindsight it was a no brainer. However, i was dealing with 2-3 photos at the time, and had about 4 question marks on major details. Thankfully, all the unknowns ended up as I hoped they would. 

 

So far the tersa Head is pretty cool. You whack the gib with a wedge to loosen it and the knife slides out. The first edge was trash, but thankfully the other side was brand new. I flipped them all in 1-2 mins. Once you fire up the machine, the centrifugal force locks the gib and knife back into place. I don’t know how they manufacture those knives, but they are very very close to perfect. Maybe .001” over the 19.5”. My 12” blades were consistently .003ish when they were new and after sharpening. Brand new the finish is superb, but I’ll be interested to see how long the edge lasts. I might end up going carbide in 2 and 2 HSS dummy knives. Or go whole hog and do 4 carbide. 

[Mark J]

Congrats.  Sometimes you win!

[Coop]

I gotta ask, how did you get that beast in position? Them’s some damn tight quarters. 

[Pwk5017]

10 hours ago, K Cooper said:

I gotta ask, how did you get that beast in position? Them’s some damn tight quarters. 

Yes, numerous times during the move I called myself an idiot and questioned why I couldn’t have just lived with the 12” grizzly. It was really tight. One, my garage opening is only 8’ or so, which means I couldn’t bring the machine in straight with the pallet jack. I had to angle it, and then attempt to move it in a semi straight line with the pallet jack. After that, getting it off the skid and onto homemade furniture dollies was no walk in the park. Really needed a hoist or engine lift st that point. It squeezed through the man door by about 1/2”—well, to be fair it hit the door frame about 8 times before we got it through. And finally, yes, it was semi tight quarters once it was inside. Still, once it was in the basement, it took my wife and I maybe 5-7 mins to get it into position. This gets back to my earlier statement that the machine is weird in a few ways, but all those ways make it perfect for me. Any longer or wider would have been a serious problem. Luckily, the next time it needs to move will probably be when we move, and in that case it will be the last machine out the door with all the room in the world to get there. I know I will have made it when I have a double garage door for access and tall ceilings. 

[Ronn W]

Wow!