Eric. Posted March 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 34 minutes ago, Cliff said: nice cuts, ignoring grain direction and not having to deal with dumb straight blade replacement Two out of three anyway...you still can't ignore grain direction. Shelix is an upgrade, not a miracle worker. The blades stay sharp far longer which means far less maintenance, which is great...but I agree with Mike that the cut quality is not THAT much better compared to freshly sharpened straight knives. It's not like the Byrd is finish ready or anything. It cuts clean and it's fairly quiet, but it's still a milling cut that needs more work before finish, the same as straight knives. The point is, a 735 isn't worth the cost of the Byrd upgrade. I'm not gonna put thousand dollar tires on a thousand dollar truck, and I'm not gonna put a $500 cutterhead on a $500 planer. But to each his own...if that's how you wanna spend yo jack... BTW, here's the AZ product page for the 735 Byrd... http://www.amazon.com/Byrd-Tool-Shelix-cutterhead-Dewalt/dp/B008CS2QAE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 1 minute ago, Eric. said: Two out of three anyway...you still can't ignore grain direction. Shelix is an upgrade, not a miracle worker. The blades stay sharp far longer which means far less maintenance, which is great...but I agree with Mike that the cut quality is not THAT much better compared to freshly sharpened straight knives. The point is, a 735 isn't worth the cost of the Byrd upgrade. I'm not gonna put thousand dollar tires on a thousand dollar truck, and I'm not gonna put a $500 cutterhead on a $500 planer. But to each his own...if that's how you wanna spend yo jack... BTW, here's the AZ product page for the 735 Byrd... http://www.amazon.com/Byrd-Tool-Shelix-cutterhead-Dewalt/dp/B008CS2QAE Dang it. I've heard multiple times that you can ignore grain direction with it. You tellin' me I gotta learn which way to put it in? waits for jokes I think, if I replace straight blades x number of times then it's worth it... where x is the cost of Shelix divided by the cost of straight blades. I'm too lazy to look that up. Am I likely to replace the blades that many times before I can one day get a major upgrade (and have room to put it) - Yeah probably. Especially with me nicking the blade first time using it! It used to be there on amazon with prime shipping. All I saw is that on my wishlist it says "Item no longer available." which happens from time to time then it comes back. I guess my stance on it with the 735 is - yes I want it, yes I plan to buy it - but it doesn't have priority over the 150/3, track saw, new band saw or drum sander for my personal situation. That's basically my 2016, 2017 planned tool purchases with 2018 hopefully a Sawstop. So maybe by that time I will move and have a bigger space anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minorhero Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 I have ignored grain direction with it and not had issues. I had some mahogany that I ran the wrong way through my straight knife planer and it was chip out city. At the time I was going to a woodworking club that had a shelix head on a large powermatic planer. I ran the same board through it both directions with no trouble. /shrug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris H Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 I have the Shelix in a Dewalt 735, and I would side with those claiming it is well worth it. 100% improvement over the straight blades. Even if it didn't cut better, or quieter, I'd say its worth it for the convenience. I haven't rotated the carbide tips yet. About a year into them. I was replacing the straight knives nearly every other project. (One project per side). I don't know about the Grizzly spiral heads, but the Shelix is worth every penny. I don't think I'll buy another planer or jointer without a spiral head installed. It ruined straight knives for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted March 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 23 minutes ago, Cliff said: It used to be there on amazon with prime shipping. All I saw is that on my wishlist it says "Item no longer available." which happens from time to time then it comes back. I guess my stance on it with the 735 is - yes I want it, yes I plan to buy it - but it doesn't have priority over the 150/3, track saw, new band saw or drum sander for my personal situation. That's basically my 2016, 2017 planned tool purchases with 2018 hopefully a Sawstop. So maybe by that time I will move and have a bigger space anyway. It's definitely a luxury purchase. Not something that should be bought until the shop is fully outfitted and you embark on Shop 2.0: Operation Upgrade. CCC shows that it goes as low as $400 on AZ on occasion (rarely though, appears that $420-440 is about average). Whether or not it's Prime depends only upon which seller(s) have the item in stock and how they are fulfilling their orders. 13 minutes ago, minorhero said: I have ignored grain direction with it and not had issues. I had some mahogany that I ran the wrong way through my straight knife planer and it was chip out city. At the time I was going to a woodworking club that had a shelix head on a large powermatic planer. I ran the same board through it both directions with no trouble. /shrug You can get away with it sometimes and sometimes you can't. Best practice is to pay attention to grain direction. If you're a moderate to heavy hand tool user it becomes second nature and you do it without thinking. Even if you never hand plane a board you should still learn how to read grain and understand why you go in one direction and not another. Take your craft seriously. Not having to read the grain before throwing boards through the planer is not a good justification to buy an expensive head, and I guarantee if you throw a dozen boards through willy-nilly, at least one of them will come out with tearout...which means you lose. No tool purchase gives you a license to get sloppy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 Grain direction is species dependent. Something forgiving like genuine mahogany, cherry or walnut and a byrd head might do fine even if you feed it the wrong way. Maple? Not so much. You absolutely have to read the grain direction, byrd head or not, unless you like blowing chunks into your DC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted March 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 Yeah great point Mike, totally true. That zebrawood I worked with not too long ago wanted to tear out in BOTH directions, and it was quartersawn. Didn't matter how it went through, tearout. Thank dog for drum sanders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisG-Canada Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 I added the Byrd to my 735. Works great, quieter, etc. as has already been explained by others. I struggled with the cost of the upgrade but in the end decided it would be worth it to me. Also, I don't have room for anything bigger so the 735 is the only option for me. Would I do it again? Yes. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 9 hours ago, Mike. said: Grain direction is species dependent. Something forgiving like genuine mahogany, cherry or walnut and a byrd head might do fine even if you feed it the wrong way. Maple? Not so much. You absolutely have to read the grain direction, byrd head or not, unless you like blowing chunks into your DC. Seems like most woodworking rules are "your mileage may vary." I ran curly maple through the 735 with straight blades, no clue what direction. I picked the slowest setting and take the lightest passes I can. No tearout - yet. But I am not dumb enough to expect it to work perfect on every piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Cancelleri Posted March 22, 2016 Report Share Posted March 22, 2016 My 735 liked to tear out on hard maple, no matter what direction I ran it through. I always follow grain direction rules when planing and jointing. It's good practice, and the right way to do things. I have spiral heads on both machines and grain direction is important. Is it worth it on the 735? I have no experience with that, however value is determined by the user. I upgraded to a bigger machine because I was bogging the machine down with how much I was running through it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch Stanton Posted March 30, 2016 Report Share Posted March 30, 2016 I'm a little late to the party, but I got mine through here: https://shelixheads.com/SHELIX_for_dewalt_13_inch_Planer_(DW-735) $410 shipped and no sales tax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted March 31, 2016 Report Share Posted March 31, 2016 Interesting thread. Mostly because I think most of the statements or assertions are true - at least to the person posting. There are so many paths to deciding on "what's right". It was stated " quality is not THAT much better compared to freshly sharpened straight knives ". I mostly agree. Even more so, I'd say that the straight knife cut is much smoother than the Shelix. At least when the knives are new - and the grain is not crazy. The surface I used to get with the straight knives was almost a mirror finish; with the Shelix, I get a lot more tracks and the surface definitely needs a little more work. However, I don't really need to worry about the grain direction with the Shelix. I've put curly and quilted maple through in both directions and noticed no difference. Since both surfaces (knives and Shelix) need to be 'finished' - I consider the resultant surface a wash. By now, it should be obvious I put a Shelix on my 735. I really like it. Is it worth it? It is to me. Since I already had the planer and managed to get a good deal on the Shelix, it made sense to me. If I were to buy a new planer, I'd most likely go with a Shelix. I haven't been able to find a planer with a Shelix for even close to what a 735+shelix costs, so I would guess it makes sense to a lot of people. I look forward to rolling in a 15" (or more) planer into my shop. Before then......I'll get a whole lot of use out of my Shelix equipped 735. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gee-dub Posted March 31, 2016 Report Share Posted March 31, 2016 On 5/5/2011 at 8:37 PM, Eric. said: Worth the cost? Thinking of upgrading... An older thread but, the question is still valid and comes up frequently enough to warrant more discussion. My jointer's spiral head paid for itself somewhere just after the first turning of the inserts. FWW did a piece on it and although a bit long is probably worth reading. Here's a snip from it . . . "Now let’s consider cutter replacement costs. The number of sharpenings before a standard blade becomes too narrow to use will depend on how much the sharpening service needs to remove to get a clean edge. Typically a sharpening service will remove 0.015 in. to 0.020 in., more if there are serious divots in the edge. Six sharpenings will remove about an 1/8 in., which is about the maximum that most blades could take before becoming too narrow. But for the sake of hedging our bets, let’s assume we can get 10 sharpenings from a set of blades. A set of 15-in. replacement blades will cost $139, or about $13.90 loss each time the blade is sharpened. Forty sharpenings will result in $556 worth of blades. Combine the sharpening costs with the blade costs and you have $1,636 in total costs. Segmented Cutterhead Replacing the Byrd cutters is substantially less expensive. The cutters run $3 each and there are 75 cutters in a 15-in. planer head. So for $225 you can replace all the cutters, a bargain compared to sharpening and replacing sets of knives. Combine the cost of replacement cutters with the cost of the insert head and you end up with a total cost of $1,020. So theoretically there is a savings of $616 with the Byrd head compared to a standard full-width knife head. But the really big factor is time saved by eliminating the need to change knives. This same formula will work for cost comparison of any type of insert cutterhead. Some cutterheads have only two sharp sides on their insert, so the longevity of the cutters will not be as great, and the HSS cutters will be less so. Some benchtop planers have insert knives that aren’t capable of being sharpened, so the cost factor for sharpening is moot, but the knives typically cost about $80 (two sharp sides) and the cost factor will simply be replacement of the disposable knives. At a cost of $40 per sharp edge, the savings with a replacement insert cutterhead is even better (10 times longevity for the carbide = 40 sharp edges on disposable knives = 20 sets of blades = $1,600)." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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