HowardH
Member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2007
- Messages
- 1,572
Deciding it was time to move up in size for a planer, I sold my Hammer a3-31 and ordered a Griz GO454Z planer with the helical head. Unlike you may been told, :
size does matter, especially when it comes to woodworking machines! I originally paid for lift gate service but after a conversation with UPS freight, I find out their idea of lift gate service was to simply drop it off in front of my house and then adios. I had no way to get a 1000# machine into the garage which is the back of the house off an alley. Instead, I told them to leave it at the terminal and I hired another local service to pick it up and bring it to me. It was only $50 and Griz refunded my their lift gate fee so it was about a wash. However, they delivered it on a pallet which was underneath the skid the factory put it on. Uh oh... Now how am I going to get it off? As luck would have it, at that exact time a couple of guys came by to deliver some furniture and they were willing to help me remove it from the pallet. Best $40 tip I ever spent. This thing is massive! I had another thread asking about the electrical requirements and after reading the comments and listening to my electrician, I ran 10/2 wire from the panel to a new outlet with a 30 amp circuit. No issues with the breaker tripping. There wasn't much to assemble. Had to attach the front caster, the height adjustment wheel and the huge wings. It took my son and I to accomplish that. The wings weighed at least 50#'s. One interesting thing was it didn't come fully filled up with gear oil for the gear box. That necessitated a Walmart trip to buy a bottle of 90 weight oil. With the heilical head, it runs very quietly, all things considered. It came pretty well set up, really didn't need to adjust anything. It has two bed rollers that are vertically adjustable and I found that running a board straight through, it can hang up on the back edge of the slot of the first roller. I found by slightly skewing the angle of the board when it's started, it has no problem going through smoothly.
The fit and finish are great. The cast iron bed and tables came covered with oil that needed to be cleaned with a bit of WD-40.
[attachimg=1]
With casters, it moves remarkably easily. I don't think I'll be moving it very much but if I have to, it will be easy to accomplish.
[attachimg=2]
Here is why I got it. I am building wide cutting boards and having only a 12" planer simply doesn't cut it, so to speak. This pic shows a glue up I was only able to accomplish by having a 20" planer.
[attachimg=3]
The panels are 17" across and have to be perfectly flat in order to glue them like a sandwich. Before I got this machine, I tried to do this using an open ended Supermax sander. It's not even close! The sander left the boards slightly wavy. It took a couple of passes through the planer to truly get them flat. All in all, I can't imagine that a Jet or Powermatic that is almost $2000 more would have done this operation any better than this Griz. I suppose if you had a cabinet shop where it was running all day it makes sense to be able to get local service but that's not an issue I have. In a couple of weeks, I plan on ordering an 8" HH jointer as well. If you are considering a big planer, you may want to consider this one. I was a little worried about shipping damage and quality control but those fears disappeared once I got to get it assembled and operational. I also ordered a Wixey digital planer gauge as I hate to always be pulling out my calipers and having to guess how much take off.
size does matter, especially when it comes to woodworking machines! I originally paid for lift gate service but after a conversation with UPS freight, I find out their idea of lift gate service was to simply drop it off in front of my house and then adios. I had no way to get a 1000# machine into the garage which is the back of the house off an alley. Instead, I told them to leave it at the terminal and I hired another local service to pick it up and bring it to me. It was only $50 and Griz refunded my their lift gate fee so it was about a wash. However, they delivered it on a pallet which was underneath the skid the factory put it on. Uh oh... Now how am I going to get it off? As luck would have it, at that exact time a couple of guys came by to deliver some furniture and they were willing to help me remove it from the pallet. Best $40 tip I ever spent. This thing is massive! I had another thread asking about the electrical requirements and after reading the comments and listening to my electrician, I ran 10/2 wire from the panel to a new outlet with a 30 amp circuit. No issues with the breaker tripping. There wasn't much to assemble. Had to attach the front caster, the height adjustment wheel and the huge wings. It took my son and I to accomplish that. The wings weighed at least 50#'s. One interesting thing was it didn't come fully filled up with gear oil for the gear box. That necessitated a Walmart trip to buy a bottle of 90 weight oil. With the heilical head, it runs very quietly, all things considered. It came pretty well set up, really didn't need to adjust anything. It has two bed rollers that are vertically adjustable and I found that running a board straight through, it can hang up on the back edge of the slot of the first roller. I found by slightly skewing the angle of the board when it's started, it has no problem going through smoothly. The fit and finish are great. The cast iron bed and tables came covered with oil that needed to be cleaned with a bit of WD-40.
[attachimg=1]
With casters, it moves remarkably easily. I don't think I'll be moving it very much but if I have to, it will be easy to accomplish.
[attachimg=2]
Here is why I got it. I am building wide cutting boards and having only a 12" planer simply doesn't cut it, so to speak. This pic shows a glue up I was only able to accomplish by having a 20" planer.
[attachimg=3]
The panels are 17" across and have to be perfectly flat in order to glue them like a sandwich. Before I got this machine, I tried to do this using an open ended Supermax sander. It's not even close! The sander left the boards slightly wavy. It took a couple of passes through the planer to truly get them flat. All in all, I can't imagine that a Jet or Powermatic that is almost $2000 more would have done this operation any better than this Griz. I suppose if you had a cabinet shop where it was running all day it makes sense to be able to get local service but that's not an issue I have. In a couple of weeks, I plan on ordering an 8" HH jointer as well. If you are considering a big planer, you may want to consider this one. I was a little worried about shipping damage and quality control but those fears disappeared once I got to get it assembled and operational. I also ordered a Wixey digital planer gauge as I hate to always be pulling out my calipers and having to guess how much take off.
