I have spent several days through the holiday season and this week assembling a new Sawstop PCS and Grizzly G0490 Parallelogram Jointer.
I'll post a pic or two to the workshop forum after the weekend, but it been such a learning process I thought maybe if I posted some thoughts and observations (one guy's ramblings!!!) it might spark some advice from the wiser woodworkers on SMC.
1) Having worked through the issues of receiving the machines...took more than one attempt to get a lift gate truck with jointer. I paid a few movers to ferry the parts through the bilco doors and down the steep steps into my basement. Some of the best money I've spent yet.
2) I had never put a machine together...it has been a very good experience...if they make clean precise cuts this process will become a major confidence builder. I rigged up a hoist-crane with parts borrowed from Harbor Freight (they have a great return policy!) and, pending set-up tool arrival, will get down to brass tacks on alignment, calibration, and tuning. I am going in to enjoy the journey.
3) I totally expect to spend the next several days squinting at measuring devices! Even as a total newbie to machinery setup (heck, I'm still pretty new to woodworking) I expect that any machine would require painstaking attention to detail in set-up. So much of woodworking "seems" (again my newbie status has me backing off authoritative generalizations) to be about developing tools, processes and work habits that deliver predictable results. Measure twice cut once right? I am surprised to see (certainly not all) many posts expressing desire to have everything correct upon unpacking...and making the quality of a tool at least partially based on its calibration at arrival.
3) Given the above...it really is amazing to compare and contrast the experiences of putting together these different machines. The SawStop is packed and packaged like the folks at NASA had a hand in it! Color coded cards that match the blister-packed hardware and tools for each assembly system (fence/rails in red, Tables in blue, mobile base gray, ext.) Each and every instruction has a clear reason WHY you're doing it, how you'll know when its done right (or wrong), how it fits in the overall scheme...and several color photos from various angles! Some steps are marked with cautions of importance.
4) Grizzly G0490 is a bit more of an adventure. Instead of NASA engineers, I think Carl Spackler (Caddyshack anyone?) packed it. Just getting the iron off the crate was a physical maneuver. The hardware was one greasy jumble in a baggy that thudded onto the floor when I unpacked the base. I can't knock though, because if it safely, predictably makes my boards S2 on command then that's what I bought it for. Its like a proud dad and two very different children.
4) Grrizly tech support was nice enough, if a bit dry, on the phone today. The dude on the other end of the line seemed genuinely surprised that was asking how I'd know If I had the motor and cutter head pulleys were accurately aligned. (Plumb bob it he said!) And even more surprised when I asked if was any issue that the motor mount bolts were touching the cooling fins of the motor itself when tightened. (no. Really, thats all he said, "no.") I thought for a minute about the fact that nothing inside the SawStop's cabinet needed my paws on it...and considered asking why the jointer's motor wasn't mounted to...the motor mounts...instead of some other place that had me and the LOML playing twister -- each with one foot inside a beige and green tool stand -- while I cradled a 3HP motor tethered to some other piece of sharp metal and aligned before shipment. I didn't...I had to get back to the basement!!
5) Is it just me...or is there is a kind of gap in the published literature...some seems to barely skim machinery set-up...and is mostly all about the next plywood-by-router shelf project. Other's get into it (FWW/PW) but the focus is more often than not about table saws and band saws. Perhaps even if it did make for interesting reading (which it likely doesn't), could any article really capture the tedium of making micro adjustments while something else moves slightly?
6) There is always another blade, bit, fitting, or tool isn't there? something that needs to be purchased...too late now...
Matt
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Originally Posted by Adam Carl
