Byrd Head worth the money?

[Keith Blaszak]

Let me start off by saying hi since i'm new to the boards. I'm just getting into woodworking and i've just "finished" building the shop that i'll be using to renovate my old 1903 Village Colonial.

I guess my question is this: are the Byrd spiral cutting heads really worth the cash to upgrade from HSS? I currently have Grizzly 8" Jointer and a Dewalt 735 13 inch planner that I could upgrade. Also on a side note does anyone know what the associated cost is for the byrd carbide blades?

[Ed Labadie]

I bought my first Byrd head equipped machine a few months ago, a PM15 planer.
IMO, they are worth every penny! No blade change hassles, no wondering "how bad will this board tear out?"......

I ran some Hickory glue-ups through fro a friend, they came out 99.9% tear-out free. No wear or adverse effects on the knives. With HSS knives, they would have been ready for a re-grind, not to mention what the finish would have looked like...
Ed

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Keith,

Welcome to the Creek.

Is the Byrd head worth it? I suppose that's a decision everyone has to make for themself.

I am getting ready to drop the hammer on a Grizzly 8" jointer and I am going to spend the extra bucks and get it with the Grizzly version of the Byrd head. When I am in the middle of doing a project, I don't want to be spending time messing with a blade alignment. Consequently, I see a Grizzly 0490X in my immediate future.

[Nathan Palenski]

The difference between the byrd and shelix is the orientation of the cutters to rotation axis, right?

[Cary Falk]

They are worth it to me because I hate changing blades. I put one in my 8" shop fox jointer and am waiting to pull the trigger on a 15" planer with one. It would not be worth it to me to put it in a lunchbox planer. I have a lunch box and it already has quick change knives. The cutters run about $4 each.

[Jim Terrill]

The difference between the byrd and shelix is the orientation of the cutters to rotation axis, right?

Last I knew, Byrd IS shelix, unless I'm mistaken.

[Myk Rian]

The difference between the byrd and shelix is the orientation of the cutters to rotation axis, right?

Byrd Shelix.

I put one on my DW735. It's worth it.
Cutters are about $30 for a pack of 10.

[Ben Abate]

Well, you asked didn't you. my .02 cents worth....

[Greg Portland]

Is everyone working with exotics and figured woods?

Ben, here's the reasons people go with a Shelix-style head:

- Less tear out that -most- other planer heads / blades
- Less feed resistance (on a jointer this is nice)
- If you hit a nail then you're only replacing 3-4 carbide teeth which will run you ~$15 vs a new set of blades (yes you could shift the standard blades).
- The initial surface finish is better resulting in -less- sanding (does NOT eliminate sanding). This is due to the head geometry, not carbide vs HSS.
- Carbide stays sharp longer (especially with certain hard woods aka Teak)

Most of these issues can be mitigated on "old" cutter heads with careful stock selection and slow feed rates.

[Joey Jarrard]

The Byrd heads are worth there weight in gold. The company is top notch too. I have them run all my cut samples before each show to make the blanks look like new money before we rout in to them. This is a tool that will pay for its self.

[Ben Abate]

I'll stay out of this from here on.

Ben

Ben, here's the reasons people go with a Shelix-style head:

- Less tear out that -most- other planer heads / blades
- Less feed resistance (on a jointer this is nice)
- If you hit a nail then you're only replacing 3-4 carbide teeth which will run you ~$15 vs a new set of blades (yes you could shift the standard blades).
- The initial surface finish is better resulting in -less- sanding (does NOT eliminate sanding). This is due to the head geometry, not carbide vs HSS.
- Carbide stays sharp longer (especially with certain hard woods aka Teak)

Most of these issues can be mitigated on "old" cutter heads with careful stock selection and slow feed rates.

[Van Huskey]

Am I the only one that is working with decent wood? Is everyone working with exotics and figured woods? I know I'm sounding a bit sarcastic here but I see so many guys concerned about a Byrd head or other take offs that you they might buy a better planner up front and not worry about it. ....

No matter how you slice it the the Byrd or knockoffs will save money in the long run. One side of the cutter heads will outlast straight blades though many sharpenings and unless you have Tersa or other quick set knives it will save you a LOT of time over the life of the cutter head. Helical heads are a revelation much like Festool for example, you can't get it fully until you use them.

To the OP I suggest getting to the top of your planned jointe/planer upgrade curve before getting a helical head for example, if you have the room I would get one of the ubiquitous 4 post 15" planer "clones" before I upgraded the head and if you have the money buy them up front together.

For me a helical head is a requirement and even with the accolades they garner I will not consider a Euro machine even with Tersa blades over a helical head machine.

[Aaron Wingert]

Ben you're looking at this wrong in my opinion. People aren't putting shelix heads in their machines because their machines are junk, they're putting shelix heads in them to get better performance from them than they can get from HSS blades in a standard head.

Same reason we use carbide router bits. They cut better, last longer, and cost more. We don't use them because our router was made in Taiwan or because our domestic router is sub-par. The carbide tool is just the better option.

As for the Taiwan comment, that is purely ridiculous and doesn't really warrant further argument. There are thousands of woodworkers on this forum that use Jet, Grizzly, Delta and other brands of tools from Asian manufacturers with great success and satisfaction. By your logic, the high-end domestic and European tools don't warrant or wouldn't benefit from shelix cutterheads, assumably due to better tolerances. Pooey.

Either way, I think it is wrong to call out those that supposedly compensate for their lack of experience or knowledge about how to use a planer by putting a nice upgrade on the machine.

[Keith Blaszak]

Well I want to thank everyone for all the responses I appriciate all of the feedback with the different view points.

Ben,
I see what you mean and this is actually the exact reason I posted to begin with. Just to put things in perspective the price I picked up the DW735 for was $370.00 (like new off of CL) and the Byrd Cutter head would be approx $450.00. This brings the total up to $820.00, my problem when choosing a planner initially was that I couldn't find any decent floorbased models that were in my price range (I was trying to stay away from the ($1200.00 - $1700.00 range).

I guess I wasn't sure if adding the Byrd cutter head (given the pricetag) was a complete waste of time since alot of people view the DW735 as disposable.


On a side note I've been using the DW735 which i've sunk into my 11' long island work bench for months and I couldn't be happier. Being completely new at planning I almost never have any snipe and I'm assuming thats a good thing given how new I am at this. If I was to upgrade I guess it would be to save time and money long term replacing / swapping out the hss blades.

[glenn bradley]

The one on my jointer took care of a lot of tearout issues with figured woods. The knifed planer still tears out now and again and of course, always at the worst possible time.

I am having a hard time justifying a spiral insert head for the lunchbox planer and plan to spend a bit more and go floor standing. I am still early in that process and have not ruled out a wider combo machine. Seems a shame to pay for that wide spiral head and only get to use it one way ;-)