8" Steel City Jointer with granite tables and spiral cutter head

[Michael Pankow]

Hi guys! This is my first post although I have been a log time voyeur of this forum. I have great respect for the knowledge that shows up here and I guess felt somewhat intimidated to join as I am relatively junior hobby wood worker. My passion is in furniture building. With that being said I am finally going to upgrade my HF jointer to an 8" helical cutter head jointer. From my research I have narrowed the field to two. Grizzly C0656PX and Steel City 40660 (http://www.steelcitytoolworks.com/in...ical-head.html). I am attracted to the Steel City jointer as I like the thought of the granite tables not to mention it is about $200 less than the Grizzly. My concern with the Steel city is that I cannot find any real reviews on that jointer. Things like durability of the tables, does it hold the alignment, quality of the motor, support from the company, etc... I have read that a few years ago there was concern about Steel City's viability as a company but they are still around today. I was hoping somebody on this forum would have first hand knowledge of this particular jointer and could help with my final decision. Thanks in advance.

[eugene thomas]

I can't for life of me see why person would want stone bed for jointer.

[Jack Jackson]

Preface: I don't own either one of those jointers (or any jointer for that matter), but I'm sort of "in the market" like yourself. My $0.02 - go for the Grizzly. I've looked for info about the Steel City as well and found squat. Grizzly on the other hand has pretty good customer service reviews as well as equipment reviews in general. That's worth the $200 in my book...

[Terry Beadle]

Mr. Thomas... I think the idea of using granite is that it can be milled to a few 10 thousandths of a inch in flatness. That's why when you buy a granite machinist block it comes with the measurements of the flat surface in 10 thou increments.

Also, it can be thicker than the cast iron bed pieces and cheaper. The cast iron also can move after milling where as the granite doesn't move much at all.

That being said, the proof is in the putting ( pudding ...hoot! ). By that I mean you set up your jointer as close to ( for example ) making a 90 degree corner and dead flat surface. You check it with a proven square on the work piece and adjust the jointer until your "dynamic" test proves true. If you put the square against the fence and on the bed, on most lower priced jointers you'll find it produces dynamic proof but will still show 'light' on the square's edges. Lucky for us wood workers, our working tolerances are much less than the 10 thou range of control.

Enjoy the shavings !

[Earl Rumans]

The Grizzly has both good and bad reviews, as far as initially delivered quality goes. The thing about the Steel City is the cutter head only has 16 knives and they are 2 sided, not the standard 4 sided knife. I am not sure how good of a job the head would do with only 16 knives. I also am not sure about the longevity of Steel City as a surviving Company. They have greatly reduced the products they offer and their web site now tells you to get pricing and order from a dealer. Very few dealers are available that carry Steel City. At least with Grizzly you know they will be around in the future for parts.

[eugene thomas]

Well maybe just old school but few years ago was in store that had granite top table saw with nice chip in the top.

[Mike McCann]

I have a steel city band saw with the granite talbe for about 6 years now have not had a problems with it

[Brett Robson]

I have one of the 8" SC granite jointers. It's not a bad tool, but if I had to do it again, I'd buy a Grizzly.

Mine was ridiculously out of alignment out of the crate. I had to spend some time with tech support and ultimately remove the granite from the infeed, which is a huge pain, to make the adjustments to level the granite. Actually I had to do it twice. The first time I did it I didn't have a long enough level to align the tables accurately, so a few weeks later I had to take it all apart and do it again with a new, longer level.

The granite, once aligned, is really nice. It's nearly 2" thick and dead-flat. I like that the fence is very long and also straight. I've had no issues with the motor, it seems strong and runs quiet and the stand is nicely powder coated. Mine has their version of a helical head, which is ok, but not a whole lot better than straight knives. It's odd that I have the same head in my planer and have almost no tearout. In the jointer it's nowhere near as good. I'll probably buy a Byrd head at some point.

In dealing with the company, the tech support guy I dealt with was responsive and helpful. The company's alive and well, at least from what I've read about them recently. They've managed to survive a recession and a major shake up in their management and supply chain which resulted in them losing many of their retailers back in 2008/9-ish.

The quality of the machine, apart from the factory assembly, is good. After 5 SC machines I've come to suspect their factory assembly is performed by a bunch of blind chimpanzees. Every one of my SC tools has required major adjustments and disassembly of "factory aligned" parts to get them in proper working order.

I've kept buying them as I've been happy with their performance after I get the bugs worked out and they sell at a price point I can afford. I've accepted that any new tool of theirs will require quite a bit of work to get them squared away. If you're ok with that, then they're not a bad choice and represent a good value.

Like I said, if I had to do it again though, I'd buy the Grizzly jointer. If you buy a SC one and it's out of whack, which it probably will be, adjusting the granite is a huge pain. You have to remove the fence, drop the belts, unbolt the machine from the base, remove the outfeed handwheel, then find a strong friend to help lift and move the machine forward until it's hanging off the base. Then you get to lay on your back with a long allen key on a ratchet with about 8" of extensions to remove the attachment bolts near the cutterhead. Next you stick a big screwdriver blindly into the darkness and try to turn a collar to lift or lower the front edge of the granite. Then adjust the tail end. Then move the front end again. Then the back end again. You get the point.

Unless you find a screaming deal on one of them, I'd buy something else.

[Bill Space]

Hi,

If you do decide to go with the grizzly, consider one difference between the 656PX you're looking at and the G0490X model.

The one you're looking at has dovetail ways for raising and lowering the tables, whereas the 490X model has parallelogram adjustable beds. I understand that the parallelogram beds are easier to adjust, and that the other type requires shimming, which is more difficult, if adjustment is needed. I am referring to adjustments needed to make the beds coplanar, and not the normal movement upwards and downwards during use. During normal use, the handwheels of the 656 PX might make very small changes easier than the levers on the 490x, but I have not found this to be an issue personally (comparing to my old Craftsman 6" jointer).

Otherwise I think the specs between these two jointers, as far as use goes, are pretty identical. I bought a 490 X grizzly about a year ago and I am quite happy with it. If I recall correctly, I did have to make some minor adjustments to the tables to get them parallel and coplanar. The parallelogram adjustments were pretty easy to understand and to do.

Hope this is of some use to you…

Bill

[Joseph Fronio]

Was thinking hard over the grizzly, but went with a powermatic parallelogram. Love the ease of adjustability and the spiral head works awesome. Just heard stories about problems with grizzly quality control. Seems like you get a lot for your money with the grizz. Just my .02