Why buy European machines?

[Chris Fournier]

Quite frankly North America gave up developing woodworking machinery long ago, say the 1940's. Asian stuff is usually a copy built to a price, and by copy I mean where the North Americans gave up and the Europeans continue. Europeans have stayed at the forefront and continued to design our equipment using the best materials and production methods to deliver the finest performing equipment there is. At a price. Buy one. Set it up and inspect it. Use it. You will have your answer.

[Joe Calhoon]

Nice Rick! Did you ever determine if the inserts for the Xplane head are proprietary to Martin or can standard inserts be used! I think a big advantage of these is being able to return to settings very accurate and repeatable. Buss and the big iron planers are good if you are processing a lot of material daily. And better for rough lumber. The 24" euro planers are good for large and small shops that process a lot of different materials and sizes, smaller batch sizes and are generally fussy about facing and accuracy. They can be had with steel rollers if you plane just rough lumber.

I like the electronics especially with aging eyes. It does require a different skill set to trouble shoot these machines. So you either need to learn this or have a electric guy that understands modern control systems. Unfortunately most house electricians do not understand these controls. When we set up the shop in Bhutan with Griggio we ordered the most non electronic possible but still most of the movements are servo controled with digital readouts. Electronic brakes, inverters all the servos, safety cutouts and the such are nice but make the electronics more complex.

I enjoyed rebuilding my vintage Martin T23 but the reality is it does not hold a candle to the newer shapers in my shop for quickness of setup, repeatability and accuracy. Most OWWM is not practical for the majority of modern woodworking business and more the realm of hobby woodworkers who like to rebuild and have the time. I do like the old iron for what I consider school shop machines like edge, disk and spindle sanders, bandsaws and the such. This of course is my own opinion and sure many disagree. I would agree with Chris above in that North America has not had any innovation in woodworking since the 40s. The craft in Europe never died and this is evident when you visit the schools there.

[Rick Fisher]

Hey Joe..

The cutters appear to be Byrd.. 15x15x2.5 .. These are marked Xplane, but I'm pretty sure they're just Tigra knives, easy to find. I planed some wood with it tonight.. its an exceptional machine. Easy to calibrate, dead accurate and repeatable. The cutterhead is good, I don't see it as much different than a Byrd.. Nice and quiet, no scream.

[peter gagliardi]

So, they are the standard 15 x15 turnblade style- 4 cutting edges? The head looks to be a much better piece of machining/engineering than a Byrd head. How does the planed board look in a raking light? Some people complain of seeing the small scallops with insert style heads- any brand, but I have not noticed it hardly if at all with the Weinig chicklet style head I use on my shaper.
I am sure it will serve you well.
I have heard from Tersa users about fairly short knife life- I think due to the tiny amount of steel not being able to take and dissipate the heat well. I have Terminus in my planer, and those knives when sharp cut really well, but do not last as long as the old style regular head steel knives did.

[Joe Calhoon]

Peter, have you tried the carbide Terminus inserts? A local guy here runs those and likes them. His Terminus heads take inserts for rounding, back out etc like my T90 four sider does. You wont get any life out of HSS Tersa either, carbide or coated is the way to go on those.
I look at it like sawblades, I would never consider using steel sawblades anymore.

[peter gagliardi]

Joe, I do have some of the carbide in the jointer and planer. Better for sure, but cut quality not quite as keen as steel. Still assessing life to determine best cost/life ratio.
The planer and jointer heads do not have the provision for "combi style" milling like their specialty molder/shaper heads do.
I would really like to visit a shop running the spiral head to see how much of a noise reduction there is.
Of course, old iron had less than zero thought about this in the early days, that is one of the immense benefits of the newer engineering on these machines.
Softwoods in the older machines mill with a fairly quiet "buzz" . Full width hardwoods, not so much!

[Andrew J. Coholic]

Joe, I do have some of the carbide in the jointer and planer. Better for sure, but cut quality not quite as keen as steel. Still assessing life to determine best cost/life ratio.
The planer and jointer heads do not have the provision for "combi style" milling like their specialty molder/shaper heads do.
I would really like to visit a shop running the spiral head to see how much of a noise reduction there is.
Of course, old iron had less than zero thought about this in the early days, that is one of the immense benefits of the newer engineering on these machines.
Softwoods in the older machines mill with a fairly quiet "buzz" . Full width hardwoods, not so much!

Peter, there is so much of a noise reduction, its hard to explain until youve tried both.

I would never, ever go back to a straight knife planer or jointer... ever. WHen I revisit my shop I sold 6 years ago, I cant even stand to go back into the shop when theyre planing hardwood anymore. My planer has 6 rows of 30mm wide knives, staggered. The cut quality is excellent and easy to remove with one pass through the widebelt, or even by hand with a ROS.

Just for the noise reduction, it is worth every penny IMO, never mind the 10x further between sharpenings/blade swapping.

[Joe Calhoon]

The same shop using Terminus heads in their moulder has a SCM Class planer with a spiral that they ran for me. It is really quiet! And I did not see any scallops in the finish. My Tersa planer and jointer always get comments on how quiet they are but the SCM was noticeably quieter. I still prefer the Tersa for the quick change. I changed and cleaned all 4 heads in the T90 the other day and only took 15 minutes. If not cleaning only takes less than a minute per head.

With Tersa the carbide and coated knives make a better cut than HSS. Maybe the Terminus angles and thickness are different.

[Rick Fisher]

The older Griggio had a Tersa head.. The cut quality for the first hour was spectacular. Then it would start to degrade, and get louder and louder.

This planer leaves "smooth marks" .. I dunno how else to explain it .. in the surface .. I could sand them out in seconds with 220.. I run most everything through a sander anyway .. so I don't really care.. Its not a bad surface, its "the" surface helical heads often leave behind.

[Larry Edgerton]

As far as "electronic" concerns??? What year is this boys?

And that is relative how?

[Darcy Warner]

nothing like a plc taking a dump and turning a 50k compressor into a boat anchor.

[Erik Loza]

Stiles was just in here replacing a controller on our basically brand-new four-head Butfering. Under warranty, of course. I overheard the tech say something to the effect of, "Looks like some sawdust got in there". Point being that "newness", "price tag", and "country of origin" are no guarantee against electronic issues.

Erik

[Chris Hachet]

All depends on space and what wood a person processes.

My used Unisaw was $700 after adding a retro riving knife. 8" Grizzly spiral was $700 used. 16" Powermatic planer $800 after installing VFD to power it. Incra router table + Bosch router & 100 bits $800.

Only thing I bought new so far was a ridigid spindle sander.

German sliders or all in one machines do seem like a good value when pricing things at retail.

This is a lot closer to my approach.

[Larry Edgerton]

Stiles was just in here replacing a controller on our basically brand-new four-head Butfering. Under warranty, of course. I overheard the tech say something to the effect of, "Looks like some sawdust got in there". Point being that "newness", "price tag", and "country of origin" are no guarantee against electronic issues.

Erik

Did you happen to ask how much that repair would cost if the machine was out of warranty?

[Warren Lake]

I can be in the Guiness book of Records for sawdust in my computer. every six months of so I might blow it out if im getting someone to look at it. When I blow it out there is a dust storm. You have wonder why electronics fails in machinery, is it dust then why has that not been designed out of it. Wonder if its vibration ive tortured two computers and the dust hasnt done a thing so far, of course it probably will tomorrow since I stated that.