I have been lusting after a larger jointer for a while now. When I got into
woodworking a year and a half ago I bought a 6" GI which, while it served its
purpose well, I often found myself ripping boards then prepping them and gluing them
back up. I always figured one day I would get a 10" (perhaps an Oliver or such),
but when the Grizzly came out with the 586 last year it got me thinking. Then
when I saw the 490 I couldn't resist and ordered one at the beginning of this year.
It arrived late Wednesday. It was delivered by Fedex who were
great. They had a pallet jack and wheeled it right into my garage.
The jointer arrived in 2 boxes. A cardboard box contained the base (with motor attached,
pedestal switch, and wheel assembly. The other was a solidly built wooden crate, with the jointer
bed bolted to the bottom and the fence and the rest of the parts packaged securely in thick
styrofoam. The first thing I noticed was that this seemed to be packaged very well.
Now before I go on (and people see the rest of the pictures) let me explain. LOML agreed that one
of the cars would now go outside and free up shop room so I didn't have to wheel this beast
around. 2 nights before the jointer arrived a neighbors car was broken into during the night,
so LOML insisted that I put the car back in the garage for a few nights. But it is headed back
outside very soon.
After putting the base together and opening up the crate I tried to lift the bed to see how heavy
the bed assembly was and was shocked that I could not lift it on one side by myself (no I did not lift
from the end of the table), so I started walking the neighborhood to enlist the neighbors for help.
I found 2 other dads (who were kinda excited to check out the new toy) and we tried to lift. That is
when one of them noticed that the bed was bolted to the bottom of the box (which I was standing on
when trying to lift it initially), boy did I feel like an idiot. After removing the shipping bolts the
three of us were easily able to lift the bed onto the stand (2 relatively strong people should have no
problem with this).
Putting the jointer together was a very simple and straightforward process which should take about an
hour and a half working at a moderate pace. All of the predrilled holes were right on the money and all of
the attachments were accurate and easy to align. After an hour or so everything was assembled and
with only the wiring left to do, at which point my services were required elsewhere for dinner with the
family, correcting homework, bedtime stories etc. so the final wiring had to wait until last night (the
kids bedrooms are directly above the garage so once they are in bed work in the shop has to cease.
During assembly I noticed the following -
The finished parts of the castings looked good. The bed had a few (very small)
cosmetic scratches, but the fence was very nice. By cosmetic I mean that you couldn't see any gaps under
a straightedge and you could not feel the scratch with your finger, it was only visible, the bed in general
has been ground to a very nice smooth flat finish.
The bed and fence were dead on true (as checked with a straightedge not a dial indicator). It was nice
to see that the fence was very true when set at 90 degrees along its entire length. My previous jointer
(which was a very nice machine for a 6") had a first fence which was not true. If I set it to 90 at the middle
with a square, the ends of the fence were out of alignment by about 1/16th of an inch. General replaced
that fence with one that was better but it was still not completely true. It is nice to see that Grizzly
produced such a large fence that is true across its entire length (oh yeah did I mention how tall the fence is,
this will be REALLY nice when edge jointing). The unfinished parts of the casting on the sides of the bed
are comparable to other machines in this class that I have seen, however, the unfinished parts of the fence casting
were a little rougher,
Also one of the sides of the fence looked like it had an impression of the styrofoam on it. Not sure how
concerned I should be about this. Probably just contact Grizzly for some touch up paint. Just curious as
to how it got like that though.
The fence had some nice touches also which I cannot remember if they were also included on the DJ20. First is a
height scale on the outfeed side of the fence. Not sure how useful this is, but it will show the dimensioned height
of the board after a jointing pass, so nice touch Grizzly.
Also a decal is attached to the top of the fence which indicates where the cutterhead is. Again not sure
if this is a carryover of the DJ20 but this is a useful touch for me as I marked the top of my old fence
with a pen so I knew where to start applying pressure when switching over hands on a longer jointing operation.
Overall, the Fence assembly is exactly like the DJ20 in respects to how it is adjusted and tightened. Not sure
how much I like this over a more traditional fence setup, only time will tell. The one thing I immediately noticed
is that when I use the adjusters to set it back to 90 it is dead on (this is nice). The sliding mechanism is very smooth.
Since I leave the fence at 90 deg most of the time and just slide the fence back and forth, I am very pleased with the
smooth sliding action. One last note when attaching the fence to the bed assembly. When attaching the fence base
sliding support be sure to make it level with the table on both sides before tightening the screws. If you just attach it
before looking at how the slider mounts to it, you will probably set it too low and have to redo it (DAMHIKT).
Another word about assembly is when you put the belt on. The vertical mounts for the motor have 3 or 4 long slots predrilled
into the rails (see below). When mounting the belt you are supposed to loosen the screws which hold the horizontal motor
mount bars to the vertical ones, then push the motor up, loop the belt onto the flywheel and then lower the motor. The
problem is that the motor comes mounted so that the cross members are bolted into the vertical supports at the top of
one of the slots, so it cannot be raised without moving the horizontal mounts to the next slot on the vertical support.
However once the belt is on you need to slide it down so it is positioned on the lower slot to properly tension the belt.
So I had to leave it in the lower slot and muscle the belt around (and this took some serious effort) then adjust the horizontal
mounts downward. My advice would be to just buy a link belt and size it so it is easy to attach the belt when the
horizontal mounts are at the top of a vertical slot and then adjust downward. The other thing I noticed was that the vertical
supports had a slight bow to them. Not sure if this is intentional as both sides looked like they had the same amount of bend,
and the top of the stand is level, but it does look strange.
On the Bed Assembly the book list some steps which involve attaching parts which are already attached
at the factory, like the rabbetting ledge, which was a nice surprise.
One other surprise during assembly was that the unit came with a preattached cord. Usually units running on 220 do not
have this, and in fact when I talked to a Grizzly rep on this before ordering he checked and informed me that it would not
come with a cord. I had to detach the cord anyway to attach a longer one I had already made to fit the twist lock plug I had
installed, so this did not matter, except that I was able to see how the old one was wired into the magnetic switch box. That
was nice and reassuring when you are as electrically inept as I am. For anyone wanting to use the stock plug, I have attached
picture below (sorry bout the low quality photos, as my good camera is having trouble, so I had to use our lower quality "travel"
camera). The plug has 2 horizontal prongs and a ground.
To complete the talk about fit and finish there were a few other points. Everything looked and felt very nice. However, the
stickers which spell out the model number were not even. Note the offkilter 9. Again this is nothing that will affect the
performance of the unit, so I really dont care. The attachment of a real plackard for the Grizzly monogram was very nice
in light of how most manufacturers just attach stickers these days.
All the handles and knobs are big and easy to grab. This is an area where Grizzly really did a nice job of keeping
with the DJ20's good points.
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Just kiddin!! Hey how smooth did the infeed table go up and down, was it as smooth as the DJ 20? Also, what are your thoughts about that sweet infeed table length? Boy, I can't wait for mine. You guys on the west coast have it made being so close to China
Thanks for the Grizzly story and photos. Looks like a great new tool. 