Hi group,
I'm a newbie that discovered this forum a month or so back and have gotten alot out of it, thanks for being such a great bunch of contributers.
Like a lot of you, I've had my eye on the G0490 jointer and finally ordered it. It arrived yesterday. After hearing about others' experiences with Grizzly, and taking all that with a grain of salt, I was a little unsure of what to expect.
The shipping crates looked fine from the outside, no obvious damage. The jointer bed cleaned up with some mineral spirits but I made the mistake of getting some of it on the newly painted sides of the bed and my cleaning rag turned green. (dunce cap please) It didn't mark the paint too bad, but it's noticeable and I think also fixable. The "bed lip" is an aluminum piece directly attached to the bed where it meets the cutter head. One of these had been struck from the side by something with an edge which dented it and left a raised burr on the top side. It's small and can probably be filed down without issue.
The real problem was with the cabinet base. The slotted vertical bars that the horizontal bars bolt to, along with the motor itself, were badly bent, cracking the paint and breaking the weld on one of them. For the size and weight of motor that they're holding, not enough is done to brace and immobilize the thing during shipment. There is a 2x4 cable tied to the assmbly to brace for downward loads, but nothing for side to side or if the box is dropped wile on its side.
The good news is that as I expected, the Grizzly rep happily took care of it for me and is getting a new cabinet sent to me in 1 week. He said that they may not even ask for the damaged one to be returned, so maybe I'll end up with a spare motor and electrical box.
I hope to be happily up and running in a week.
David