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Thread: Installed Byrd helical cutterhead in DJ-30 jointer (w/pics)

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Installed Byrd helical cutterhead in DJ-30 jointer (w/pics)

    Hello everyone,

    I was getting very tired of tearout on my jointer; so about two months ago I ordered a Byrd Shelix helical carbide insert cutterhead for my jointer. We sell helical cutterhead jointers at work and I have had a chance to play with a few. I was impressed with fact you could feed the board in any direction and get no tear out. Delivery on the cutterhead was a little over 8 weeks.



    Taking the old cutterhead out was a pretty simple affair. Remove jointer fence (two bolts), remove cutterhead drive belts, lower tables, remove the bolt for each bearing pillow block and slip the cutterhead out the rear of the jointer.



    I took the old cutterhead to work and with a bearing puller removed the drive pulley and pillow blocks with bearings.





    Over to a hydraulic shop press to press the bearings out of the pillow blocks,



    One of the four cutterhead bearings was a little wonky, so I bought four new ones. As a habit I simply do not reuse bearings. When going to this much trouble it is cheap insurance to replace them all now rather than later.

    The easy part was over, one of these is not like the other.

    The DJ-30 cutterhead that Byrd sent me did not match mine. Opps. I waited over two months for them to make me this cutterhead, and while it was close to the original, it was not going to work as built.

    On each end of the original cutterhead there were fine left hand threads cut for ring nuts that threaded onto each end of the shaft to hold the pulley in place on one side (the pulley is on a keyway, but no set screws) and on the other side to hold the bearings in place.

    What I was sent did not have any threads on the outside ends of the shaft, but instead, had M10x1.5 left hand tapped holes in each end of the shaft. As anyone who has tried would know, trying to find left hand metric bolts is a tad hard.

    Hmmm.... What to do....

    I called Byrd and they were not as helpful as I would have hoped. I was told they had made several DJ-30 cutterheads like the one they sent me and not had any problems. I faxed them the parts breakdown for a DJ-30 from the Delta web site that clearly shows ring nuts on the ends of the shaft, not bolts. They did send me a drawing of what they were going to make me, and I checked critical sizes like overall diameter, overall cutting surface length, bearing shaft diameter, etc. I just didn’t realize I had to strip my machine down to compare the fine details of how the bearings were held in. It looked like I was on my own on this one.

    Fortunately I have access to the services of a very good local machine shop that does excellent work. I took both cutterheads over to the machine shop to see what could be done to salvage this. Bill (machine shop owner) sat on it for a few days (not literally) to talk it over with his brother and a few other shop guys to figure out the best way to make the cutterhead I was sent work in my jointer. He called me wondering why the pulley side had a left hand nut? It would self loosen, not self tighten, why was it not a right hand thread? The non-pulley side made sense as a left hand thread, but the pulley side did not. He asked if the Byrd head had to be made to be exactly like the original cutterhead; as it was going to be rather hard to cut such fine left handed threads through a keyway. I said it didn't really matter to me how the bearings and pulley were held in, I just wanted it to work. He was happy with that answer as that allowed him to use a new standard right hand bearing retaining ring nut for the pulley side, as that was much easier to accomplish. For the non-pulley side, the shaft was shorter than the original and there was no room to cut threads for the ring nut. Bill made a left hand metric M10x1.5 bolt to hold the bearings on on that end. Bill also pressed on the new bearings into the pillow blocks and onto the cutterhead assembling it for me, making it ready to install back on the jointer.

    Most shops won’t even look at oddball stuff like this. When you take things in for “one off” custom work you really don't know how much it is going to cost and you can be at the shops mercy when it comes to price. When Bill called to let me know the head was done, I asked him how much it would be, he said, "I don't know, how about a hundred bucks?” I said, "That will be fine, what kind of beer do you drink?". So, for a case of Coors Light (shudder) and $100, the cutterhead was saved.

    Time to reinstall the cutterhead, just the reverse of taking it out,



    Cutterhead installed,



    Raise tables back up, adjust outfeed table level with top of cutterhead arc and spin by hand to be sure the cutterhead isn’t going to whack into a casting or some other part of the jointer and self-destruct. Nope, spins by hand fine.

    Time to plug jointer in and fire it up.

    I looked in my offcut pile for a gnarly piece of ash. I find one with a big knot, huge curl and grain reversal. As I fed the board through the jointer it felt different and sounded much quieter, none of those nasty tear out sounds a jointer makes when you know big chunks are being torn out of the board.

    After facing and edging the board I examine it, *ZERO* tearout on what would have been a mess with the old strait knifed cutterhead. Even my Dad who was helping me was impressed.

    Check out the board,



    The Byrd cutterhead wasn’t the plug and play replacement it was supposed to be, but I am very happy with the end result.

    I wonder if I should get one for my planer…

    David.

    Every neighborhood has one; in mine I’m him.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Thanks for the excellent pictorial on this. While it sounds like there were some interesting "complications", it also appears that all is well and the cut is very, very nice!
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Sterling CT
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    excellent write up... thanks for taking the time to share this with us. Looks like great performance on the new head.



    lou

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    I have been looking at these for my DJ-20. I envy you for your DJ-30!

    Nice write-up.

    Who did you buy from? I saw something on a thread a while back about buying directly from Byrd or from someone else. Does anyone remember that?

    I am beginning to think I really need one of these.
    Martin, Granbury, TX
    Student of the Shaker style

  5. #5
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    David...

    Thanks for writing this stuff up. I have always been an Oliver ITCH head supporter but I also understand the virtues of the byrd head. And now that you have one, a camera, micrometer and case of beer makes you my new best friend Remember I was kicked out of a furniture store because of the camera.

    I recently got a Brown & Sharpe BS-0 helical dividing head for my brown and sharpe milling machine along with two sets of helical lead index gears. It would be nice to know what the byrd index lead is on those insert rows. Also nice to know what a byrd index pocket looks like.

    The greatest advantage to this approach is that you dont need some very propriatary grinder like you do with the ITCH head. Instead, you just throw industry standard inserts at the problem. NICE!

    But it puzzles me that you had to go to this much effort to make the pig fly. Didnt byrd engineering offer you some form of recourse? And what about delta. Did they possiblely have an engineering change in the design where you had one version and byrd reverse engineered from another version? What did they tell you to do about this?

    But in the end, it did work out. That pagen grain sure looks nice! Now the only problem is you cannot use the rebate ledger to cut rebates. As Homer Simpson says... DOHHH!
    Last edited by Dev Emch; 04-14-2006 at 8:46 PM.
    Had the dog not stopped to go to the bathroom, he would have caught the rabbit.

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    London, Ontario
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    Quote Originally Posted by Martin Shupe
    Who did you buy from?
    The company I work for is a Byrd dealer, so technically, I bought direct.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dev Emch
    But it puzzles me that you had to go to this much effort to make the pig fly. Didnt byrd engineering offer you some form of recourse? And what about delta. Did they possiblely have an engineering change in the design where you had one version and byrd reverse engineered from another version? What did they tell you to do about this?
    Ummm... I had an uncomfortable conversation with the owner of Byrd that I don't wish to get into. Delta was unhelpful as well with regards to generational changes in DJ-30's (Brazil vs. Taiwan).

    I am not the sort of guy to stomp my feet and raise a huge fuss, I don't have time for that.

    I am more interested in getting things fixed with the least amount of fuss and muss. Taking the head to someone who I knew would fix it right the first time was the most expediant option, even if it came out of my pocket.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dev Emch
    But in the end, it did work out. That pagen grain sure looks nice! Now the only problem is you cannot use the rebate ledger to cut rebates. As Homer Simpson says... DOHHH!
    That is all I was looking for, getting a Byrd for my DJ-30 with as little fuss and muss as possible.

    Who on earth rebates on their jointer?

    P.S.

    Dev,

    I always enjoy reading your posts. There are not many people who are willing to do or spend what is required for the best, simply because it is the best, aside from simple utility. I think you and I might be similar in this vain.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Eisan
    I always enjoy reading your posts. There are not many people who are willing to do or spend what is required for the best, simply because it is the best, aside from simple utility. I think you and I might be similar in this vain.
    Its all a matter of prespective. I have have not bought much new stuff lately. Some consider the old iron the best ever made while others consider it a bunch of old machines bolted to pallets. Just depends on where your comming from.
    Had the dog not stopped to go to the bathroom, he would have caught the rabbit.

  8. #8
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    Rebates? Is that Canadian for rabbets?
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  9. #9
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    David,
    Nice job and thanks for posting the info! It's really too bad that you didn't get the kind of help from Byrd you hope for in situations like yours. Thankfully machine shops come in real handy when you need something unusual.

    It's a shame I don't have one of those slick little beauties. I recently purchased about 100bf of the most beautiful quilted/striped maple that just doesn't want to cooperate.

    Congrats! I hope you enjoy your newly upgraded jointer.

    Take care,
    Dick

  10. #10
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    David, thanks for posting this, with the problems and solutions you encountered.

    I am in the process of having Byrd make a 12" head for the jointer/planer on my Robland X-31. I hope I don't have the kind of problems you encountered, but at least I know that it is possible and it won't necessarily be my fault if some weird thing happens.

    I am somewhat disappointed with Byrd's response to your problem though and hope that through this forum they decide that perhaps it would be in their best interest to work with those such as you and possibly me in cases of one off heads. They make a good product and it would be a shame to see customer service be the downfall of such a product.

    Karl
    Creeker Visits. They're the best.

  11. #11
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    Each story has two sides usually, but it doesn't sound like Byrd is gonna get a gold star for service in this case, seems I've heard of this problem before.
    Hard to say when you may not have all the facts, but from your post it doesn't sound like Byrd will be getting a gold star for customer service...

    Unfortunate, I'd bet there's more than me who consider customer service one of the priorities in their purchases of item's like this.

    Glad to here it worked out in the end.

    Al

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    Someday in the future, when I am financially able, I would like to buy a Byrd cutterhead for my planer. It sounds like a worthwhile investment to remove my old cutterhead first and perform a thorough inspection with the part print that Byrd provides...even if it means some downtime on the planer. You did say that Byrd provides an as built print for the unit you're ordering right?
    Kyle in K'zoo
    Screws are kinda like knots, if you can't use the right one, use lots of 'em.
    The greatest tragedy in life is the gruesome murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Laustrup
    David, thanks for posting this, with the problems and solutions you encountered.

    I am in the process of having Byrd make a 12" head for the jointer/planer on my Robland X-31. I hope I don't have the kind of problems you encountered, but at least I know that it is possible and it won't necessarily be my fault if some weird thing happens.

    I am somewhat disappointed with Byrd's response to your problem though and hope that through this forum they decide that perhaps it would be in their best interest to work with those such as you and possibly me in cases of one off heads. They make a good product and it would be a shame to see customer service be the downfall of such a product.

    Karl
    Excellent Karl-- I think you're going to love having a Shelix on your J/P! The more I use mine, the more I appreciate it. For what it's worth, I was happy with the service & support that I got from Byrd... Garry was really helpful guy.
    http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=38517

    Dan

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Eisan
    Quote Originally Posted by Dev Emch
    But it puzzles me that you had to go to this much effort to make the pig fly. Didnt byrd engineering offer you some form of recourse? And what about delta. Did they possiblely have an engineering change in the design where you had one version and byrd reverse engineered from another version? What did they tell you to do about this?
    Ummm... I had an uncomfortable conversation with the owner of Byrd that I don't wish to get into. Delta was unhelpful as well with regards to generational changes in DJ-30's (Brazil vs. Taiwan).

    I am not the sort of guy to stomp my feet and raise a huge fuss, I don't have time for that.

    I am more interested in getting things fixed with the least amount of fuss and muss. Taking the head to someone who I knew would fix it right the first time was the most expediant option, even if it came out of my pocket.
    I'm with Dev...Byrd should have stepped up here and helped you out more. You were lucky to have access to a good machine shop. If I had this problem, I would have raised holy hell with Byrd and ripped them up one side and down the other because I'm sure the $100 it cost you would have been at least 3x-5x+ more for a 'normal' guy like myself.

    This sure sours future dealings Byrd. I had, perhaps, planned one day to get their Shelical on my MM FS-41Elite J/P....

    However, in the end, you are happy and I love the results. Congrats!
    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

  15. #15
    David Less Guest

    Poor Surface

    So many companies fail to realize the precussions poor customer service can create. It would have cost Shelix pennies to fix the problem as compared to the negative press these forums can or will create.

    just my $.02

    David

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