First let me state I have no affiliation with Grizzly in any way, except for the fact that the planer is the 3rd major tool I have purchased from them.
The order was placed through their technical service organization on Monday morning. I had a question on whether a mobile base would fit. The customer service person immediately transferred me to the technical service team, who answered my question (it was no) and then took my order. I ordered lift gate service.
The trucking company called on Tuesday to set up a delivery schedule. I was not able to be home so the trucking company held the jointer until Friday. They called an hour before the delivery as requested. The unloading of the machine was uneventful except for the size of the crate. The driver wheeled it into the shop for me. I gave him a $20 tip for his extra effort.
Grizzly warned me when I placed the order that if the crate was damaged in any way I was to note in on the shipping documentation. Upon inspection the crate was badly crushed. In fact one end of the crate was totally missing, the top was crushed inwards and the front was smashed. Much to the discomfort of the driver, I noted the crate damage on the documentation.
The driver immediately called his company and that led to 2 return visits to the shop and questions by the driver. The driver even offered to stay and help me unpack the machine to inspect for hidden damage but I declined. At the time I was not able to unpack the machine due to work commitments.
Later that afternoon I did unpack the jointer. The only damage appeared to be the cutter head guard was badly scuffed and slightly bent. I called Grizzly and they are sending me a replacement.
After moving the jointer (all 800+ lbs. of it) into the proper location I cleaned the cosmoline off the jointer, put it together and connected the power. The machine started immediately but was not jointing properly.
A retired friend of mine has a degree in mechanical engineering. He has designed, built, installed, and serviced high accuracy machines all his working life. He brought over a 48 inch reference straightedge and he adjusted the machine. He ended up resetting the limit stops on the outfeed table to allow enough travel to align with the knives. He also ended up resetting the outfeed table parallelism with the infeed table.
When done I was able to joint 6 foot long ash boards so that there was absolutely no gap between the edges. While I had the straightedge he also checked the tables and fence and found them to be absolutely flat and straight.
The only issue I have with the machine is the way the fence moves across the table. The fence is designed to ride on the outfeed table. So I have a metal to metal surface. The fence is actually digging a grove across the outfeed table parallel to the knives. I called Grizzly technical services on this and they told me that some of these jointers have a pad to prevent these scratches. However the technical help could not provide this pad.
I tried to glue a small pad on the bottom of the fence but the edge of the fence that rides on the table is too small to hold the pad. In my opinion this is a design flaw that needs to be corrected.
Except for this fence issue I so far am pleased with the jointer. I used it extensively last weekend and it is doing what I wanted it to do.
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Originally Posted by Pat Germain
