G0490X vs, G0490 and Byrd

[glenn bradley]

I know we've beat this horse quite a bit. I have reviewed all past threads that reference the 490 or the 490x or Byrd heads in general. So the questions for G0490/Byrd or G0490X owners.

G0490X owners -

How do you like it?

Do you ever wish you would have gotten the Byrd head instead of Grizzly's spiral?

Does the reverse pattern of the inserts cause the material to be pulled away from the fence?

G0490 with after market Byrd head owners -

How do you like it?

It has been stated that the Byrd heads larger diameter and the resulting table adjustment ends up impairing the fence movement. Grizzly states this is not the case with the Byrd head designed specifically for the G0490. Your experiences?

Thanks. And I'll try to let this dead horse alone after this ;-)

[Dave Burris]

Not to add to the problem Glenn but I am looking at both of these myself. One question I have is will Grizzly install the Byrd head prior to shipping the unit if you go with the 490?

[Ron Williams]

I have the Grizzly Head on a 12" Jointer and a 15" planer. they work great

[glenn bradley]

Not to add to the problem Glenn but I am looking at both of these myself. One question I have is will Grizzly install the Byrd head prior to shipping the unit if you go with the 490?

No, they sell their own spiral in the G0490X. You have to buy the Byrd separately and then figure out what to do with your leftover knife head.

I have the Grizzly Head on a 12" Jointer and a 15" planer. they work great

Thanks Ron. That's the kind of feedback I was after.

[Tom Ruflin]

I have the 490 with a byrd head and love it, I also have a byrd head ina 15" planer. I installed the byrd head myself , it was not that difficult. If you do go with the byrd head mak sure you order an extra set of bearings as you might ruin the originals trying to get them off the original head.

[Brent Grooms]

Tom, did you buy your head from Grizz? Did you encounter loosing some of your fence travel due to the head and shifting the tables? Glenn and I have traded messages on this and I am wondering if I am the only one who experienced this.

[Cary Swoveland]

I have Grizzly's G0586 8" jointer, with the same spiral cutterhead as in the G0490X, which I installed.

...How do you like it?
I'm completely satisfied. It leaves a very nice finish and is relatively quiet.

Do you ever wish you would have gotten the Byrd head instead of Grizzly's spiral?
No. I can't imagine the Byrd head doing a nicer job. Grizzly's head is beautifully machined; the carbide inserts are made in Germany.

Does the reverse pattern of the inserts cause the material to be pulled away from the fence?
No, not at all.

Cary

[Charlie Plesums]

Note that the Grizzly head spreads the cutters out, making smaller chips and smoothing the load, cutting noise, etc. but the cutters are square to the rotation, like a regular cutter blade. Each "square" cutter is a square.

The Shelix heads are at an angle, giving a shear cut. But that makes the cutters NOT flat squares... they have to follow the curvature of the head (not much, but it does curve). Which may explain why the replacement cutters are slightly more expensive on the Shelix.

[Tom Ruflin]

Brent, I did buy the Byrd head from Grizzly. They sent me the wrong one and took weeks to get the correct one. I didn't notice any loss of fence movement or table movement but, I only used the original cutterhead once just to test the jointer while I waited for the replacement Byrd head. I do remember when installing the Byrd head that I had both in and out feed tables at their lowest positions to get just enough room to get the Byrd head in. I did not have that issue when removing the original head.

Charlie, another reason the Byrd cutters are more expensive is they are thicker and might be slightly larger in dimension than the Grizzly cutters.

[Mike Spanbauer]

Purchased the 20" byrd recently for my 20" Grizzly planer... received it missing one of the shipping pillow blocks (2x4 that held the end) and the cutterhead obviously hit the ground. The case that they shipped it in was stapled together... STAPLED! The cutterhead weighs ~50lbs and they stapled it...

mike

[Joe Chritz]

I have the Byrd head over the grizzly only because at the time it cost a few dollars less to purchase them separately because of a special.

For two bearings, a trip to town and a few minutes I have a full spare head ready to go.

In theory the Byrd cutting angle makes it superior but in practice there is no difference from all reports.

The 8" head was in a similar box, with 2x4 makeshift pillow blocks and it was stapled although the top was screwed on for easier removal. They are construction staples most likely and plenty strong. A missing pillow block is bad form though, assuming the case wasn't opened somewhere else.

Joe

[Mike Spanbauer]

Actually, it wasn't that the pillow block was missing... it was that the stapled side of the box had broken open due to the weight of the head and dropped. When the unit was put back in, 1/2 of the pillow block wasn't replaced and the replacement cutters were lost.

mike

[Warren Scott]

I bought the 490 and added the Byrd spiral head. (it was cheaper at the time to do it that way than buy the 490x because of sales).
Bought a second set of bearings ($10 total)
I don't notice any fence travel problems.
I did cut myself a few times installing the new head (just me being stupid... those things are SHARP)

Only complaint I have was the pulley on the cutterhead was not very straight and caused a bunch of vibration. Solved that by having the pulley machined. Now it runs like a dream.


I also have a (purchased Nov 07) Grizzly planer (1033x) with the Grizzly spiral cutterhead, and it actually has angled inserts like the Byrd. The big difference I notice is it only has 4 spirals while the Byrd version would have 6. All the manuals had the cutter head model changed by hand (someone went in and hand-edited them). Don't know any other history behind it, but it looks like Grizzly may be changing to an angled insert cutterhead (for at least some models).

[Jim Andrew]

I bought the G0609, and put the Byrd head on it. Grizzly was running a special on the Byrd at the time. They would not install it. So I have a 12" 4 blade cutterhead stored. It is harder to install on the parallelagram jointer than on the standard jointer with the dovetail ways, as with the ways you just lower both the tables and you can just take the bearings and pillowblocks and cutterhead out in one piece. The parallelagram you have to remove the infeed table. I had no problem removing the bearings from the cutterhead, and re-used the ones on it. They were new, and did not damage them by removing. I used a puller, and they came off pretty easily. Jim