After a lot of deliberating between the 8" G0495X and the 12" G0609, I finally decided to order the 12" G0609. The ordering process was painless and the Grizzly people were very helpful, answering all my questions. I placed my order on Wednesday the 27th and on the 28th I received an email letting me know that my order had be shipped out via FedEx Freight. On Friday I received a call from the freight company to schedule my delivery for Thursday the following week. After reading Jerry Booher's thread about shipping damage on grizzly products, I was a little nervous about the condition my jointer would be in by the time it arrived. I wasn't worried that Grizzly wouldn't take care of any shipping damage, I just didn't want to deal the hassle of waiting for replacement parts.
Thursday finally came and FedEx showed up on time. The driver backed his truck up my driveway and proceeded to unload my jointer with his pallet jack. I was concerned when I saw that the end of the plywood shipping container had come off. Upon closer inspection I didn't see any damage. The pallet was different then Jerry's. The bottom of the pallet was made of metal box tubing tack welded together with a piece of 3/4 ply on top. This was probably a requirement given the weight of the jointer.
(Click on any of the pictures to see the full size version)
All week I'd been wondering how I was going to get the jointer off the pallet and onto the floor. I figured I would probably end up renting a cherry picker to lift the jointer off the pallet. As I proceeded to uncrate the jointer, I realized that a cherry picker probably wouldn't work since there wasn't enough clearance to slide the legs under the pallet. I tried lifting one end of the jointer to see if I could slide it around on the pallet, but it wouldn't budge. After about 1/2 hour of trying to figure out how to get the jointer off the pallet, I discovered that the jointer was bolted down to the pallet. DOH! After I removed the bolts, I was able to slide the jointer off the pallet and onto the floor. With the heavy lifting out of the way, I proceeded to clean the oil off the jointer with simple green and a lot of paper towels. Man that oil was everywhere. I guess I can't complain, because there wasn't a spot of rust anywhere on the machine. After getting everything cleaned up, I installed the fence and replaced the stock v-belts with link belts. One of my concerns with the jointer had been around the fence system and the way it moves across the outfeed table as pointed out in Steve Kohn's review of the G0609. It turns out my jointer had the same issue that Steve's had, the fence sliding on the tables was scratching both the infeed and outfeed table. You can see the scratches in the picture below.
My solution was to smooth out the bottom of the fence with a file followed up with some 220 sandpaper. This removed any burrs and has really helped to prevent the fence form digging into the table. You can see the results below.
The other issue I discovered with the fence was the way the stop block (it's the small black block in the picture below) was bolted to the fence. Even after I tightened down the bolt holding the stop block in place, there was still some play in the stop block.
I ended up taking off the stop block and removing the small black collar from the hole (see below). With the collar removed, I bolted it back onto the fence with an extra washer. This allowed the stop block to be properly tightened without any play.
I checked the tables and fence for flatness with my 48" Starrett straight edge and both were perfectly flat. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the outfeed table came properly adjusted and the tables were already parallel.
After installing a NEMA L6-20 plug, I powered up the jointer and checked for any strange noises or vibrations. I was surprised at how quite the jointer ran. I'm used to working on my father's old 16" Yates American Pattern Makers jointer and the grizzly makes far less noise. The jointer easily passed the nickel test.
I've run a few pieces through it and have been impressed with the quality of the cut and how effortlessly it removes material. Below is a picture of a piece of 6" wide English oak that I ran through the jointer. The quality of the cut is outstanding.
The quality of the jointer is better that I expected from a Chinese made machine. Overall I couldn't be happier with my purchase.
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Originally Posted by Jon Grider
). Lift gate service was a must for me. I'm looking at my invoice and the lift gate charge isn't obvious. I remember it was about $34 and worth every penny.
