Grizzly Brand Tools

The only Grizzly machine I've ever bought was a G1026 shaper. It's by far the worst and most dangerous machine I've ever used and I've been doing woodworking professionally since 1973. The spindle isn't solid at all. There is a lot of vibration from it and that is really bad on a shaper. I was expecting something comparable to the Delta shaper and I was very wrong. Then for a drive belt it has only one tiny little 3/8" v belt. It took me quite a while but I have a cabinet door coping set that is really balanced well so I set the shaper up for that and never use it for anything else.
 
I use to own a 20 inch planner I bought from them and it worked very well but I could not get a nice finish on the planed wood. It had a 2 speed gear box and only one gear range would work. I took it apart and found that it had been shipped missing a gear. Never could get the part from them. I sold it to a guy that makes log cabins and he uses it to plane the flats on 8 inch thick logs
 
Dad bought a 15 inch planer about 25 years ago, The assembly instructions in the owners manual were horrible, dozens of errors in assembly. Once together it worked fairly decent for a while, then the adjustment for the in feed roller started slipping. Tried everything to get it to stay in place but to no avail. So it has spent the last 20 years rusting away in the barn. And I heard that their planers were their BEST machines.
 
Nice paint and finish, nice catalog, fast shipping, good service, lots of hype and average machinery. I am not anti Grizzly but the stuff they sell is no better than a dozen other importers of same machinery from same manufacturers. My Griz 8" long bed jointer has as many nagging problems as any other Taiwan machine I have owned meaning its about 90% of what it could be if it had been assembled correctly at the factory and been made of top quality materials. The stand and roller base is inferior to the Powermatic offering. Only reason I bought new instead of used was I wanted an inserted spiral head and that part of the Griz jointer has been entirely satisfactory. For the average home shop Powermatic is top notch woodworking equipment, Griz comes in second with a host of others. If you have time and inclination to clean adjust etc good used American made wood working equipment isn't selling real good at auctions these days.
 
The woodworking industry is in an unusual situation right now. VERY few young people are getting into woodworking and the old people like me have stopped doing that. The young people tend to want new and shiny equipment, so the old equipment that comes on the market doesn't sell well, even though it is probably better than what is available new these days.

There are too many manufacturers of woodworking equipment so there is a tendency to make cheap so they can undersell the competition. I did see a clip on TV of two young guys making custom woodwork using all old equipment that they had acquired somewhere. I sold most of my equipment to a neighbor younger than me, who now is getting too old himself to do much. Overall, the entire woodworking industry is in decline. If you want the Old Good Stuff, just keep looking, it will come on the market eventually.

I ordered a bench sander from Grizzly; the first one they shipped was a disaster so I sent it back. The 2nd one they shipped worked okay, but wasn't as good as my old Delta.
 
Similar experience. I need a part and they could neither find the part nor answer any associated questions. Turns out the replacement machine [different model number] had the identical part but the "technical" experts only knew how to search the original number. No longer available they said but, they were wrong. I took me a few brief minutes of looking at the parts diagrams to recognize what I needed.
 
I would consider my woodworking more than a hobby but less than a professional shop. I logged 651 shop hours on the kitchen below.

I would tend to agree with most of the comments on here that the Grizzly equipment offers the best bang for your buck. I'm sure that there is better equipment but your going to have to pay more for it. I would tend to assume that since you are hanging out on a site like this your probably pretty handy with a wide range of tools and can take the time to make some adjustments and true up / dial in the equipment. As far as my grizzly tools go...

G1026 (3hp shaper): This was my first piece of new equipment I bought. That was over 15 years ago and the machine still works fine. I will admit that across all of my spindle shapers that the spindle lock for vertical adjustment seems to be a bit weak and tends to let the spindle settle while in use. I usually overcome this by picking a setting with the heavy part of the adjustment wheel on the bottom. But this machine can run a raised panel bit all day long with no struggle. Buy the extension wing.

G1035 (1.5hp shaper): This machine lives with a stacked rail and stile cutter on it all the time. Buy the extension wing, you won't regret it. It suffers the same spindle lock problem but its not the end of the world. Overall a smooth machine to operate.

G4176: (1/4 hp power feed): I keep this mounted on my 1.5 hp shaper to feed my door stiles. The bottom locking adjustment to keep the feeder from rotating never worked real well. I usually have to give the adjustment handle a few hits of a mallet to get it tight enough. This power feeder is fast, too fast. I bought the slow speed kit for it trying to slow it down. It improved it but I should have spent more money and just got a variable speed one from the start. I have fed a lot of material using this machine.

G0490: (8" jointer with 4 knife head): I had trouble with this machine throwing the pulley off of the motor shaft initially. My dad noticed that there was another threaded hole in the pulley to allow for a second set screw. We installed that and haven't had an issue since. It does not like to be run without the dust collector on. This machine has milled a lot of lumber for me but I would probably admit that this was one of my regrets in a tool purchase. It seemed like a lot of money (and it still kind of is) but I should have got a 12" jointer with an indexed carbide cutter head.

G0544: (20" carbide tooth planer): This is a work horse of a machine. The carbide teeth are the way to go. You will never have to fuss around setting knives again. If you do hit a piece of steel you just spin the teeth around and your back in business. It is sooooo much quieter than a comparable knife head. It does require a pretty healthy dust collector (2hp is kind of small). I think the adjustable bed rollers are nice.

Grizzly 2 HP dust collector: This lives quietly above the roof of my shop. The only thing we have done is cut the little grate off the intake side of the collector. It would occasionally get plugged by larger chips.

I would stay away from any pipe clamps from grizzly. I haven't had any good luck with them. Stay with Pony or Bessey. I would not waste a dime on the mobile bases you can get for these machines. They just seem to under preform.

If your looking for a table saw I would hands down look at saw stop. I bought one of them when they first came out 10 years ago. It is the smoothest, most accurate table saw I have ever used.

Happy Woodworking
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I forgot to mention don't overlook the Dewalt DW735 planer. I am 100% sure I used that machine for more than it was ever intended. I used it so much that I wore the internal plastic dust collector housing through. I simply bought a new housing from Ereplacementparts.com and kept going. There disposable blade system ain't bad either. I would say the finish surface quality of this machine out performs my 20" grizzly. The dewalt is going to require you to slow down on wider boards and shallow up your material cut depth.
 
Thanks Christopher S.

Looks like you did a professional job on those kitchen cabinets.

Thanks for sharing.

Great Job!!
 
651 hours huh? Lotta sweat. Looks like you got what you paid for; Grin. Surely the envy of most folks. Doubt one in a thousand had a kitchen like that. Are the solid doors made from glued (Oak?) hardwood planks rather than cabinet grade veneer plywood. Looks like it. To do that takes some skill and decent machinery. Speaks well of your aptitude and Grizzly. Betcha you have Dove Tailed drawers made out of dimension lumber too which isn't all that common any more.

I guess you did the design on the entire kitchen package. Nice choices in other areas too. I like the recessed lighting. Keeps the lights out of your (the corner of) eyes which is a real nuisance for me with regular ceiling fixtures. Also the light over the sink is a must.

Was the marble top on the hutch a custom job or did you make the hutch to fit the top? I watch a lot of the redo old houses and especially the kitchen work. Really nice to have an open kitchen where you can get around without bumping into somebody. Great job.

I did my kitchen twice in 40 years but with store bought cabinets; once when I built the house and again at about 20 years. Nice to have things like you like them. I built a few items of furniture for the house but not all that much. Seems wood working and my respiratory system don't get along. Don't do enough to have a dedicated shop with all the amenities like dust collectors and all. Not #1 on my hit parade.
 
This is actually the kitchen in my parents house. The timber came from there property, we had a bandmill come in and cut it, sticker dried it outside for a while, took it to a kiln and dried it, brought it back home. I bet that lumber was handled at least 7 times before it ever hit a piece of machinery in the cabinet shop.

The doors are glued up from separate pieces. I'm a little finicky on trying to make the grain pattern match on the door face so it takes some time.

The drawers are in deed dovetailed. They are half blind using a router and jig. I talked to several guys that say they can hand cut faster. I probably would agree, but once the jig is set up they are going to have a hard time keeping up with any real quantity.

We installed the entire kitchen and then a countertop company came out and measured and made templates of the kitchen. So they made there countertop fit my cabinets.

The doors are soft close and the drawers are as well. Those drawers gave me fits installing but I really do like the soft close now that its done.

As far as dust collection, I have a dust collector that gets the chips. I used an old squirrel fan with furnace filters to make a "dust filter." But I have no idea how guys keep there shops spotless with dust.

Thanks for the compliments
 

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