Here are some observations on my recent expriences with a new Grizzly 6"
Jointer (1182Z);
1. A bag of hardware and the assembly instructions were missing from the
carton. When called, Grizzly agreed to send those. I have not received them
yet.
2. The finish of the unit was very good. The base was well constructed and
solid and the jointer tables were flat.
3. But the fence was not parallel to the tables (an offset of .25 inch from
end to end) . When the fence was adjusted to make it parallel, a small
shallow circular opening at the bottom of the fence to accomodate the
cutterhead pulley moved sideways, causing some rubbing with the belt. I
talked to the Grizzly tech guy, he suggested adjusting some more with the
screws to solve the problem.
4. The knives were not level to the outfeed table. I started adjusting the
knives using a magna-set. Based on my experience, I would strongly suggest
to Grizzly to replace their small 8 mm rather soft-metal wrench with a
longer better quality wrench (I bought mine at Sears) to minimize possible
bruises and injuries to hands and fingers while tightening and retightening
those 12 little bolts so close to 6 '' long very sharp knives. Also, based
on my unfortunate experience, make sure that knives are not set too high
otherwise they will hit the infeed table (even though they will clear the
outfeed table, which may be the only reference you might be using while
tinkering with the knives).
5. The table surfaces are smooth, but the levers are jerky, no matter how
carefully you adjust the gib screws. I do not know whether Grizzly had
sufficiently lubricated the mating surface of the sliding dove tails on
which the tables sit. I would strongly advise others to get handwheels
rather than levers. They are very frustrating while you try to make those
tiny last adjustments of the outfeed table to level with the knives.
6. The motor pully and the cutter head pully were out of plane by about
3/16", so I had to use a pully puller to bring those in same plane.
I am not putting down Grizzly but some of those experiences were not fun. By
the way, Grizzly tech staff is very cooperative.