It's actually the 1704 (althought the manual that comes with it is for
the 1684 with an insert for the spiral cutterhead). You can look it
up on the Japan Woodworker website --
http://www.japanwoodworker.com/dept.asp?dept_id=11885 -- which is
where I bought it. I paid $1395. I'm frankly not sure if this is the
best price out there, buy they are only a few miles from my house and
they delivered it for free! They also had it at my door with 5 days
of ordering it. I was going to buy the grizzly version of this
jointer (Grizzly and Shopfox are owned by the same company/person),
but they are back ordered 3-6 months and I didn't want to wait that
long. The Grizzly model is the G0543 and it is $1195 plus $80 to ship
it. The power switch for the Shop Fox version is nicer but other than
that they appear to be identical.

I got it up and running this weekend (set-up was straight forward
although get help in lifting the 200-300 pound table onto the base).
It did a beatiful job on douglas fir and mahogany. Very little
tearout and almost no milling marks -- with no adjustment other than
lining up the outfeed table. I'm a bit impatient when feeding stock
through and I'm sure you could get a better finish with a very slow
and steady feed rate.

I ran a 6" wide quartersawn white oak board through it and the finish
was fantastic. It might need a pass or two with a smooting plane to
remove a few mill marks but other than that it's basically ready to
finish. I also ran a piece of cocobolo through it and it produced a
very nice finish with no tear out. It does leave some very light
lines along the long axis of the wood (from small imperfections in the
indexible blades I presume), but no ripple whatsoever. This is my
first jointer and I don't have much of a basis for comparison but my
neighboor who has a 50 year old 6" Rockwell jointer was impressed.

My only complaint is that the adjustment mechanism to make the fence
square to the table takes some trial and error to get it set
correctly. Once set, it has stayed perfectly square, but the
adjustment mechanism is not very precise and took me 15 minutes of
fiddling to get it square.

I'm happy so far and would buy it again.... but ask me again in a few
months....

Robert

"Ollie" wrote in message ...
Rob,

I am looking forward to hear your usage experience. In the meanwhile,
perhaps you could tell the price your paid for the machine and shipping?
How long it took? Were you happy for the service?

Could you also clarify the model number? My understanding is that
1684 = "standard" 8 inch cutter
1724 = spiral head 8 inch cutter
1784 = ????

Cheers, Ollie


"Robert" wrote in message
om...
"Ollie" wrote in message
...
If somebody has experience or relevant comments on the spiral heads used
in
Shop Fox machines, I would like to know. My main interest is the W1724
Planer. The second interest is the W1705 Jointer. I think that the
Grizzly
G0526 is from Shop Fox, but I don't know the original model number.

Could you comment on installation, surface quality, maintenance, and
cost of
ownership?

Cheers, Ollie

I just bought a Shop Fox 1784 8" spiral cutterhead jointer -- it
arrived this morning. I'll let you know my experience once it's up
and running......