Jeff Nolan
01-30-2010, 12:54 PM
I sold my Powermatic 31A combo sander recently, which opened up some floor space for the machine I should have bought years ago... an oscillating edge sander. I've downsized the number of machines I use but an edge sander has been on my wishlist for a very long time.
Space dictated I could only go with the 89" version but I definitely wanted the oscillating feature. I considered an 80" machine but if you read the spec sheets you will notice that they really are not that much shorter in overall package and when you go down to an 80" you really lose a lot of working surface area. After shopping around I settled on the Grizzly G0563 model, which not only has the basics I was looking for but good dust collection (2 ports) and a neat spindle attachment that rides on the idler drum.
Grizzly shipped it beginning of the week and Fedex Freight delivered it to my door yesterday. It was crated up nicely and one thing I appreciated is that the way they crate meant I could inspect the machine while still on the truck to ensure that there was no damage.
I uncrated it, did a quick clean up and set it up per the instructions, which were good enough to be useful, not quite clear on a couple of details that I figured out on my own.
The machine is solid, really solid, and operates very smoothly in spite of the oscillating action. I'd prefer to get more travel on the belt (.75") but that would mean the machine would be far more expensive. Dust collection works well, about as well as can be expected for a sanding machine, and I like how the table adjusts on in-out and up-down.
The storage cabinet is nice and big, and the fit/finish on the machine itself is very nice. From a maintenance standpoint things look straightforward, they say the bearings are sealed and permanently lubricated but there are enough zerk grease fittings to tell me I have to grease up the machine with some regularity. Also, the manual recommends changing the gear box oil at some point, but that looks easy enough given the access.
The power switch is off the side but I like the fact that there is a nice big red emergency stop button on the top of the belt housing right in front of the operator. The motor is 2hp but that doesn't mean much these days so all I can say is that I ran some big wide pieces up against it and put my shoulder into it and the machine didn't miss a beat.
A couple of things I don't like so much are the fact that in spite of coming with a nice 10' power cord, it's 14 AWG... which is adequate for a 15 amp circuit but I expect on a machine like this I would expect a nice high quality 12 AWG power cord. Secondly, the height adjustment on the spindle table (which itself is nice and beefy) would greatly benefit from a rack-and-pinion design even if adding $50 to the price of the machine.
This is the first Grizzly machine I have owned and I'm pleased to say that in spite of the low price relative to competitive offerings, this is a nicely engineered and well built machine. Time will be the ultimate test of how well built it is, but from what I can see right now I think it will hold up well.
Space dictated I could only go with the 89" version but I definitely wanted the oscillating feature. I considered an 80" machine but if you read the spec sheets you will notice that they really are not that much shorter in overall package and when you go down to an 80" you really lose a lot of working surface area. After shopping around I settled on the Grizzly G0563 model, which not only has the basics I was looking for but good dust collection (2 ports) and a neat spindle attachment that rides on the idler drum.
Grizzly shipped it beginning of the week and Fedex Freight delivered it to my door yesterday. It was crated up nicely and one thing I appreciated is that the way they crate meant I could inspect the machine while still on the truck to ensure that there was no damage.
I uncrated it, did a quick clean up and set it up per the instructions, which were good enough to be useful, not quite clear on a couple of details that I figured out on my own.
The machine is solid, really solid, and operates very smoothly in spite of the oscillating action. I'd prefer to get more travel on the belt (.75") but that would mean the machine would be far more expensive. Dust collection works well, about as well as can be expected for a sanding machine, and I like how the table adjusts on in-out and up-down.
The storage cabinet is nice and big, and the fit/finish on the machine itself is very nice. From a maintenance standpoint things look straightforward, they say the bearings are sealed and permanently lubricated but there are enough zerk grease fittings to tell me I have to grease up the machine with some regularity. Also, the manual recommends changing the gear box oil at some point, but that looks easy enough given the access.
The power switch is off the side but I like the fact that there is a nice big red emergency stop button on the top of the belt housing right in front of the operator. The motor is 2hp but that doesn't mean much these days so all I can say is that I ran some big wide pieces up against it and put my shoulder into it and the machine didn't miss a beat.
A couple of things I don't like so much are the fact that in spite of coming with a nice 10' power cord, it's 14 AWG... which is adequate for a 15 amp circuit but I expect on a machine like this I would expect a nice high quality 12 AWG power cord. Secondly, the height adjustment on the spindle table (which itself is nice and beefy) would greatly benefit from a rack-and-pinion design even if adding $50 to the price of the machine.
This is the first Grizzly machine I have owned and I'm pleased to say that in spite of the low price relative to competitive offerings, this is a nicely engineered and well built machine. Time will be the ultimate test of how well built it is, but from what I can see right now I think it will hold up well.