Keith Starosta
12-31-2010, 10:08 AM
My new Grizzly G0490X arrived yesterday! I took photos at every step of the process, and thought I'd post a few here!
The UPS Freigth driver told me early yesterday morning that he'd be there sometime between 1:00PM and 5:00PM. I was really hoping I'd have enough daylight left to do most of the assembly in the driveway. Imagine my surprise when the semi pulled up at exactly 12:30!! :D
The jointer comes in two shipping containers; the 1st is a cardboard box that contains the base, motor, and start/stop pedestal...
175690
...and the 2nd is a wooden crate that contains everything else!
175696
I felt a little like "The Old Man" from A Christmas Story as I was uncrating my major award! ;)
I opened the cardboard box before I started reading the setup instructions, and missed the the step that said I needed to turn the box upside down before opening. The base is placed inside the box on its top, which meant that I now had to cut the box up to easily remove everything. Oh well...
175697
Even though I was pretty confident that everything was there, I still took a thorough inventory of all pieces. As it turned out, all components were shipped, including four extra cutters for the spiralhead...
175698
My father-in-law, who was thankfully willing to help me with the assembly, said that he wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting, but it surely wasn't the enormity of the jointer assembly! I had to admit that while in the crate, the overall length of the beds was a little shocking. It looked HUGE.
175692
The assembly instructions were thankfully VERY detailed, and walked me through each step really nicely. The jointer motor is temporarily bolted to the underside of the base during shipping, in order to avoid any extra stress on the mounting brackets (I'm assuming).
175693
After unbolting the motor from its temporary position and placing it on the mounting brackets, it was time to deal with the mounting of the jointer assembly. I thought I was going to be in trouble when the instructions indicated that I should "place the lifting straps at oppostie ends of the jointer beds, and attach to the forklift..." :eek: My FIL and I had a good laugh over that one. Since it was just him and I, we were ready for the worst. While it was heavy, we were pretty easily able to lift the assemble onto the base and get it bolted down.
The rest of the assembly process went really smoothly. Like I said, the instructions were very detailed, and held my hand every step of the way.
A word about the cosmoline clean-up: YUCK!! :eek: As great timing would have it, there is an active thread here on the Creek dealing with exactly this topic. It seemed the majority were suggesting WD-40 and rags, so this what I opted for. I have to say...it worked GREAT! I was expecting much more time being spent on the clean-up, but the shipping grease wiped of nicely with the WD-40. The spiral cutterhead was pretty tricky, but I remembered reading comments that said a lot of the deep-down stuff would come flying off after the first start-up. SPOILER ALERT: they were right!!
175694
After some final bolt-tightening and fussing, she was all ready for the first test run. I held my breath as I pushed the start button, and it fired right up! I ran some test boards, and then made a few adjustments. She's a thing of beauty!!
175695
I've got some questions about a snipe issue, but I'll address that in a later thread. Thanks to ALL for the advice in other threads for helping to make this a very easy decision!
- Keith
The UPS Freigth driver told me early yesterday morning that he'd be there sometime between 1:00PM and 5:00PM. I was really hoping I'd have enough daylight left to do most of the assembly in the driveway. Imagine my surprise when the semi pulled up at exactly 12:30!! :D
The jointer comes in two shipping containers; the 1st is a cardboard box that contains the base, motor, and start/stop pedestal...
175690
...and the 2nd is a wooden crate that contains everything else!
175696
I felt a little like "The Old Man" from A Christmas Story as I was uncrating my major award! ;)
I opened the cardboard box before I started reading the setup instructions, and missed the the step that said I needed to turn the box upside down before opening. The base is placed inside the box on its top, which meant that I now had to cut the box up to easily remove everything. Oh well...
175697
Even though I was pretty confident that everything was there, I still took a thorough inventory of all pieces. As it turned out, all components were shipped, including four extra cutters for the spiralhead...
175698
My father-in-law, who was thankfully willing to help me with the assembly, said that he wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting, but it surely wasn't the enormity of the jointer assembly! I had to admit that while in the crate, the overall length of the beds was a little shocking. It looked HUGE.
175692
The assembly instructions were thankfully VERY detailed, and walked me through each step really nicely. The jointer motor is temporarily bolted to the underside of the base during shipping, in order to avoid any extra stress on the mounting brackets (I'm assuming).
175693
After unbolting the motor from its temporary position and placing it on the mounting brackets, it was time to deal with the mounting of the jointer assembly. I thought I was going to be in trouble when the instructions indicated that I should "place the lifting straps at oppostie ends of the jointer beds, and attach to the forklift..." :eek: My FIL and I had a good laugh over that one. Since it was just him and I, we were ready for the worst. While it was heavy, we were pretty easily able to lift the assemble onto the base and get it bolted down.
The rest of the assembly process went really smoothly. Like I said, the instructions were very detailed, and held my hand every step of the way.
A word about the cosmoline clean-up: YUCK!! :eek: As great timing would have it, there is an active thread here on the Creek dealing with exactly this topic. It seemed the majority were suggesting WD-40 and rags, so this what I opted for. I have to say...it worked GREAT! I was expecting much more time being spent on the clean-up, but the shipping grease wiped of nicely with the WD-40. The spiral cutterhead was pretty tricky, but I remembered reading comments that said a lot of the deep-down stuff would come flying off after the first start-up. SPOILER ALERT: they were right!!
175694
After some final bolt-tightening and fussing, she was all ready for the first test run. I held my breath as I pushed the start button, and it fired right up! I ran some test boards, and then made a few adjustments. She's a thing of beauty!!
175695
I've got some questions about a snipe issue, but I'll address that in a later thread. Thanks to ALL for the advice in other threads for helping to make this a very easy decision!
- Keith