Found out why my Biesemeyer was off..I think

[Chris Livingston]

As I posted before I couldn’t get my new Biesemeyer fence aligned properly on my Grizzly G5959 12" 5HP saw.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

I went out and spent $200 on a 4’ machinist’s straight edge and found the problem. I made the mistake of laying the straight edge across the table. Wow! From side to side there was a dip of almost 1/8”!! Using a 2’ machinist’s straight edge from the outside edges of the miter slots there was only a dip of about 0.005 but the 4’ really showed how bad it was. The edges weren’t even square so shimming the wings would only do so much and between the miter slots the dip was 0.009.

<o:p></o:p>

I have had the saw for about 3 years and was a bit upset that I had not checked this out before but thought I would give Grizzly a call anyway since this was obviously a manufacturing defect. They said that since I hadn’t found it in the first year there was nothing they could do and some variance was to be expected. I talked to two different people and they wouldn’t even let me talk to someone higher up. The table would have been over $500 without shipping for replacements so I priced out similar saws from other manufacturers and had a good machine shop quote me for grinding the top and decided I would go with the grinding instead. $400 is better than the $4500 I would have to spend on a new Powermatic of similar specs.

I should have the newly ground top back on Tuesday so we'll see if I can get the Bies setup this time.

<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>I’ve bought a 20” band saw, 2 dust collectors, a 12” jointer, got my dad to buy the same table saw, an edge sander, 18” band saw, and 24” drum sander and I was about to spend $3000 on the 20” 5hp spiral cutter head planner. After this I very skeptical about the precision of Grizzly products. Their customer service is great if the problem is in the first year but after that you’re out of luck even if it was bad from the factory. I will probably stick with the upper end manufacturers from now on. I want my machines to last me the rest of my life, not until I get a good straight edge.

[Brian Hale]

I can't find fault with Grizzly, one year is one year, but they do in-house grinding and i'm surprised they didn't at least offer to re-grind the top for a price.FWIW, Wilke checks most every machine before it's shipped, including tolerances like arbor runout, top flatness and a run-in under power.

Brian

[Jim Dunn]

What method of grinding are they going to use? I would suggest a mattison grind if it is available. The mattison grind is a straight line grind and produces, or atleast is capable of producing, a much smoother grind than a blanchard grind. Just my 02 worth.

Jim

[Darren Ford]

Brain, I certainly find fault with Grizzly here, but not because they would not fix the problem. I agree that 3 years is too far out of warranty, but they should have transferred Chris to a higher supervisor when he requested. That is inexcusable in my book.

[Chris Livingston]

Brian,

I knew about their in house grinding so I was hoping they would have offered me some type of discount since there is no way I bent the top, it was cast that way.

Jim,

I’ve got no clue what kind of grind they are using but the finish he showed me was on almost on par with what the Powermatic table tops look like.

Darren,

I'm definitely not the kind of person that likes to make people pay for my errors/mistakes. I’ve learned to take responsibility for the problems I cause because I'm in a profession that everyone wants to blame me/my company for problems that almost all of the time are not our fault or could not have been found at the time the job was done and we are legally only obligated to 1 year of liability. But there have been a few times where 2 or 3 years had passed and I could legally have point to the 1 year limit but since I may have missed the problem I made good because it was A) good customer service and B) the right thing to do since I probably screwed up. I’ve kept multi-million dollar customers and small customers this way. You’d think they would do the same since the majority of their business comes from the small purchaser.

[Greg Mann]

Chris,

In your wildest dreams, could you imagine Lee Valley reacting this way to your problem? At the very least, you deserved some consideration for all the business you have done with them.

Greg

[Jim Dunn]

Chris, mattison grind is probably what your gonna get. This type of grind is a straight line, where as a blanchard grind is of a cross hatch type. As I said before the mattison grind is generally a much smoother finish.

Jim

[Darren Ford]

Chris, I understand your point of view, and I agree with your business practices. I run my business the same way. At the same time, I think it is Grizzly's right to not do anything after 3 years (although both of us would have handled this differently). I don't however think it is the call of the first level customer service -- not transferring you was grounds for a lifetime ban in my book.

[Alan Turner]

I don't find Grizzly's buisness practices to be acceptable at any level. For an OEM to rely upon a 1 year warranty clause to avoid the consequences of their own mistake is not the way I would prefer my vendor to react. A good company should stand behind a product in a situation where there could be no debate about user error, damage, etc. Well, that my 2c.
Alan