New Grizzly G0453Z

[Gerald McGrantham]

:) I took delivery of a new Grizzly G0453Z planer w/spiral cutter head yesterday.

I ordered it Monday morning and Tuesday UPS called to deliver it. Amazing service from Grizzly!

All day today (Thursday) spent cleaning Cosmoline off the machine. YUK.

Grizzly sure gets my vote.

Gerald

[Dan Ness]

Mine was delivered a few weeks ago. I quickly unboxed it, took it off the pallet, removed all the parts, installed the front wheel, took a look at the cosmoline. . .and rolled it into a corner where it still sits, lol. Maybe this weekend I will finally get it cleaned (although that is what I said last weekend).

What did you use to remove cosmoline? How hard was it to do the alignment, tuning, etc. or was it good out of the box?

-Dan

[jim gossage]

I got mine about 2 months ago. Someone on another post suggested to put cardboard above and below the cutter head and then run the machine to spin the goo off. That worked somewhat but threw a lot of goo to other places that were difficult to clean out. I recommend liberally spraying "Goo Gone" on the cutter head, letting it sit for a couple of minutes, and then brushing it off with a tooth brush, and then wiping the head slowly with a heavy rag. You may need to repeat the process several times but this will get the head spotless. The machine was pretty good out of the box - the cutter head was perfect but not the rollers. Set up including the wings took me about 2 hours.

[Andrew Kertesz]

WD-40 cuts through the cosmoline pretty good.

[David Helm]

I used this stuff. Bought from Grizzly260405

[glenn bradley]

After mineral spirits and a nylon "toothbrush" treatment to the head, I used the cardboard method. Followed this up with mineral spirits and paper towels. I put the mineral spirits in a spray bottle and just assume I will go through most of a roll of paper towels to get the job done. Just toss the towels frequently so that you don't put back what you just wiped off :).

[Gerald McGrantham]

I cleaned up the Cosmoline just using a terry cloth rag to wipe most of it off. Not too bad. Then used a clean cloth with mineral spirits and wipe everything three times.

The difficult part was cleaning under the cutters, used a toothbrush for that.

I put cardboard on the top and below the cutter head and ran it for a bit. I expected a mess, but I got it pretty clean.

Sure is quiet compared to the screaming universal motor on my lunchbox delta.

I'll say one thing, I am impressed with the fit and finish of the planer. Very nice. To be honest, I didn't expect the quality to be as good as it is. I had a couple of Grizzly products about 10-15 years ago and was not impressed.

This planer sure changed that. Good job Grizzly.

Gerald

[Gerald McGrantham]

I forgot to say that nothing really needed adjustment. I checked the table rollers with a Oneway surface dial indicator. Both rollers were .004. The Feed rollers, chip breaker and pressure bar heights were the most time consuming for me to check. However; they were within tolerance. The chip deflector did not need adjustment. The scale and pointer needed just a minor adjustment.

I made a test cut on a piece of cherry and I sure did like the surface. Nice and smooth.

One thing however; and this may be me, but I have about .004 of snipe on the leading edge of the board and none (barely perceptible) on the trailing end of the board.

I expected snipe, but I expected it on both ends of the board.

Gerald

[Dan Ness]

Like I said I haven't gotten to use it yet, but unpacking the box, I also was surprised by the quality of construction, heft, paint job, etc. Not sure how it will compare over its lifetime vs. a similar Powermatic or other more expensive brand, but I have a feeling that the extra $1000 or more in my pocket will help with any future issues.

[Gerald McGrantham]

Dan, did you get the spiral cutter head? It is very quiet and smooth cutting.

I thought I would see very light marks from the individual cutters, I saw nothing but smooth wood.

I was hesitant about getting the spiral head because I didn't think it was worth the extra money.

I don't know how you control yourself to keep from cleaning the planer and using it. Me, I've got to get it going right away.

Gerald

[Dan Ness]

Gerald, I sure did get the spiral cutter. I figured I am going to buy a planer once (until I convince myself I need a bigger one, haha), so I opted for the best I could get. As for my "control". . .its is probably more about being overwhelmed by other projects, along with a tiny tiny tiny bit of laziness. I am fine with spending time cleaning it, but I am dreading making adjustments/tuning it, since that always seems to take me forever. Hopefully I will get lucky and it won't need much at all.

[Gerald McGrantham]

Dan, you are going to love this planer. I just finished running an 8 inch x 8 foot x 1 1/8 inch Peruvian Walnut through it. Very smooth finish and no snipe.