Steelex helical cutter head

[Mike Brucker]

Does anyone have experience with the helical cutter heads in the Steelex (by Shopfox) jointers or planers? I'm considering purchasing a 8" spiral/helical parallelogram jointer. Either the Grizzly G0490XW ($1500) or the Steelex ST1011 ($1200). The only noticeable difference I can see between the Grizzly version and the Steelex is the cutter head. The Grizzly head is silver in color and described as "spiral" with 14X14x2 mm straight edge inserts, while the Steelex is black and listed as "helical" with 15X15X2.5 mm curved edge inserts. I'm wondering if Steelex is using the Byrd Shelix head or if they're making their own copy of it? Anyone know?


Thanks, Mike347736347737

[Mike Henderson]

I have an 8" jointer with a head that looks exactly like that Steelex. Works fine and I was able to get new inserts for it.

No experience with the other one.

Mike

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have a Grizzly G0490X with the helical head and it works fine as advertised.

[Wade Lippman]

Very interesting...
On the one hand I see it on ebay for $1,035 delivered. On the other hand, the whole thing seems sketchy?
Feeling lucky?

[Van Huskey]

First, the Steelex head is not a Byrd copy, if you look at it closely it is not very similar to the Byrd at all, other than being black.

Second, Steelex has traditionally been the lower brand of Grizzly/Shopfox but I have no idea about the the quality variations of the bigger jointers, but given things are different from the Grizzly and the Shopfox versions it would suggest the production costs are lower, the obvious conclusion the quality overall is lower BUT that is just a assumption. I personally would buy the known vs the unknown the 490 has had a few easy to rectify issues associated with it in the past but otherwise has a very strong track record, if it were me I would not choose the Steelex over the Grizzly or the Shopfox.