Shop Fox 20 Inch Planer

[Greg Hairston]

Any one have any experience with this planer. Or any of the upper end shopfox gear. Is it suited for a 1-3 man business

Greg

[Richard Wolf]

I have a Shop Fox 26" dual drum sander and a 3hp Shop Fox shaper. FWIW, they are of good quality and on par with imported machines. I have a two man stair and railing shop and these items are used lightly for a pro shop but they have never disapointed me.

Richard

[Greg Hairston]

Richard,
Could you tell me more about your experiences with the dual 24 in Sander. I am thinking about picking one up.

Greg

[Richard Wolf]

I have found that it is a very powerful and useful addition to my shop. It if far above any of the open ended type sanders, like the Detla, which was a toy. The fact that I could never justify the cost of a wide belt sander made the Shop Fox a great addition to my shop. It does require a fair amount of dust collection to remove all the dust it can generate.

Richard

[Rick de Roque]

I have that planer. Have had it for about 6 months and it has worked well.

rick

[J.R. Rutter]

I have that planer as well - for about 18 months now. I got it because at the time, only it and the Powermatic had 5 HP motor. It is doing fine for me running an hour or two a day. I put a Shelix head in last summer - a nice upgrade. Before that I ran 18N knives with a back bevel with good results, they just didn't hold up to high silica woods. The thermal overload trips on me if I push it too hard.

[Gary Sutherland]

I have the ShopFox 3HP shaper and the spindle sander, and am very pleased with both.

Gary

[Greg Hairston]

JR and Rick,
I found one at a local shop and they want around 2k for it. I have seen it on the net for as low as 1340.00 What would you consider a fair price for this machine new.
JR,
How much did your new cutter head cost

Greg

[J.R. Rutter]

I think I paid just over $1500 for the base machine locally, and about $1100 for the cutterhead. After I bought the cutterhead from Byrd, I saw that Sunhill offers it along with a new gear box for about the same price. Grizzly now has them as well.

[Ken Garlock]

Greg, the Wilke Yorkcraft 20" planer (http://www.wilkemachinery.com/default.tpl?action=full&cart=11138720644866&id1=14&--woSECTIONSdatarq=14&--SECTIONSword=ww&--eqskudatarq=2536)looks identical to the ShopFox, and the Yorkcraft costs $1299. I would bet a cup of coffee that both machines come from the same plant with different name plates.

[Jim probst]

We've had the shopfox 20" planer for about six months now. We are a 4 person shop and it gets a fair bit of use. We did have some problems initially with the fan falling off the motor, but at this point it seems to have been solved. [they sent me a new motor]

[Greg Hairston]

Jim and all who own this planer or other shopfox gear,
How is the quality of the cut from this planer. Would you recommend buying it again?

Greg H

[Jim probst]

The quality of the cut has been good. It required very little adjustment when I got it, and I haven't had any problems with sniping or the like. One thing that surprised me was that we can run several narrow boards through it at once, that I didn't think was possible with a solid, [non-segmented] infeed roller. I would buy it again, though I can't comment on it's long term durablity.

[Shiraz Balolia]

Greg, the Wilke Yorkcraft 20" planer (http://www.wilkemachinery.com/default.tpl?action=full&cart=11138720644866&id1=14&--woSECTIONSdatarq=14&--SECTIONSword=ww&--eqskudatarq=2536)looks identical to the ShopFox, and the Yorkcraft costs $1299. I would bet a cup of coffee that both machines come from the same plant with different name plates.

You would lose that bet! I'll go pour myself some coffee now.:)

[J.R. Rutter]

I'm in the Grizzly showroom a couple times a month getting misc. supplies. Seems like over the last 5 years in particular the quality and innovation has been improving. I got the Shop Fox over the Grizzly because at the time, the Griz. had a 3 HP motor. Not an issue today.

Adjustments, etc. are fine on these 4-post planers. You can vary roller pressure and height, chipbreaker height (and pressure if you tweak the springs), pressure bar height (ditto pressure), and bed roller height (but this is not super convenient and I use an aux table to aviod bed rollers altogether). An idicator gauge (shop made or bought) that rides on the cutterhead works great for knife setting. Just do one knife at a time, keeping the others tight so the cutterhead tension is uniform.

Since the feed roller has spring pressure on both sides, you can feed more than one piece if you space them apart. Just be careful if they are different thicknesses!

[lou sansone]

You would lose that bet! I'll go pour myself some coffee now.:)
hi shiraz

I will take your word for this. I wonder if you could answer the question that generates comments like "they look the same so they are probalby made by the same company overseas". Specifically, if one looks at these machines they do look almost identical. Why is that? Does one company over there actually make the first article and then lesser companies copy it?
thanks lou

[Shiraz Balolia]

hi shiraz

I will take your word for this. I wonder if you could answer the question that generates comments like "they look the same so they are probalby made by the same company overseas". Specifically, if one looks at these machines they do look almost identical. Why is that? Does one company over there actually make the first article and then lesser companies copy it?
thanks lou

Hi Lou,
A lot of companies copy each other's machines. That has been going on in the woodworking machinery industry for decades, and will continue on as long as the machines are not patented or patentable. There isn't much left that can be patented, maybe a feature here or there, but not whole machines.
In this case, the Shop Fox machine is made in Taiwan by the same company that has been making those planers for more than 20 years. The machine it was being compared to is made in China by a different factory altogether. I know, because we deal with both factories.

[lou sansone]

thanks shiraz

I guess you can appreciate how us consumers who don't have access to that type of information are influnenced by the rumor mill that all of these machines are made by the same factory and just painted a different color.
From a business stand point is there anything that companies such as yours can do to try to distinguish your machines from the other guys?
BTW I was going to suggest the you folks build a bigger wood lathe and low and behold out comes the new catalogue and there it is. It looked pretty nice to me.

lou

[tod evans]

thanks shiraz

I guess you can appreciate how us consumers who don't have access to that type of information are influnenced by the rumor mill that all of these machines are made by the same factory and just painted a different color.
From a business stand point is there anything that companies such as yours can do to try to distinguish your machines from the other guys?
lou

i would like to see the answer to lous question so i`ll bump this post back to the front page.

[Steve Clardy]

Me too. Bump bump

[tod evans]

answers i say!!