gloat--planer shelix upgrade Long

[Mark Rakestraw]

Hello,

There have been few posts lately asking about planers so I thought I'd post my impressions of an upgrade I finished today. I have an 11 year old Grizzly 15 inch planer. At the time they came with a 2 hp motor. I've always had to baby it a bit and I've overheated the motor a time or two. I'm just now starting a kitchen out of hard maple and having to plane down 500 bdft of this stuff seemed like a good time to upgrade. I called Grizzly and they had a 3 hp and a 5 hp motor that would fit this unit. The 5 hp wasn't that much more so I ordered it and also the Grizzly shelix cutterhead. The motor came but the cutterhead was backordered. I put the new motor on and it made a world of difference. The five horse motor was still working pretty hard taking off slightly less than 1/16" of 13.5" wide hard maple boards. I could put my hand on the motor, but it was too warm to leave it there. After planing 450 bdft from not quite 1 1/8" to 15/16" my freshly sharpened blades were toast. Since I've still got a lot of planing work to do on this kitchen I decided to order the Byrd shelix head, which was in stock, instead of waiting for the Grizzly head to come in. (As a side note, the operators don't seem to have access to the sales prices that are listed on the web. Even when I asked about the sale, I was told they weren't on sale. I looked back online and found it marked down $100.)

I got the head installed today and it is everything it's claimed to be: quiet, much sharper than the standard blades, and gives a smooth, tearout free surface. During the trial run of wide boards the motor stayed cool enough to comfortably leave my hand on it. The head took a bit to install, had to run down some new bearings, etc. I think I'm going to be very happy with this setup. A 20" planer would have been nice, but I don't really have the extra space it would have taken up, and putting 5hp and the shelix head on the 15"
planer was LOTS cheaper.

I know, no picture, didn't happen. I can't seem to get it under 143 K right now. I'll try to re-size so it will let me post it in the morning.

[Rob Will]

Mark, congrats on the Byrd head. you actually did better by getting the real thing as opposed to a straight insert head. I have a Byrd on a PM 225 and love it.

On your pic resize, try downloading Pixresizer from the web. It is free and easy to use.

Rob

[Mike Spanbauer]

sweet, expecting similar results to the Byrd head that should be here in a day or two for my 20" 0454.

Love to see some pics of your setup when you get around to it :)

Any tips to the installation?

mike

[Walt Caza]

Hi Mark,
Congrats on your motor and Shelix upgrade!
That should help with your maple...

Now that I have one on my 15" planer, I gotta get one for my jointer. uggh
take care,
Walt
:)

[Eric Fuller]

I put a byrd head on my puny little 6" jointer and it felt like I added a couple horsepower to the motor. Purpleheart feels like mahogany did on the straight blades. Seriously.

Gonna order a Grizzly planer and byrd cutterhead when I get back from traveling this month (don't want it delivered while I'm gone). Bye Bye crappy DW735 blades!

[Mark Rakestraw]

I think the picture is here. You can see the old cutter head laying on the outfeed table and since it's the old style planer with the motor on top you can see the edge of the new motor. The installation went fairly smoothly. I did have to run down a tap to clean the threads on the new cutter head for the pulley bolt. I took the planer gearbox to the local garage to use their gear puller to remove a couple of bearings that seemed a bit rough so I could replace them. All in all I think it was well worth the price and effort.

I'm not sure if the picture will be here or not....it says it's the right size, but shows an "upload error" when I try to attach it.

[Mark Rakestraw]

okay, here we try again

[Dave Lewis]

Mark:

Nice review.

Maybe I missed something, did Grizzley sell the Bryd head?

Did you add a new head to your jointer too? I have a Delta DJ-20 and was thinking of adding the Byrd head, or selling and upgrading. (I like the parallel mechanism though).

[Mark Rakestraw]

Yes, I bought the byrd head through Grizzly. $595 on sale on the web, a couple hundred bucks less than it sells for at the Byrd tools site. I put a Grizzly spiral head on my jointer. It cuts nicely also.
Mark

[jim gossage]

mark,
do you notice any differences in the cut, sound, or feel of the byrd vs the grizzly spiral heads?

[Larry Nall]

Mark,
I presume you're talking about the Grizzly 1021. I scored one of about the same vintage recently on Craigs list. It needs a little TLC and the blades are chipped. Rather than replacing the blades I was thinking of head as you did.

I would be interested in hearing how the install went. How long did it take? Any problems?

The 2hp motor seems to have plenty of power, at least compared to my old lunchbox. I hadn't thought about upgrading that.

Thanks for any hints you can provide.

Larry

[Samuel A. Livingstone]

Hello,

There have been few posts lately asking about planers so I thought I'd post my impressions of an upgrade I finished today. I have an 11 year old Grizzly 15 inch planer. At the time they came with a 2 hp motor. I've always had to baby it a bit and I've overheated the motor a time or two. I'm just now starting a kitchen out of hard maple and having to plane down 500 bdft of this stuff seemed like a good time to upgrade. I called Grizzly and they had a 3 hp and a 5 hp motor that would fit this unit. The 5 hp wasn't that much more so I ordered it and also the Grizzly shelix cutterhead. The motor came but the cutterhead was backordered. I put the new motor on and it made a world of difference. The five horse motor was still working pretty hard taking off slightly less than 1/16" of 13.5" wide hard maple boards. I could put my hand on the motor, but it was too warm to leave it there. After planing 450 bdft from not quite 1 1/8" to 15/16" my freshly sharpened blades were toast. Since I've still got a lot of planing work to do on this kitchen I decided to order the Byrd shelix head, which was in stock, instead of waiting for the Grizzly head to come in. (As a side note, the operators don't seem to have access to the sales prices that are listed on the web. Even when I asked about the sale, I was told they weren't on sale. I looked back online and found it marked down $100.)

I got the head installed today and it is everything it's claimed to be: quiet, much sharper than the standard blades, and gives a smooth, tearout free surface. During the trial run of wide boards the motor stayed cool enough to comfortably leave my hand on it. The head took a bit to install, had to run down some new bearings, etc. I think I'm going to be very happy with this setup. A 20" planer would have been nice, but I don't really have the extra space it would have taken up, and putting 5hp and the shelix head on the 15"
planer was LOTS cheaper.

I know, no picture, didn't happen. I can't seem to get it under 143 K right now. I'll try to re-size so it will let me post it in the morning.
New Martin T54 jointer: I recently put a Byrd head on my 20" jointer and am amazed at the finished surface it is quite smooth on hard maple no tearout of curly or birdseye maple. I surfaced planed a 12" wide hard maple with several large tight knots at different angles and there was no tearout Ran the board through my old Cassedie 20"jointer with spiral cutters produced a number of chipouts of the knots which is still better than straight HSS knives would have done. I have gotten to the point where I only consider the crooks and cups in the boards and ignore grain.

The shavings from the Byrd head are more like small sawdust particles. There are no fluffy curls from a regular jointer. The dust collector has no trouble sucking them up.

Using cherry there is a palpable fuzz ( too small to see)on the surface If I push a board very fast I will get the scalloping others have mentioned. Sandpaper takes them out with a few strokes.

White oak planes to a very smooth surface I cannot feel the difference in pores from spring to summer wood.

Sam Livingstone Watertown, NY

[Mark Rakestraw]

Larry,

The installation went fairly easily. Both the Grizzly site and the Byrd tool site have installation instructions that are pretty good. Once I was inside the gearbox there were a couple bearings that felt a bit rough so I went ahead and replace them. Of course I put new bearings on the cutterhead also. If you have the bearings on hand and what you need to pull and press them on their estimate of 3 hours is pretty accurate.

Given the cost and hassle of sharpening and replacing straight blades, and the improved performance of the index spiral heads, I think it is a worthwhile upgrade make.

Mark