OK, time to come clean....

[Chris Barnett]

Ready to place an order for a large helical tydpe planer but want to know the latest regarding issues involving non-flat or dishing in planed surfaces. Earlier posts indicated this problem only with the cutter head that had carbide inserts set on a bias which cut with a shearing action. Folks who had the spiral head with carbide inserts [non-Bird] from Grizzly did not experience this anomoly.
Is there a discernable non-flat contour due to the Bird type helical head cutting action?
My current inclination is to go with the PM due to the five year warranty (although it will be nearly impossible to get the service man to be responsive based on actual experience) but want to go Grizzly because better customer service cannot be found anywhere (but it is limited to one year) :(.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Chris, here's what I have and what I've found. I ordered the G0454 20" from Grizzly and at the same time (a little before, actually) a Byrd head for it.

The first thing done when the planer arrived was to install the helical head. Planed great. Run a eastern red cedar board through and no tearout and none of the little "scallops" that so many complained about. After several thousand feet of assorted material took the top off and rotated the inserts. Carefully marked each of them with a Sharpie and rotated each in the same direction and torqued each down the same given amount. The "scallops" showed up. Don't have a clue why, but they are there. Still better than fighting the tearout with knife cutters and not a lot of sanding required to get rid of them, but it sure is puzzling why it happened. Maybe someone who reads this will have some ideas.

[Tony Joyce]

You have to be very careful when turning the knives to clean the seat below the knife and the back side of the knife for resin or pitch build-up. That said I assume you're referring to the heads that use the app. 14X14X2.5mm knives. My experience tells me that they will never cut as perfect as they do on the first cutting edge. A lot of the knives run on production planers only get the use of three sides because they chip or break and have to be replaced(production machines!). Most owners want to get all the life out of the knives they can. At $2-3 per knife with 20-24 knives(24"-25" wide machines) to the row X 6 rows per head X two heads who can blame them. That said they will still last a long time for most people. The average joe will probably never have to buy more than a couple of sets. The ridge left by knife overlap is minimal and can usually only be seen if held up to the light. Normal sanding easily removes all these marks. If you are getting dips that look like a small washboards feed speed is most likely the problem(to fast).

All said and done these heads leave a very good finish on most woods especially knotty or curly woods, offer long life on the knives, and require little or no futzing to set up.

Tony Joyce

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Thanks for the reply Tony. When we rotated the inserts we tried to be very careful for clean each insert and seat. The woods we plane have very little in the way of resins, although I realize it won't take much. The first time we did it and planed a test board we got one very pronounced scallop and managed to trace it down and did find a tiny bit of something on the seat. But this is a goodly number of scallops across the board, although as I said it doesn't take much sanding to take them out. One of these days when I have a good deal of time to 'piddle' with something I think I'll do it again and wipe everything down really well with lacquer thinner. It's the only thing I know to do. Feed speed has not been altered.

[Jim Andrew]

I have Byrd heads on both my planer and jointer, and I can't see any of the marks some of the guys write about. I have broken one tooth, and still can't see anything. The chips of metal were my clue. Thanks for the clue on turning the inserts. Still on my first edge. The planer head is a year or 2 older than the jointer, just got the G0609 last winter. The wonderful thing is the lack of tearout. I can use boards that would just be trash after planing on a straight blade machine. Jim

[Walt Caza]

Hi Chris,
I have been running and loving a Byrd head on my 15"" planer.
I cannot find any scallops, although I am still on my first edge. (seating can be an issue)
Creeker David Eisan ran an indicator over a so-called scalloped edge, and found them to be less than 1 thou deep.
As I sand everything anyway, I consider it a non-issue.

Futhermore, I have been working with QSWoak, and have no issue with tear-out.
I can feed the stock from either end, no problems...
I have stopped reading grain direction when feeding, and now just stick it in.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=719347#poststop
In my 3rd posting in that thread I discuss what I learned about the inner workings of planers.

I cannot wait to get a Bryd head for my 8" jointer, hardwood is hurting my
straight knives.
good luck with all that,
Walt
:)

[Chris Barnett]

Did not see any information on the Grizzly non-Bird style carbide insert head planers. Does anyone have the Grizzly with the non-Bird helical head and if so, any comments on surface quality or other issues?

[glenn bradley]

Ron seems to like them in this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=82416 I have been getting feedback on some other forums as I am about ready to order and the Griz spiral gets good reviews. I was concerned about the spiral direction mirroring (as in reverse) the Byrd pattern but that seems to be a non-issue.

The Griz http://www.grizzly.com/images/pics/jpeg288/g/g0490x_det2.jpg (http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0490X/images/2) The Byrd http://www.grizzly.com/images/pics/gif100/h/h8803.gif (http://www.grizzly.com/products/Shelix-Cutterhead-8-G0490-/H8803)