G0634 - An amateur's review Part I

[David Dalzell]

On Thursday I took delivery of a Grizzly G0634 jointer/planer combo machine. This is the one with the spiral cutterhead. Before I start I want everyone to know that I have never owned either a jointer or a planer before. Last year I did take an evening woodworking class at a local high school. That was my introduction to woodworking machinery. Tablesaw, bandsaw, jointer, planer, etc. Prior to this I did everything with hand tools. I have and will continue to use handplanes, saws, chisels, etc. My point is twofold: 1) My mini-review is done with very little expertise in power machinery, and 2) I have insufficient knowledge to compare the G0634 versus any other jointer or planer. I had originally planned to buy the G0633 (straight knives) but since I work almost exclusively with hardwood and often difficult burls I decided on the spiral cutterhead version.
The G9634 arrived Thursday afternoon. The freight truck driver helped me move the crate into my garage/shop and placed where I wanted it. There was no visible damage to the crate or contents. After uncrating I slid it off the pallet with the help of a friend. Not difficult at all. The G0634 comes fully assembled except for the cutter head guard which is very easy to insert and remove. I did the inventory, all there. Cleaning the protective gunk off the tables took about 1/2 hour using paper towels and mineral spirits. I would rather clean off protective gunk than rust. I then followed the owner's manual and checked for infeed/outfeed tables parallelism, outfeed table height, and all the other checks. Everything was fine, as best I could determine.

Next I wanted to set the infeed table to somethig less than 1/32" to make test cuts. I was somewhat confused on how to do this. Here the manual should be more explicit. For the outfeed table the manual calls the adjuster the "Outfeed Table Adj. Knob". This is good, very clear. However for the infeed table the equivalent adjuster is called "Infeed Handgrip". To me a handgrip is something you grip, not adjust. So I wasn't exactly sure if I was supposed to use this "Grip" or not to make the adjustment. In the end there was nothing else to turn to make the adjustment so that "Grip" must be it. However you must first lossen an inset hex cap screw before the Grip will turn. A minor annoyance is that no hex wrench is supplied for this task. I happen to have a full set of hex wrenches so I found one that fit and made the adjustment.

Now it was time for a trial run to cut some wood.

The first two photos show before and after cleaning of the jointer table.

Following those are photos of the spiral cutterhead, setup for jointing and set up for planing.

By the way, the changeover from jointing to planing, and back again, is very fast and easy. It took me something less than two minutes for the changeover and this included switching the dust collector hose from one dust port to the other.

[Peter Scoma]

looks like an awesome machine, good choice. How long is the bed btw?

PS

[David Dalzell]

Since I normally work with hard woods and exotics this is what I used for my tests.

Jointer Tests:
The first test was a piece of California Black Oak burl that came from a tree on my property. It was originaly bandsawed (another new Grizzly machine) into a 1/2+ inch piece. Everything seemed to work fine after the first pass. Oops! I noticed a lot of chips on the side of the G0634 opposite to where I had connected the dust collector. What's going on? Defective dust port or what? After a little bit of checking I discovered that I had connected to dust collector to the Planer port not the Jointer port! Oh well, no one will ever know. On the second pass all worked well and the surface was completely flat. There was no visible tearout. Running my hand over the surface of the Oak piece I could feel a slight, uniform, prickly burr. I attribute this to the swirlly nature of the burl grain. A very light hand sanding with 220 grit sandpaper cured this. Hand planing a piece like this is tricky. I usually wind up using a card scraper for a long time to prevent tearout with the hand plane. Very nice.

The next piece was was Walnut burl. Also very tricky to work with. This also came out very flat and with no visible tearout. If you look at the photo you will notice several dark streaks running vertically on this piece. Actually, if I remember correctly, these streaks are parallel to the cutter head. Visually they are there, but there is no noticable tactile difference when running my fingers over the full width of the surface. The entire surface felt smooth. I have no explanation for these streaks. It may have been as a result my technique, perhaps stopping momentarily as I passed the wood over the cutter head. I just don't know. Anyway I later hand sanded the surface with 220 grit and got rid of the streaks. It took a little more work than did the Oak, but not much. Again very nice.

The next piece, shown at the top of the second photo was Cherry. Cherry is well behaved, so there is not much to say. Again very nice.

The forth and last piece was Brazilian Rosewood. Here I encountered a minor problem. Not the fault of the G0634. Rosewood is very dense (heavy) and also very oily (slippery). As I passed the piece over the infeed/outfeed tables the Grizzly supplied push blocks, which have some sort of foam pad on the faces, would slip over the wood with only marginal griping power. This caused the wood to move/stop/move and so on. The result was visible and tactile slight waves on the surface of the wood. I cured this problem by gluing on a cut off piece of soft rubber sanding mat to the bottom of the push blocks. This worked perfectly, no sliping at all. Frankly I consider a push pad that slips to be a danger. After modefying the push pads the surface came out very clean and smooth. Rosewood, while not contankerous, is very hard. When I work it by hand I have to frequently touch up the edges on my planes and scrapers. What a joy not to have to do that. Again very nice.

Planner tests:
Initially I started out with an 11 1/2" wide by four foot long Mahagony board in order to test front-to-back and side-to-side parallelism. The front-to-back parallelism (length of the board) was perfect. No measurable difference in thickness when measured with a dial caliper.

However the side-to-side parralelism was a different story. Over the 11 1/2" width of the board there was 20 thousanths difference between one edge and the other. The Owner's Manual is clear on adjusting for this.

I made an adjustment and made a second pass on the Planer. This time there was about 7 thousanths difference. Another adjustment and another pass through the planer. This time the difference was between 1 and 2 thousanths over the 11 1/2' width of the board. Close enough and certainly better than I can do by handplanning.

I then ran the Oak, Cherry, and Rosewood through the Planner. All very nice. Unfortunately I could not run the Walnut burl through the Planner. It is already at the desired thickness I want for a specific project. I did not want to reduce that. Thus I could not verify if the dark streaks on the jointed surface were a result of my technique or some other factor.

Conclusions:
1) Overall I am extremely pleased with the G0634. It works perfectly and produces very nice surfaces. Remember this is an amateur's opinion. As an aside, three weeks ago I received their 19" bandsaw (G0514X) and am also very pleased that machine. With two Grizzly machines owned I feel that I have gotten my money's worth. They are solid, work well and are reasonably priced. I would buy more.

2) The changeover between jointer and planner is easy and fast.

3) A minor disconcertment is the Planner height adjustment wheel. It works opposite to the normal. That is, turning the wheel clockwise does not raise the Planner table, it lowers it. Turning it counter clockwise raises the table. I suppose I will get used to it but I feel it is counterintuitive.

4) A recommendation for the Grizzly folk if they read this. First: On page 23 of the Owner's Manual change the text and and photo 19 text to read "Infeed Table Adj. Knob" instead of "Infeed Handgrip". I believe this would reduce initial confusion and would also be compatible with the text used to describe the Outfeed Table adjuster. Second: A T handle hex wrench for the "Infeed Table Adj. Knob" should be supplied with the machine. One similar to that supplied for removing/replacing the carbide cutter inserts. Third: Use some other material on the push pads that has better griping power.

One last thing that has nothing to do with the G0634. When I ordered the machine I was on the Grizzly website and had placed the G0634 in my "shopping cart". Then I called my order in because I wanted to verfy that I needed a lift gate with the delivery and also to get a sense of when I might expect delivery. No problem. Then I noticed that Grizzly offers a free gift with each purchase. So I called again to get the free gift. Bad news. The free gift is only if the order is completed on the internet. But since I had called it in, well no free gift. Too bad since I liked the 12 piece router bit set they were offering.

That's it folks. I hope this was interesting for you.

[David Dalzell]

I noticed that my photos of the wood did not show up in Part II. So here they are.

[Curt Harms]

Congratulations on what sound like TWO good pieces of machinery. Ain't it fun when Santa comes? (no matter the age or time of year)

[Rob Cooper]

David,

Thanks for the review, that combo looks like a nice machine. One question I have about the removable fence is does it return to a perfect 90 after switching functions?

[David Dalzell]

I don't know about the 90 degree set up after removing and re-installing the fence. I didn't check it. Just never occurred to me. However I believe, from the design of the fence, that it will stay true to whatever angle is set. When removing the fence the entire assembly, including the tilt mechanism, comes off as one locked up piece. Only the main support shaft for the fence stays on the machine.

[Chris Ricker]

good post, David.
I have the same machine and I too appreciate it. I have had it since July and have run about 600 BF through it. As you will see this is a quality machine performing as stated. I believe that the perpendicular lines in your photos are due to technique, with practice you should eliminate them. Be sure to check all of your pulleys and belts for adjustments. I mistakenly missed this step and had to replace the belts. The Allen wrench that came with the unit is the one to use to adjust the in feed table, but a t-handle would be useful.
as far as repeatability on the jointer fence, I have not had a problem with it returning to 90 degrees after planing mode. I used to check it before jointing but now I just go with it and have not had a problem.
I also thought that the aluminum fence could use an upgrade to a cast one but in my experience in really is not needed.

If I were in charge of enginering I would consider replacing the "wheel" type adjustment knobs on the fence with the "lever" type (set below the top of the fence) as the wheel type are too high and tend to get in the way when edge jointing wide boards and, using the "wheel" type on the planer bed lock mechanism for ease of use. Other than that it is a great investment for me and I intend to use it fopr many years to come.

[Chris Ricker]

well,David, how did it work, today??

[Jim Andrew]

Good story. I also have a couple pieces of Grizzly equipment, and like it. Jim

[J.R. Rutter]

The perpendicular stripes (front to back) are just par for the course with insert heads like this. As you found, they are more optical than tactile and are easy to sand out. Definitely better than tearout! Nice job on the review and congratulations on the new machine.

[Charlton Wang]

Can someone clarify one aspect of the G0634Z for me? I'm interested in this J/P combo but I'm perplexed by the dust collection setup. In the manual here: http://cdn9.grizzly.com/manuals/g0634z_m.pdf on page 16 it shows the dust collector for jointer operation going in the direction of the outfeed table. Somehow, this doesn't seem to corroborate the fact that there are two ports with one of them pointing in the direction of the infeed table when in jointer mode. I'm assuming that regardless of what mode the machine is in, the dust collection will be pointing in the direction of the infeed table, correct?

Thanks,
Charlton

[Chris Ricker]

Hey Charlton,
I believe you have found a typo in the manual, good catch, you really are studying!
If you go to page 19 of the manual and look at Figures 15 and 16 you will find the correct configuration for the dust collection.
BTW, I'm still very pleased with my 634.
Best of luck.

[Charlton Wang]

Thanks for clarifying, Chris. Much appreciated!

Cheers,
Charlton