Grizzly 17" Ultimate Bandsaw G0636XB

[Van Huskey]

OFF TOPIC ALERT:
Ferrari kills Porsche in profit per car. Ferrari-$80K vs. Porsche-$17.5K.

The vast gulf between the two is primarily the difference in corporate structure/accounting between the two companies and what is off book for Ferrari and what is on book for Porsche, but that is a gear head or accountant discussion for another forum.


More on topic, if one is interested in comparing the SCM MM/Formula saws to the 636/701 saws the first places to look is the spine and the guides.

[John TenEyck]

More on topic, if one is interested in comparing the SCM MM/Formula saws to the 636/701 saws the first places to look is the spine and the guides.

Here's what I measured on my G0636X. The spine is made of two box beams. I measured the thickness of the steel used in the upper wheel housing at 4.5 mm thick including the paint, so the steel itself is probably closer to 4 mm. I'm guessing the same stock was used for the spine, but haven't pulled the on/off switch box to confirm. The spine is 6-3/4" front to back and tapers from about 8" at the bottom to 7" at the top. I put a dial gage on the upper guide assembly and measured 0.042" deflection from zero to 27K psi to the table on a 1", 0.035" blade. That seemed like a really high number to me, considering my little 14" Delta measures at 0.012" deflection with a 3/8" blade at 12K psi. I'd be interested in what others have measured on a MM16, and similar saws. I will note that the blade guides on my G0636X travel over their full range and remain parallel with the blade w/o need for adjustment.

The blade guides on the G0636X work well on the 1" blades I run on it. I'm not sure how well they would work on narrow blades though I've never tried one. To adjust the guide bearings you have to loosen a locking bolt and rotate the bearing cam shaft, then tighten the locking bolt. Grizzly supplies the wrench needed which I thought was a nice touch. Adjusting the bearings isn't hard and takes a couple of minutes top and bottom. I've had no issues with the bearings in 2 years and I've cut a lot more wood with it than most hobbyists would, including many hundreds of square feet of veneer.

The lower guides sit quite a bit below the table. I think they did this so that the dust collection port can remove the sawdust before it gets to the guides, but that's just a guess. In my mind it would be better if the guides were right up under the table, as close as possible w/o interfering with the table tilt feature. That said, to do that w/o issue I think the lower guides would have to use something other than bearings to avoid gumming up with sawdust and you'd likely have to use a different dust collection approach than the simple (and effective) system now used. I've never noticed the blade to suffer from unwanted deflection or drift, even when cutting 12" thick stock, so the saw hasn't suffered in performance with the guides where they now are.

With respect to dust collection, the G0636X has two 4" dust ports, one just under the table on the right side and the other on the back in the lower left corner of the lower wheel housing. With maybe 600 - 700 cfm from my DC through those two 4" hoses to a 6" trunk it has no trouble collecting the sawdust, even when cutting 12" and thicker stock.

Who wants to offer up some comparative details and observations on a saw in the same size range?

John

[Chuck Saunders]

I put the 636 into service at our Guild shop 2 years ago (our shop is open 260hrs a month for our 800+ members, it gets used) . I compared it to the MM16. For the money I went with the 636. You can see the difference in the specs compared to the other saws in Grizzly's line. I have a 513x2 at home and there is no comparison (and I like my 513x2). The saw has performed admirably used exclusively as a resaw. My only wish was that it was 3 phase.
Chuck

[Van Huskey]

Here's what I measured on my G0636X. The spine is made of two box beams. I measured the thickness of the steel used in the upper wheel housing at 4.5 mm thick including the paint, so the steel itself is probably closer to 4 mm. I'm guessing the same stock was used for the spine, but haven't pulled the on/off switch box to confirm. The spine is 6-3/4" front to back and tapers from about 8" at the bottom to 7" at the top. I put a dial gage on the upper guide assembly and measured 0.042" deflection from zero to 27K psi to the table on a 1", 0.035" blade. That seemed like a really high number to me, considering my little 14" Delta measures at 0.012" deflection with a 3/8" blade at 12K psi. I'd be interested in what others have measured on a MM16, and similar saws. I will note that the blade guides on my G0636X travel over their full range and remain parallel with the blade w/o need for adjustment.

Someone PMed me asking about the thickness of the MM/Formula steel and referenced this thread which apparently I had missed this post.

The MM16 and MM20 both use a triple boxed beam made of 5mm steel. The MM16 depth is 8" from the table to the bottom of the door and is 6" at the table down to 4 1/2" at the bottom of the top door. These numbers are difficult to compare and someone would have to have the exact construction details to compare their rigidity. I do not have a comparable cross-section blade to compare on the MM16 but I keep a 1" Trimaster in .035" on the MM20. So assuming the cross section is equal (you would have to add into the calculations and difference in the front to back cross section measured from the back of the band to the closest gullets which will vary with a VTPI blade like a Trimaster) the deflection measured in the same way at 30k psi is .022".

Unfortunately, none of this is likely to be remotely apples to apples since we don't have a direct comparison in the construction of the beams, possible blade differences, differences in strain, differences in the instrument and methods used to obtain strain and the fact my deflection numbers are from a bigger saw.