I have never owned any Grizzly machinery and probably never will.
I have owned a shop full of General (Made in Canada) machinery which has now been replaced by Hammer machinery.
My jointer and planer were replaced by a Hammer A3-31 jointer planer which gave me several benefits over my General equipment.
- space savings
- capacity increase
- lower cost
- easier knife changes
- excellent range of accessories such as digital height gauge, table extensions.
My cabinet saw and shaper were replaced by a Hammer B3 Winner with the comfort package and the 49" crosscut capacity. Benefits were
- increased capacity in crosscut from 12" to 49"
- sliding table with outrigger, able to process sheet goods and large solid wood pieces for furniture
- scoring saw
- improved dust collection
- 3 function rip fence for improved convenience and safety
- riving knife and overhead dust collection
- electronic blade brake
- ability to straight line rip material
- good range of accessories
On the shaper front the improvements were
- sliding table
- tilting spindle with 4 speeds
- ability to use sanding drums
- tenoning hood and table
- flip up stock feeder for use on the saw or shaper.
- ability to use 1 1/4" or 30mm tooling
- electronic blade brake
- good range of accessories
The differences between a Euro machine and an Asian or North American machine are far greater than quality control issues, the Euro machines are so much better in so many ways that they're not even in the same universe.
- dust collection, designed from the ground up to collect dust, because in the EU machines are actually tested for this under working conditions. Poor dust collections means nobody buys your equipment.
- safety, same thing, safety performance is legislated so machines have to meet safety standards. This means that machines are designed from the ground up to be safer so guards that actually work and help with work quality, automatic blade braking under a specified maximum time, MAN rated cutters for reduced kickback incidence and energy, and better design for workpiece support such as factory sliding tables and table extensions.
In my case the EU machines increased my safety, health, work capacity and convenience, while reducing my costs and space requirements.
Do yourself a favour and watch this video, it's long however it does a good job of illustrating the capabilities of EU hobby machines compared to NA hobby machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8A3XK3R0I
Regards, Rod.