Retrofit Byrd head in PM 8" jointer?

[Rob Damon]

I have that jointer and put a Bryd head on it a few years ago.
Was pretty straight forward to do.

I bought the head directly from PM with the new bearings.

If I remember correctly I had to remove the guard and rabbit table. Then remove the two bolts holding the old cutter head. Installed the new cutter head, rabbit table and guard. Then adjusted the height of the outfeed table.

[Phil Gaudio]

I did this job with a Byrd head in a Delta DJ-20: no regrets at all. No more knife changing issues and performance that was amazing. Go for it: you won't be disappointed.

I recently acquired a used Powermatic 8" PJ882 parallelogram jointer. The machine is in fine shape and I got it for a very attractive price.

I am seriously considering putting a Byrd head in it. I would also put new bearings in it while I am at it although the old ones seem fine. Yes, the head is expensive but the cost is not an issue. The jointer will likely remain in my family for many years.

Any insights on doing this job would be appreciated.

[George Makra]

Shellix I own one of their heads on a Delta 6 X 13 thickness planner and I love it.
I have run thousands of feet of oak through that machine with out so much as a tear out.
Might you have to dress the wood after, perhaps but it seems to me that a thickness planer is supposed to get you to a desired thickness.
Final finishing is up to you.
Shellix does balance their heads, because when you do order a head from them they make it up for you and I know the bottle neck in manufacturing is at the balancing station.
Their bread and butter are the replacement head for Dewalt.
And there is no one out there that will put carbide heads on a rotating cylinder spinning any where between 5000-8000 RPM with out balancing..
Shellix is currently making my second head for a 12 inch New Berlin jointer which is probably between 80-100 years old.
Buy from who ever you feel comfortable with.
In the end they are all similar products that produce similar results.

[Mark Hockenberg]

I put a Byrd in my Delta DJ-15 jointer and love it. I changed the bearings at the same time and would recommend that.

Like others, I didn't want to deal with knife alignment. I've been happy with the performance and would make this change again.

[richard newman]

I don't find knife alignment to be a big deal, but I've been changing 16" - 24" knives for 50 years, so I guess I have a lot of practice. Where the Shelix head really excels for me is with highly figured material. I build banjos now and use some pretty fierce curly hard maple, and the Shelix head can handle that stuff without any tearout, even on quartered faces. Worth it to me just for that. Used to have to hand plane those surfaces to get them perfect, don't miss that at all, altho I still will just kiss them with a plane before gluing, old habits die hard...

[Brian Branesky]

Not sure on complaner. I positioned the outfeed table to match TDC of the cutterhead, it was right on next to the fence but as you go toward the operator side the cutterhed became low to the outfeed table, so thought that should be dealt with first? This is my first jointer, soooo, just trying to figure it out.

[richard newman]

Brian, you're absolutely right, that has to be dealt with. Don't know about the PJ882, but on my jointer I used shims under the bearing blocks. Should be able to get it within .001" with a good indicator. You'll want a good, large footprint base, like a surface gauge or a flat ground piece of steel w/ a mag base to get easily repeatable results. You need to be able to slide it around without jiggling or impact. It's a bit of trial and error, but well worth it.

Woodworking machines, especially consumer grade stuff, are just not built to very tight tolerances. A good assortment of shim stock is a necessity, along with a good test indicator and bases.