Grizzly's new South Bend Planer series - first impressions

[Robert London]

They just raised it again to 5295 plus shipping. Sales must be good.

Soon you'll be knocking on $6000 with shipping just for a 20" helical planer.

[William Chain]

That’s Felder/Hammer money.

They just raised it again to 5295 plus shipping. Sales must be good.

Soon you'll be knocking on $6000 with shipping just for a 20" helical planer.

[Robert Mayer]

I still don't understand why Grizzly makes 3 different brands. Just call them all Grizzly and sell upgrades. It dilutes the brand.

[Jim Becker]

I still don't understand why Grizzly makes 3 different brands. Just call them all Grizzly and sell upgrades. It dilutes the brand.

Grizzly is Grizzly. Shop Fox is primarily intended for the retail market. South Bend appears to be targeted to more upscale...kinda like Chevy and Cadillac...

[Ronald Blue]

One has to wonder why people choose to comment without reading through the entire thread. When it's been clearly stated there are differences between the SB and Grizzly that are far more than paint color. Paint doesn't make the base larger or give it a variable speed for the feed rate. I look forward to further updates as he has the chance to use it more. Congrats on the new machine. Enjoy it.

[Jeff Roltgen]

That’s Felder/Hammer money.

(insert negative buzzer sound here)

Try $15,000. My latest inquiries into Felder and SCM are hitting those numbers for a 20" with a helical head. After promotions/discounts you will still be at a solid $13k with shipping, so at about 1/3 the price, Grizz/South Bend still has a big advantage at $5k, as painful as that is to say.

Recently spotted a couple used Felders in the 16-17 year old range asking $6-8k. Again, that's for used equipment pushing 20 years in service. One shows evidence of a major collision in the cutter head bearing/block housing that took a couple viewings to notice.

I'm still trying to get over the thought of spending 5 figures for a planer upgrade if I want "state of the art" vs. yet another reiteration of almost a century old engineering with a DRO and new paint scheme slapped on it. At least with the South Bend unit, seems they're trying to find a mark somewhere in between $3,000 and $13,000 and have made some more advanced steps towards optimizing it's function. Including the separate feed motor is a very significant contribution to the machine's longevity, if you've ever had to rebuild one of those gear boxes.

It's a very different world from just a dozen or two months ago.

[William Chain]

An A3-41 is a 16" jointer/planer, and well within the $5-6k range. Even now with all the COVID crap. I'd take that all day over a South Bend planer.

(insert negative buzzer sound here)

Try $15,000. My latest inquiries into Felder and SCM are hitting those numbers for a 20" with a helical head. After promotions/discounts you will still be at a solid $13k with shipping, so at about 1/3 the price, Grizz/South Bend still has a big advantage at $5k, as painful as that is to say.

Recently spotted a couple used Felders in the 16-17 year old range asking $6-8k. Again, that's for used equipment pushing 20 years in service. One shows evidence of a major collision in the cutter head bearing/block housing that took a couple viewings to notice.

I'm still trying to get over the thought of spending 5 figures for a planer upgrade if I want "state of the art" vs. yet another reiteration of almost a century old engineering with a DRO and new paint scheme slapped on it. At least with the South Bend unit, seems they're trying to find a mark somewhere in between $3,000 and $13,000 and have made some more advanced steps towards optimizing it's function. Including the separate feed motor is a very significant contribution to the machine's longevity, if you've ever had to rebuild one of those gear boxes.

It's a very different world from just a dozen or two months ago.

[Jeff Roltgen]

An A3-41 is a 16" jointer/planer, and well within the $5-6k range. Even now with all the COVID crap. I'd take that all day over a South Bend planer.

I agree, that's what I thought too, until I asked my rep to quote the Hammer (strictly planer, not J/P combo) and he won't even give me numbers on it. Felder and Format only. Evidently they're not confident in selling the Hammer brand for a full time shop (?), so I'm back to $13k Felder or SCM for a 20" machine. I'm left to conclude that Hammer is a hobby grade machine (?)

Again, I contend, with plain and simple facts, You will not be picking up a Felder for South Bend dollars in a 20" thickness planer.

I need to upgrade, but the whole process has me confused to death on where to step next, = no sale for anyone (as if there was any stock available anyway).

[William Chain]

Start with Erik Loza on this board, he'll get you numbers or a rep that'll talk. I live 10 miles from the Delaware warehouse / distribution point for Felder/Hammer. You can get that unit.

We're splitting hairs here - ok you can't get on with Felder down the side, but you can get one a Hammer unit in this range. Which we agree is the better move.

I agree, that's what I thought too, until I asked my rep to quote the Hammer (strictly planer, not J/P combo) and he won't even give me numbers on it. Felder and Format only. Evidently they're not confident in selling the Hammer brand for a full time shop (?), so I'm back to $13k Felder or SCM for a 20" machine. I'm left to conclude that Hammer is a hobby grade machine (?)

Again, I contend, with plain and simple facts, You will not be picking up a Felder for South Bend dollars in a 20" thickness planer.

I need to upgrade, but the whole process has me confused to death on where to step next, = no sale for anyone (as if there was any stock available anyway).

[Brad Rucker]

Quick update after 3 months of use with the new SB planer:

I've run several species through it with excellent results so far - white oak, red oak, hard maple and eastern white pine. The surface I get from this machine has saved me a LOT of sanding time. Not that I don't still sand, but I probably do one-third of the sanding I needed to do with my previous planer.

I've also been really impressed with the way the helical head on the machine cuts. It deals with figured wood and knots really, really well.

One example: My wife and one of our daughters both decided they wanted a shiplap look to cover drywalled walls that are under countertops. The issue was that people would sit on stools and their feet touch and scuff the paint on the drywall. So I was enlisted to put up a faux-shiplap on top of the drywall. I say 'faux' because neither of them wanted a thick shiplap. They wanted boards that were no thicker than 1/4" in order to preserve the look of the baseboards, trim, etc.

That said, I bought several board feet of 4/4 Eastern white pine and resawed it to 3/8". Then I put it through the planer to clean up the resaw marks. This pine was extremely knotty - because my daughter wanted a lot of knots to show on the finished wall. The knots ranged from 1/2" to over 3" in diameter. I kept count and the SB planer only dislodged 2 knots (both about 1" diameter) during the whole planing process. And I fed something like 90+ feet of knotted wood through it. After that, I routed out lap joints on the now pretty thin boards.

I was really happy with the result. Next up I'll be using the South Bend to plane the new structural parts of my new bench. Those are 10/4 hard maple, so a different sort of challenge.

[Bruce Mack]

I'm very glad to hear this. You made a bold move and are rewarded with value.

[Robert London]

It wasn't just SB that went up again, although they seem to have gone up the most since Grizzly released them. It started off at 3900 and now it's 5300. They raised planer prices another 300-400 across the board this week. Their extreme 20" model went up to ~3800. Last year it was under 3k

Even their 15 inch models that could have been had for 1900 last year are now $800 more.

I see it on other brands as well. Jet, Laguna, and all of the stuff made mostly by the same factories all went up another 300-400 in the last few months.

I haven't seen the SB 20" in person. But I doubt a Hammer is better than a South Bend. Hammer is Felder's hobbyist line and they don't have a machine to compete with South Bend for the same money. Hammer does make a stand alone planer, but it's only 16" wide. But I'd take the SB over that one.

The SB had a more traditional layout with top return rollers, a variable feed, long beds and it's more production oriented. The hammer is a bit awkward and it's aimed at space saving DIY environments. The crank wheel is so low to the ground on the hammer, it would drive me crazy adjusting it while planing. You wouldn't last very long planing all day long in a production environment with the Hammer. Your back would tell you get another machine.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Brad- Thanks for the update - was hoping you'd give us a follow up, and not surprised - I've run their 1021X for close to 20 years now, and finish has always been quite good.
Robert- Thanks for the info on the Hammer - kind of what I thought might be the case.

Best news through all of this - hard to find a poor performer in cut quality, now that the industry has almost fully embraced the helical/spiral cutter heads. The rest is budget/power/space, and as pointed out, just plain splitting hairs.

[Rick Potter]

I have also been waiting for a follow up. Glad to hear it exceeds your expectations.

Have to admit, I'm jealous.

One question...have you taken any very shallow skim cuts with it. If so, how smooth a surface is it. This question is asked because my Jet 15" planer could never do a skim cut without leaving roller marks on the surface.

[Brad Rucker]

The smallest cut I've done on it was about 1/32" Don't know if that answers your question, but I haven't seen any roller marks yet.