General 8" Jointer Heilical Carbide Cutters

[Nathan Sampson]

I just recently picked up a used 2015 General International 80-200LHC 8" helical jointer and am looking to replace the cutters as a bunch are chipped. General refers to it as a "Byrd" style head with 15mm x 15mm x 2.5mm cutters. Looking at the head, it looks a lot like a Lex Cut III.



Since I plan on eventually upgrading my 2022 Craftex CX15 planer to a helical head. I'm wondering if I can use the Lux Cut III carbide cutters on the jointer and when I upgrade the planer, then I only need to keep on type of cutter on hand.

Both are 15mm x 15mm x 2.5mm cutters with a slight radius and use T25 10-32 thread by 1/2" long. The Lux Cut III uses a shouldered bolt instead of the typical tapered bolt. Looking for some input before spending the money on 40 cutter inserts.

[Andrew Hughes]

I just rotated the inserts on my planer bryd head. I stayed focused in how the back of the insert touches the the little ledge that sticks up. Or the screws didn’t seem to set right. The bryd inserts have a 30 degree facebevel. What do the lux have?
I wouldn’t mix the two the devil is in the details
Good Luck

[Kendall Scheier]

The lux cutters have a shallower curve (larger radius). The byrd website has a link somewhere comparing the two and specifies the 2 angles on there, I just can’t remember off the top of my head.

[Nathan Sampson]

Both Byrd and Lux Cut have a 30 degree bevel. Byrd uses a 100mm radius and Lux uses a 150mm radius. I know its a clone and not a real Byrd head. Interestingly though at the time, this machine was the only one offered by General with this style of head. Every other helical machine used those double sided Magnum cutters. I wonder if this was near the beginning of the Lux Cut style heads.

[Dick Strauss]

Loosen and rotate your inserts 90 degrees to the next unused edge.

[Nathan Sampson]

My new carbide inserts finally arrived today. They fit perfect and I think that they actually torque more consistently than the standard fully tapered screws. I compared the new cutter to one of the new spares that came with the machine and face to face they are identical, so they do not have a different radius than the standard cutters. Figured I'd post my findings as it might help someone in the future, although it will be a while before they will be cutting wood.