Hi Everyone,
I have a Grizzly G1026 shaper that is probably 15 years old. Not sure if it is still the case, but it was back when some Grizzly products were made in ISO factories which was a soothing factor when buying a product from them since at the time they were the cheapest around. I'd like to say it has served me well over the years but that is just not the case. Right from the get-go it had a wonky cartridge that spun the spindle in an ellipse shape instead of a circle. It was brand new and Grizzly readily replaced the cartridge. I've had mixed results with it over the years, and while it has gotten steady use it has not seen a lot of use. I typically use it for making various pieces of trim in hard wood, tongue and groove for the backs of furniture and some cabinets, and making tenons for face frames, etc.
A few of the issues have been:
- Gear lash in the vertical adjustment-when trying to dial in a setting for say a glue joint I'm always up a little down a little up a little etc. till dialed in. The gear lash makes that challenging. Solved that with a dial indicator I keep just for the shaper to actually measure the up and downs.
- Vertical Adjustment-when trying to adjust the height of the spindle, loosening the tightening knob lets the spindle move, but it has some slop, so when using the dial indicator as noted above, the height changes a little bit when the spindle is tightened. I've adjusted the spindle mechanism to the extent possible. Ultimately, I work around this by simply trying to estimate the slop and then readjusting. Still hit and miss which is frustrating and time consuming.
- Vertical adjustment itself-on long runs like making quarter round the "tightening knob" will vibrate loose and the spindle will lower itself a smidgeon. If I don't catch it, the quarter round at the start of the run will be slightly bigger than the QR at the end of the run. Solved that by simply checking the knob every two or three pieces. Not a big deal UNLESS I forget to check it. If I forget, I will usually catch it when a piece or two becomes obviously not "quarter rounded" which is usually a flat starts to appear on the QR.
- Fence-this is the big one. I find the fence to be terrible on this machine. Lots of slop in the adjustment bolts, so again when I need to move it a smidge it's darn near impossible to get it on the first (or second or third) try. Also, it's a split fence system and the fences do not stay coplanar. It seems to be a dust issue overall, but it is a very little bit of dust that causes the problem it seems. If I take the fences off completely, blow all the dust away, and then reinstall the fences, they are close but not perfectly coplanar, and that just gets worse with each readjustment. By coplanar I mean that if you move one fence to a position and then use a straight edge to bring the other fence up to make it straight, the inboard side of the fence will touch first and the outboard side will be back a 1/16th. Or vice versa. Either way, I always end up fiddling to get both sides of the fence in the same plane.
I can live with 1-3, but 4... the fence is just a pain, and time consuming. I'm not a production shop, but the fence makes the shaper my machine of last resort. I think if it worked well, I would use it almost daily.
Which brings me to my questions about the fence;
- Does anyone have a hack/trick/magic spell/skillful workaround for solving the fence problem of misalignment?
- Does anyone know of an aftermarket fence either purchased or diy that is a solid performer?
I feel like a shaper upgrade may be in the future if I can't work the fence out, as the G 1026 only spins up to a 1" spindle, and it seems I'm progressively getting into more 4" cutters that are 1 1/4" spindle. Using inserts for now, but they are just another level of fiddly. Not sure I can really justify the cost of another shaper though.
Thanks for any insight anyone may have,
Cheers,