If somebody has experience or relevant comments on the spiral heads used in Shop Fox machines, I would like to know. My main interest is the W1724 Planer. The second interest is the W1705 Jointer. I think that the Grizzly G0526 is from Shop Fox, but I don't know the original model number.
Could you comment on installation, surface quality, maintenance, and cost of ownership?
Cheers, Ollie
Grizzly && Shop Fox == Woodstock International. So, yes, they're the same. Beyond that, I can't help you.
Brian.
I have a SF 20 inch planer with blades and it is an excellent machine but I also have a friend who paid the extra thousand dollar for one with the spiral cutter head. No comparison in finish, boards from his are almost ready to use and require only light finish sanding.
SF is Grizzly but a considerably upscale Grizzly. Fit, finish, and set up are much better. Between my friend and I we have two shapers, two 20 inch planers, and two 8" inch jointers with conventional blades and aside from one of the two jointers fence not being perfectly square to the table they've been ready to go out of the box.
The motor on my planer friend after about twenty minutes use but a call to SF had a new 90lb. motor at my door in three days. No problems since.
I think SF is one of the best values on the market and if you've hate sanding and have an extra thousand dollars you'll love the spiral cutterhead.
This is the one with the many little carbide square chips, right? What's blade changing like? I'm guessing simple, but time consuming in that there are so many of them.
Anyone used the spiral cutterhead that has blades the full width? I think it's from Powermatic.
JP
He hasn't had to deal with the blades yet but there are a bunch of them and I imagine it would take some time but probably not much longer than trying to get four regular blades set. It does come with the necessary tools and each blade has four cutting surfaces and may be loosened and rotated when it needs replacing.
The system from PM is called flexblade and I've heard that it's not too good.
This thread makes me wonder if the cuter head could be installed on my PM
15" planer... Tom
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Personally I think it would be better if the cuter head remained on the woman it came with.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
there probably is a retrofit version for your machine.
I just bought a Shop Fox 1784 8" spiral cutterhead jointer -- it arrived this morning. I'll let you know my experience once it's up and running......
Rob,
I am looking forward to hear your usage experience. In the meanwhile, perhaps you could tell the price your paid for the machine and shipping? How long it took? Were you happy for the service?
Could you also clarify the model number? My understanding is that 1684 = "standard" 8 inch cutter 1724 = spiral head 8 inch cutter 1784 = ????
Cheers, Ollie
It's actually the 1704 (althought the manual that comes with it is for the 1684 with an insert for the spiral cutterhead). You can look it up on the Japan Woodworker website --
I got it up and running this weekend (set-up was straight forward although get help in lifting the 200-300 pound table onto the base). It did a beatiful job on douglas fir and mahogany. Very little tearout and almost no milling marks -- with no adjustment other than lining up the outfeed table. I'm a bit impatient when feeding stock through and I'm sure you could get a better finish with a very slow and steady feed rate.
I ran a 6" wide quartersawn white oak board through it and the finish was fantastic. It might need a pass or two with a smooting plane to remove a few mill marks but other than that it's basically ready to finish. I also ran a piece of cocobolo through it and it produced a very nice finish with no tear out. It does leave some very light lines along the long axis of the wood (from small imperfections in the indexible blades I presume), but no ripple whatsoever. This is my first jointer and I don't have much of a basis for comparison but my neighboor who has a 50 year old 6" Rockwell jointer was impressed.
My only complaint is that the adjustment mechanism to make the fence square to the table takes some trial and error to get it set correctly. Once set, it has stayed perfectly square, but the adjustment mechanism is not very precise and took me 15 minutes of fiddling to get it square.
I'm happy so far and would buy it again.... but ask me again in a few months....
Robert
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