Grizzly Planer?

[YellowHammer]

Glad to be of help on dialing up the power. It is amazing how just a little more current will make such a difference.

I have not had any problems with my gears, but I'll go check them.  Did the teeth wear down?

Yh

[WDH]

I routinely skip plane any FAS grade boards to increase their marketability and price.  I take a light cut with the planer to get the lumber to a uniform thickness, remove any cup, provide a nice bright surface, and make sure there aren't any surprises.  I put the Grizz in high gear and run the boards through pretty fast.  It makes the boards much easier to sell, even at a significantly higher price. 

A mistake I made on some quartersawn white oak was to skip plane one face only.  Even though the lumber was air dried, one face acted different than the other and the boards ended up bowed.  I should have skip planed both sides  .

[Woodchuck53]

Yellowhammer. The gears were a real low quality wore into sharp edges by the time I got into it. But if this set last as long then I want need the extra pair I ordered. That being said there is a delay in rotation already so I'm sure this set is going out though.

[Papa1stuff]

A little update , sorry for not answering ,but have been under the weather for a few days with some bad resturant food,that out of the way just in time for a little surprise cookout and party to celebrate our 60th anniversary a little early.
Anyway have not hooked up the planer yet but will in the very near future! ;D

[caveman]

I have noticed that several of you run the Grizzly planers and most have been pleased with them.  Jmoore and I are going to look at a used GO454Z - 20" planer tomorrow morning.  It has a 5hp single phase motor and a spiral head.  Are there any specific things we should look out for before handing the guy green money? 

It looks pretty good in the pictures on the ad.  The infeed and out feed tables have a little surface rust but that is to be expected here.  I have an old Rockwell 13" planer that does a good job and has planed a lot of wood but lately we really could have benefitted from being able to plane wide slabs.

The slippery slope continues...

[dean herring]

Is anyone using a Grizzly 24" planer that is close by. I would like to see one in use. Am considering getting one . Thanks

[WDH]

Kyle,

I believe that the 454Z is a good shop planer.  I have the 453Z which is the 3 hp and 15" version of that planer.  It does a good job, but you cannot ram board after board thru it in a production mode.  The 454Z with the 5 hp should handle more production runs better than the 453Z with only 3 hp. 

I am running the GO544 with spiral head for my lumber business, and it is a good production machine for a one man operation.  It is also 20", but it has a separate 5 hp motor for the cutterhead and a 2 hp motor for the infeed.  The 454Z only has a single 5 hp motor I believe, but it is also considerably less expensive. When I am planing, I generally plane in 300 to 500 bf batches, which is essentially a pallet load of my kiln dried lumber, so I give the planer a good workout. 

The carbide inserts last a long time if your wood is not dirty or gritty.  I have put over 60,000 bf through the 544 and I am still on my fourth face of the cutters, but it is getting time to replace them. 

[caveman]

Thanks for the explanation.  John and I had the day off so we took the morning and drove to Hudson, Fl. and came home with a planer.  The guy who we bought it from was evidently a book editor and bought a bunch of woodworking tools with a royalty check.  Now his wife wants the garage for parking cars so he is selling a lot of his tools.  He said he probably only planed 20 boards with the machine. 

We brought it home, cleaned the bed, set the rollers and the infeed/outfeed tables the way we wanted them and wired it up.  We fed it Australian Pine (Ian calls it Sheoak) and gnarly grained live oak and it produced smooth boards quietly.  The liveoak we planed was the pith board out of a planter (Mr. Poston Widehead style) that I made last spring.  That dull looking board came to life after planing - which will probably lead to a lot of slabs getting skip planed to emphasize their unique grain and appearance.

I had the same planer with straight knives in my old school's shop and it did a good job but this one is so much quieter and seems to do better on the crazy grained wood.  John liked it so much that he said I ought to get a spiral head for my 8" jointer.  I doubt that will happen any time soon.

We did not get a steal of a deal but we were both pleased with the cost and performance.