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(11-28-2023, 02:28 PM)Brian in sunny FL Wrote: It's not made by one of the aftermarket brands you can buy, I'm sure it works fine. Been selling the Byrd for 18 years and as Fred said, only option back in the day. Some people like the Luxe Cut but I would stay away just because of the proprietary inserts and their ridiculous price tag for lower grade carbide.
Jet apparently has some planer inserts too now that are proprietary and ridiculously priced. Never saw them before but customer called a couple weeks ago looking for options and couldn't find any. I think Jet was asking $360 for a set of 30.
Interesting, I was thinking Jet would out source the cutter heads to Byrd or some known company. I guess somewhere in Taiwan there's a company knocking off Byrd cutters for Jet/PM/Grizz/Laguna ect. ect. Haven't priced inserts but Ed says the Byrd fits the Jet so when I need em I'll buy the Bryds.
Thanks for the info.
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It should fit the Jet, no promises.
My PM 15hh has a Byrd head from the factory.
My 8" PM jointer has a clone, it still uses the same inserts.
Ed
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(11-28-2023, 09:03 PM)EdL Wrote: It should fit the Jet, no promises.
My PM 15hh has a Byrd head from the factory.
My 8" PM jointer has a clone, it still uses the same inserts.
Ed
Ed is correct with possibly one exception. The planers to use actual Byrd heads shipped from KY to Taiwan. The jointers use Asian knockoffs like the rest of the tool sellers. Are they better/worse? They probably work just fine but I would bet the Byrd uses better tool steel and carbide, not that the others wouldn't work perfectly.
The one area I can't confirm on them using the same inserts is the face radius and not sure this matters. The Byrd for some reason uses a 100mm face radius while the rest of the world uses 150mm and I assume the Jet would use 150mm. I can't say why and I can't find a reason why they wouldn't be interchangeable anyway. I never asked Byrd and they have been around a while and may have been the first to create the shear angle that requires a face radius so maybe they just picked 100mm and when others came along went another direction.
