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anyone have experience or opinion with the Grizzly planer/jointer combo .
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Nope, but I have some very recent experience with my new Hammer A3-41 combo planer. Absolutely love it for the combination of space saving and jointer capacity. I work out of one stall in the garage, so I have to make a lot of compromises in terms of mobility and space, but I don't feel compromised at all by my combo machine. It takes about a minute to convert, most of which is cranking the planer bed up and down. This is indeed tedious, but not terribly time consuming. It also teaches you to think ahead on your workflow. I have no regrets on going with a combo machine.
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I have a Jet JJP 12, and agree the conversion process is quite quick. I did loctite a nut to the center of the handwheel that raises and lowers the bed, and keep an old battery powered drill with a nut driver at the machine, so I can power the bed up and down, it goes very quickly.
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I can't help with the Grizzly machine, I too have a Jet JJP-12 with straight knives. If room were not a consideration I'd probably have gone with separates although a 12" jointer ain't cheap. I use air dried rough sawn lumber so a wide jointer was on the list of must haves. Some complain about jointer bed lengths on combo machines. Mine are 55", a rule of thumb is that you can joint 1.5 to 2 times the length of the beds. That's somewhere 6.5' to 8' which is plenty for me. I have used roller stands for longer boards but that's been rare. I skip plane to get a feel for grain then cut to rough length before flattening and planing.
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I don't know the Grizzy either but I have a rather large 4 functions in one combination. The jointer/planer har 24" capacity and its total lenght is over 7 feet.
After having made doors and windows that machine part time in a one car garage for a few years my oppinion is that is space is plentiful large separates are better. Though if space is limited a large combination is a lot better than the small separates that would fit into the same amount of space.
A jointer of somilar width as the planer also saves a lot of time and frustration when face jointing wide boards and glueups.
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(01-18-2019, 03:47 PM)TGW Wrote: I don't know the Grizzy either but I have a rather large 4 functions in one combination. The jointer/planer har 24" capacity and its total lenght is over 7 feet.
After having made doors and windows that machine part time in a one car garage for a few years my oppinion is that is space is plentiful large separates are better. Though if space is limited a large combination is a lot better than the small separates that would fit into the same amount of space.
A jointer of somilar width as the planer also saves a lot of time and frustration when face jointing wide boards and glueups.
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Have had an Inca Jointer/planer for 30 years...8 5/8"...nice machine.
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I have had the 12 inch Grizzly for 7 or 8 years. I have put several thousand board feet of white ash, hard maple, soft maple and red and white oak through it and it has held up fairly well. I have the spiral head and have rotated the cutters just one time and still get excellent results. I did need to spend some time with technical support shimming the hinges on the tables to get the out feed table the correct height and to make the tables co-planar. Once I did that I have had very little problem with adjustment. I have replaced the start capacitor 2 times and the knob that holds the guard has been replaced. I also need to re thread the lock down that moves the fence in and out. I have the older model where the fence arm protrudes off the back of the machine and it does take up space but I I have the machine on rollers and it tucks around other equipment well. I am used to converting between the 2 functions and have adjusted work flow accordingly. Dust collection is adequate.Looking back I would buy it again. There were few spiral alternatives when I bought and that feature is essential for my needs.
