A little disapointed

Drew Watson

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2,070
Location
Salt Spring Island, BC Canada
Well I ordered the grizzly 15 inch polar bear series thickness planer from Grizzly in Bellingham with extra blades. I waited the week for it to arrive at our shipping depot. Got the call today two packages. I arrived and was in the process of unpacking it to load it, (Good think I did) and discovered that the paint all around the body was peeling and in the process of cracking and pealing off. No damage to the box that I could see. Not taking any chances I sent it back. Kept the second box ( which was the blades). Anyone have a similar experience? This is the first time something like this has happened to me. While typing this Grizzly called and apologized and as soon as they get the info from the shipper they will be sending me a new one. Suppose to be calling me tomorrow with the info. I just hope that they check this one out first.
 
Wow. This thread and my recent less-than-stellar experience with tech support regarding my cyclone's starter cap trouble certainly don't bode well. Shiraz, Shiraz, why hast thou forsaken me :D.
 
Haven't seen or heard of anything similar, but your post exemplifies both the bad and the good of buying from Grizzly. Since their tools are Asian imports, there's always a possibility of something being incorrectly done at the factory or being damaged in shipping, but Grizzly seems to be very proactive about taking care of customer issues quickly when they do crop up. I suspect they'll take good care of you.

And a pre-congrats on your soon-to-be new planer. :thumb:
 
I guess that I am more disappointed that no one had the good sense to even look at the product before it was shipped. Well hopefully that will not be the case with the next unit. People may ask why I didn't go with the helical head unit but I am still from the old school where the planer is the beginning of the process not the end and I have no need to have the boards come out of the planer looking finish perfect. Still stages of hand planes and sanding to do to get it to the finished stage. Had the extra blades sent with the unit so always have a sharp set on hand.

This is just the beginning been looking at a 22-44 oscilating drum sander too but that is another post as is any info on CNC routers. Been looking at one of those too.
 
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Hey Drew if you ever want to do work with wood like this you'll wish you had that helical head. This wood would still be sitting up in the rack if I hadn't swapped out the head in my Ridgid TP1300 planer.
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Alan I have no idea how they worked with that type of wood before the introduction of the carbide cutter head, but I might still be able to swap it for the helical head when they call tomorrow. Honestly I can count on one hand the times I have had the opportunity to finish wood like that.
 
Drew, I don't consider the surface coming out of a planer as finished, it would always require hand planing or sanding. The advantage that a helical head offers is that you probably will not have a deep tear out that can not be sanded or hand planed out. Nothing worse than running a board through a planer and seeing a deep tear out. I have thickness planed a board at a larger thickness and then hand planed to the final dimension to avoid that very thing. Granted this is not with every board, but those with a certain grain pattern that had me worried.

I would upgrade my planer if I had the option. I have a Jet 13" molder/planer and the last I looked no one made a replacement.
 
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Drew, sorry you had a bad one shipped. But like Vaughn said, Grizzly is very good at taking care of their customers. But man that made me shake again. When I got my G0691 saw 2 years ago, the guy backed the truck to the shop. When he opened the overhead door, I'm looking at the cardboard box for the unit and immediately saw what looked like 2 fork lift holes in the box. My heart sank. I pulled the cardboard off before we unloaded it expecting to fine huge dents or worse in the cabinet......Not a scratch!!! Still don't know what might have made the holes. Hopefully your next one will be pristine! If you haven't talked to them yet, have them pull the box open and check the paint before they ship it. If something got on one tool to create a paint issue, it might be on others as well. Jim.
 
Yea Jim I am all over that with getting them to do an inspection before it is shipped. It actually looked like it had either an impact ( no damage to the box though) or that the paint had not bonded with the metal just under the cutter deck or that it had moisture under it and it froze creating the cracks. I can guess all that I want and there might have been nothing else wrong with the machine but I was not willing to take the chance on finding out once it was home and then I had to deal with the shipping back of the machine.

I have taken what everyone has been saying to heart and I will be ordering the better helical heads after this return is dealt with as there really is no difference in the costs aside from them coming installed. This way I will have the bonus of both types of cutter heads to choose from. ( looking on the positive side of it all) :D
 
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I bought a 17" BS several years ago from them and the paint was peeling in spots and the model was just basically stickers that where half half. I kept it/ but managed to get a discount on it. Never bought antyhing from them after that.
 
Drew,

Sorry about you paint problems! I am sure Grizzly will take care of you.

I bought a G0490X jointer from them and it has the helical head. My next planer will have one too!
 
I was thinking that Larry but I am not sure that they have the better quality blade installed in the machines I will be asking though but I am wondering still about the customs and duty, I have already paid for the shipping of the one machine once and if Grizzly is picking up the tab for the return shipping both ways? If I change orders does that make this a new shipping order and will this change that shipping cost? I am not paying for this twice. Still it looks like a pretty simple swap out anyways. Still no call from them yet anyways. hopefully today.
 
Yea Ken I have the same jointer with the straight blades and I love it. have never had a problem with any form of chip out with it yet unless I am running the boards through at reverse grain, but this is where we find out which way the grain goes before it hits the planer ( or at least that is how I was taught) . Of course I keep the blades sharp and am careful as to watching for any form of nails and such. already lost a blade running a maple board through with a nail embedded in the tree. Actually grew right around it, that was my wake up call to get the metal detector.
 
well this is getting a bit frustrating as I received the call from grizzly today asking if the packaging was damaged? when I said no they told me to keep the original packaging. I had to explain once again that I did not have the machine that I had opened it up at the shipping warehouse and found the damage and they were sending it back for me. I confirmed that they would open it and make sure it was ok before it is reshipped and inquired about the upgrading the machine to the helical head, but as most corporations go I am dealing with a secretary and not the supervisor that I need to be talking to. I told the lady that I had received this same call two days ago and was at that time told I was going to receive a call within 24 hrs. Now I am told the same thing. She has to talk to her supervisor about this first and I should receive a call back tomorrow or the day after about this. I hung up took a very deep sigh and shook my head. It would have been so much easier to have just driven down and picked this up. Of course it is an extra 100 bucks just in dealing with the ferry and not including gas and my time. I hope this is resolved soon.
 
Well good news on the grizzly front. Huge sigh of relief. I Received an e-mail from them today confirming the order being re shipped and pre inspected. No discussion about the heads but no worries as I will be doing that anyways at a later date. Missed it on the Christmas sale so oh well. Still the machine will be here soon enough and I will post some pics of it.
 
Well good news on the grizzly front. Huge sigh of relief. I Received an e-mail from them today confirming the order being re shipped and pre inspected. No discussion about the heads but no worries as I will be doing that anyways at a later date. Missed it on the Christmas sale so oh well. Still the machine will be here soon enough and I will post some pics of it.

Good to hear it. :thumb:
 
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