I made a sweet deal and got a Grizzly 20" planner. The planner is a little rough but can be fixed up relatively quickly and hopefully cheaply. I ordered the Papa Bear Mobile Workstand on Sunday from grizzly.com with a set of knives. The products showed up Tuesday. Wow that was fast.
I have a lot of big slabs to make into furniture and will be using the Shapeoko 3 XXL with HDZ to supplement the furniture.
There are a couple of in/out feed tables that are still in the back seat of the truck I need to get out and start scrubbing the surface rust off. All the other cast iron in my shop looks brand new because I keep it clean and put TopSaver on all of them. Some of them are over 20 years old and still look brand new even though I use them all the time.
I got the machine for nothing but some help around a friends shop. It was a pretty big deal to get onto the trailer and got a neighbor to bring a tractor over and unload it and drop it onto the mobile base. The machine weights about 720 pounds and is a beast. A lot of labor ahead but I think it will be worth it.
Sometimes you fall into a bucket of poop and find a gold nugget at the bottom.
The cast had a lot of surface rust but no pitting. I used WD40 and 400 grit sand paper on a straight line sander. I think this is about as good as it is going to get. The bed of the planner has some deep scratches right under the knives. I may go down to 220 just to get them smooth. I will not be able to remove them.
I am tired of this elbow grease and still need to replace the knives. I have a Rotoindicator to get the knives lined and the same height. On my Dewalt the knives are self aligning. Just a little more cleanup and I can start using it.
I bought 4 rough cut walnut boards yesterday. They are 4-8 inches wide by about 7 foot long. The price was $341.00. Man the price of fun just keeps going up.
Here is my storage unit. I have been hanging on to most of this stuff for years and my wife bugs me to get rid of it every time the rates at the unit go up. My consumption of wood slowed significantly when the kids came along although I did use some on my daughters bedroom set.
I got some of this from Gulfstream where I used to work. Lots of nice walnut and some zebra wood and a little bit of maple. Mostly 8/4, 8-10 inches wide and 8-10 feet long. Although that zebra wood is 14’ long.
I have a few huge mahogany boards I bought from a guy who quit woodworking and then a bunch more thinner walnut from a guy who was cleaning out HIS storage unit.
Nice stash. When I was at Deano Hardwoods in Shreveport I was talking to a fellow customer. I told him that he might as well buy what he needed now because the price is not likely to come down EVER. This is a CNC forum but the economics of buying wood would suggest to me that you buy your stock now because with inflation and the way the economy is going you better stock up or you will be sorry later. Having a good stock of hardwood is never a bad thing. When projects come along you can make it and because you already have it at likely a lower price than buying it as needed you are further ahead.
Now you just need to start using that wood up. I used to live in a suburban neighborhood that if you left a trailer in the driveway you got a letter from the HOA. I put the trailer in open storage. I figured out quickly that I could rent a trailer cheaper than continuing to pay for the storage. Luckily a friend needed a trailer and I gave it to him. In Texas you still have to pay tax on the value of the vehicle even if you give it away. The government always has their hand out and when you hand over your money they motion to you more more more. So stock up for a rainy day.
Depending on how I feel I might get the knives replaced tonight. I would like to run that walnut through the new (to me) planner.
Yep. My HOA won’t allow storage sheds. I have a good sized “crawl” space that I can stand up in but getting the wood in/out of there would be a pain and I worry that if the house ever caught fire it wouldn’t be good to have the extra fuel.
We are considering moving next year now that I work remotely and a bigger shop for me and a barn for my daughters hobbies are on the wishlist.
I have used Rust Free before and for me it turns your cast iron dark gray. It works but I dont want the cast iron discolored. I have the T9 Boeshield but it is a good lube but not very effective at removing rust. Unfortunately I dropped the can of T9 and the sprayer busted off. So I can put the spray nozzle on and push down and fill up the top of the can and dump it out but does not spray any more. I am too cheap to buy a new can until the current one is empty.
I have used TopSaver for years and the company may not make it anymore but Wood Workers Guild of America (wwgoa.com) has some in their store for $30.00 a bottle + shipping. I have a couple of bottles and a bottle lasts about 6 months for me so I ordered 2 more the other day. The TopSaver is great stuff if you can get it.
I had bought the bear crawl heavy duty mobile base and a set of knives from Grizzly. They showed up in 2 days. I was supposed to have the knife setting jig that came with the planner but the previous owner could not find it. I ordered some new style ones that have magnets and a microcrometer style adjustment and a few other misc parts. I got home today from an out of town trip and there they were. Grizzly really ships fast. On the other hand I have ordered about $900.00 worth of stuff from Jessem and still have not gotten about half the stuff. The Jessem stuff was ordered before the Grizzly stuff.
My out of town trip was to go to Electra Texas to the Wagner Ranch. The Wagner Ranch is the largest contiguous land ranch in Texas, just over 500,000 acres. Myself and 3 other guys went there to cut mesquite trees and haul them home. My 1500 pound capacity trailer was full of mesquite firewood and several big logs to turn into lumber. The other guys filled up a 16 foot goose neck trailer and a 16 foot regular trailer with mesquite logs. We made a haul. Some of the logs the other fellows brought will be cut on one of their sawmills and I will get some of that.
In the background those are mesquite trees. Everything from 2" to 15" trees. The mesquite is an invasive species and will just take over if not eradicated. Even eradication is only partially effective. West Texas to Arizona is just full of mesquite and is taking over.
You can see the beautiful grain of mesquite on some of the logs.
All together it was an 800 mile round trip. My woodworking club arranged the trip with the manager of the ranch. He said we can come back and get all we want. The small stuff is for my Grandson to smoke meat with and the logs will likely become bowls and the lumber when dried will become furniture.
Mesquite is very pretty but a bear to cut and handle. Some of them have very long needles on them and can really hurt if you are not careful.
Just got in but later I will unwrap my Grizzly parts and get my 20" planner wrapped up and ready to use.
If you have 13"+ wide 8/4 Mahogany or any 12/4 Mahogany 2.5" or wider, I could help take some off your hands to make the move much easier. Just message if interested in selling some pieces.
Well I got the planner all finished up. Got all the adjustments made and powered it up. I will run some lumber tomorrow but I need to make a 5" to 4" dust collection adapter. I dont have any 5" dust collection hoses or fittings. I will likely glue up some material and cut it out on the shapeoko and then glue it together. I could order an adapter but that will take a couple of days.
Right now my shop is a wreck. Between fixing up this planner and going to North Texas my shop looks like someone stirred it with a stick. I will clean up tomorrow first thing and then get to work on an adapter and get some wood planned.
I will post a picture when my shop is more presentable. This machine is a beast and hope to get some good use out of it. I still have a Dewalt 735 and will keep that for now. The last issue is where to put this monster. With the infeed/outfeed tables the foot print is enormous. The Bear Crawl mobile base makes it mobile but at 700 lbs it is quite a dance to move it around. Something has to go but not sure what yet. My shop and tools are kind of like having multiple kids and figuring out which one to get rid of. You dont want to get rid of any of them. You want to keep them all. However tools are not kids and there is only so much room so I have to figure out something. For now I will use it but down the road I may sell it and buy a combination machine with planner and jointer together at about 16". Been looking at an SCM and/or Felder. That would solve my space problem.
I got the machine finished. I have one more task and that is to get a longer cord. The existing cord will work but it will make me too close to the outlet I have and I need the machine to be further away to use it properly. I got the tables on and leveled and here are pictures.
I will be adding a Wixey digital gauge to the planner. I have one on my Dewalt 735 and it is very useful. I think it is about $100.00. The Grizzly does not have an indicator like the Dewalt so the only indicator is a piece of steel on the front and cannot be calibrated.
