Byrd Tool H7765 834; Shelix Cutterhead

This thing is just about the best thing to happen to my shop since I got my Festool Domino! Wonderful tool; quiet, easy to install and set up. It leaves a smooth surface with less drag during the cut, actually making the jointer safer. You can move directly to 120 on your DA after this cut, in fact I've taken to taking a very light cut with this after the board goes through my planer, just to clean up any little tearout on highly figured woods. I wish that my planer could be retrofitted with a Shelix cutterhead, but it's an old Yates-American and Byrd wants too much since it's a custom job. If you don't have one of these then you're missing out. They go on sale frequently and are worth the money.

This product was intended to replace the cutterhead on my 8 inch Grizzly jointer. Unfortunately, it was machined poorly and the brackets and pulleys that came off of the Grizzly cutterhead would not fit on this unit. If you have a industrial compression device then maybe. But I tried hammers, vices, visit to auto mechanics all with no luck. I had to purchase a 3 armed gear puller to undo it each time, and spent roughly 8 hours on this.One thing I can say is that the carbide cutters are SHARP. During those 8 hours I put a cut on every single finger, mostly superficial. When I contacted Sunhill, they said they typically sell it with the brackets and pulley fully assembled (for like another hundred dollars). I returned the one I had and when my fingers heal will consider getting a fully assembled one. In the meantime I will continue using my stock cutterhead which frankly has been working fine.As I never got the Shelix onto the jointer I cant comment on the reduced noice or possible cut improvement.

I purchased the Byrd Shelix Cutterhead to upgrade my Grizzly G0500 Jointer. This cutter does a fantastic job of surfacing lumber. It was easy to install,I found a U Tube video that showed the entire process. the whole install took about an hour, including the pulley and bearing removal and re-install. The jointer is much quieter to operate now. I should have done it sooner.

I recentley purchased powermatic 8 inch jointer with Byrd cutterhead. Working with hickory the improvement is great,but that is the only good thing about the purchase.It took several hours to get the tables straight after I found one of the set screws was missing.When face jointing the wood would sometimes catch the edge cut out of the fence for the plastic insert because the fence is not flat.I had to take fence apart and grind edge of opening.I had to sand the tables down to 1200 grit to get the wood to slide easily.The sides of the infeed table look like it was cut with a cutting torch and not machined which causes it to be very jerky when trying to raise and lower it.This is just another off shore machine which is using Powermatics good name.You would save a lot of money getting a Grizzly because this is basically that with gold paint.

I purchased this along w/ a grizzly G0490 and it's a great combination, very quite and provides a glass smooth finish. The other reviewer didn't follow instructions or didn't understand how to install the new bearings. It's worth $20 to have a machine shop press the new bearing on. Once the new bearings on on the cutter, installation takes about 45 min. Highly recommend!