Tried it.  Didn’t like it.  Returned it.  Here’s why …

For many people, the choice of a power tool comes down to Jet vs Grizzly.  Jet has the national reputation and better marketing by being associated with Powermatic, plus usually a local dealer where you can put your hands on the machine.  Grizzly, on the other hand, usually delivers the same features and quality at a lower price, although no local showroom and a very unattractive green.

Grizzly, in my experience, wins hands down in a very important area: customer service.  As an example, I’ve asked multiple sales questions over the last year.  On average, I’d say I get a response in 3-4 hours, sometimes much less.  The longest was a day or so.  After-sales technical support is even faster.

Jet, on the other hand, not so great.  I just had the opportunity to ask Jet something very simple.  I needed to know the size of one of their sanders.  I even gave them the exact model number and web address of the product from their own website.  It took them three days to answer.

If Grizzly had a sander comparable to Jet’s 22/44, I wouldn’t even be considering the Jet.

After a lot of research, I finally settled on a Grizzly 3HP cyclone dust collector.  Clearvue was just too odd and home-brew-ish.  Oneida’s cost/performance ratio just wasn’t as good as Grizzly’s, according to Oneida’s own documentation.  The final call, however, was the phenomenal customer service I’ve experienced as a Grizzly customer.

I’ve had my Incra saw fence for about a month now and I can say that, while spendy, it was definitely worth it.  My old bump-and-measure method of setting the fence is long gone, I can set the fence to any point to 1/32 of an inch in seconds.  I do have a few issues with the fence’s fit/finish, as well as the generally confusing installation instructions.  I’ll outline those in a more thorough review soon.  I’m also going to go over what I consider a better installation setup than Incra’s, I really don’t know why they have you set it up the way they do.  Beyond those points, however, the fence is a dream.

I recently bought a Grizzly G0490 jointer, the 8″ model with parallelogram tables.  I’ve been tickled pink with it, overall.  However, when I turn it off, there’s a momentary shudder that was bothersome, plus it made the belt whip and hit the edge of the case opening.

I emailed Grizzly with a description Monday afternoon.  Within an hour, I got a call from Justin at Grizzly asking for more details.  He had several suggestions of things to check and mentioned that I should see if the vibration happened immediately after the motor clicked, which is when the motor brake kicks in.

I checked his ideas and, indeed, the motor pulley was loose.  Tightening the setscrew lessened the whipping and stopped the belt from striking the case, but the shudder was still there and it was happening right after the brake was activating.  I emailed Grizzly with my findings, within a few minutes I got a reply that they were shipping me a new motor, no need to return the old one.

Great prices, great equipment, unbelievable customer service.  I’m not going to throw out my Powermatic and other brand equipment, but I pretty much plan to buy Grizzly from now on.