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Monday, March 24, 2014

Byrd Cutterhead Upgrade Problems

I've got a 2002 Felder AD731 which I bought 2 years ago.  It is a 12" jointer/planer combo.  Awesome machine.  I decided to swap out the original 4 knive cutterhead with a Byrd cutterhead.  Now, the original cutterhead uses disposable knives.  To be honest, the cut quality of this cutterhead is excellent.  Two problems:  1)  Tear out is still an issue with gnarly woods and 2)  It is LOUD!!!  My small shop is in a residential area and the noise is just too loud.  The Byrd cutterhead will cut the noise in half and handle the gnarly woods better.

Felder now offers their machines with their own spiral cutterhead that they came out with in 2013.  Their cutterheads require noticably less power than the Byrd and the fit and finish simply appears top notch.   However, Felder offers the spiral cutterhead only on their new machines.  So I went with the Byrd.

Well, after dismantling much of my machine to get to the cutterhead and getting ready to install the Byrd I discovered that some of the threads on the Byrd were in bad shape.  To Byrd Corp's credit they are sending me a new cutterhead.  I'm hoping it arrives pretty soon so I don't forget how to put the darn machine back together!  I found that they do not respond to emails very well.  You have to call them to get a response.

I've used the Byrd on another machine in the past so I know that their cutterhead works very well.

Here's my machine naked without the cutterhead block assembly:


Here's the parts laid out on a table.  I did take copious notes and lots of pictures.  Still, I would have preferred to start the re-assembly right away:


Here's the 4-knive cutterhead:


UPDATE:  Two weeks ago they said they would have the new cutterhead sent out in a week.  Now I had to call them for a status and now it is 6 weeks.  OUCH!

FYI - Here is what they sent me:


As you can see - sending this out the door is pretty unexcusable and makes the claim "Made in USA" something to fear rather than appreciate!