General International, Canwood, King Canada, and Busy Bee. These are the
four brands readily available here in Canada. I can find a limited quantity
of Jet tools around as well as some others. The Box stores of course have
some Delta, Rigid, Black and Decker and such.

Now in my experience the General and Canwood tools seem almost identical.
Speaking to the store rep at the House of Tools (where Canwood is the house
brand), the jointers ARE identical with the general having more attention to
detail (tighter specifications, better paint jobs... etc). Now in the case
of the 8" jointer I was looking at I could get the GI for $1800 or the
Canwood for $900 (for those who care I ended up with a 6" GI for $800,
mainly due to space in my shop and resale value). A friend has the 8"
Canwood, and admits that he has to use a little more finesse than he has to
on General tools to get it accurate. I hear similar things about Grizzly.

I have no experience with King, although I see Costco selling them these
days. Lost of people sell them but I don't know anybody (personally) that
owns one. Does anybody have a comment?

Finally Busy Bee. Driven by the store, never stopped in. I get nervous
with tools that are just price too low, there has to be a point where
quality really drops off. But then again all the model above are produced
overseas.

Anyway, just looking for opinions on these brands of tools for the remaining
equipment I need to buy.

On 14-Oct-2005, "Buster" wrote:

Anyway, just looking for opinions on these brands of tools for the remaining
equipment I need to buy.

General has a good reputation. The others are cheap imports who's performance
is hit or miss. If you want value for your dollar, buy the name brand products
that pass muster in most folks' opinions. That means of course, doing an
appropriate amount of homework and checking reviews; even the name brand products
include lemons. I would never buy a product off of Busy Bee (I have one that was
given as a gift).

Mike

In article ,
"Michael Daly" wrote:

On 14-Oct-2005, "Buster" wrote:

Anyway, just looking for opinions on these brands of tools for the
remaining
equipment I need to buy.

General has a good reputation.

Recall that General International is their "low end" line. Of course
believe their low end is good.



The others are cheap imports who's performance
is hit or miss. ...

There is a discussion of Kind Routers on the newsgroup right now

--
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Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found at
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Hi Buster,
The major component accounting for the price difference between the 8" GI and
the Canwood is likely the cutter head.

http://www.general.ca

Also, as you and others have noticed the fit and finish of the GI is pretty good
compared to it's competitors.

King like Busy Bee has some good stuff and a few dogs. You are likely to get
more first hand replies if you ask your questions in this forum.

http://www.canadianwoodworking.com/

Cheers, JG
Buster wrote:

General International, Canwood, King Canada, and Busy Bee. These are the
four brands readily available here in Canada. I can find a limited quantity
of Jet tools around as well as some others. The Box stores of course have
some Delta, Rigid, Black and Decker and such.

Now in my experience the General and Canwood tools seem almost identical.
Speaking to the store rep at the House of Tools (where Canwood is the house
brand), the jointers ARE identical with the general having more attention to
detail (tighter specifications, better paint jobs... etc). Now in the case
of the 8" jointer I was looking at I could get the GI for $1800 or the
Canwood for $900 (for those who care I ended up with a 6" GI for $800,
mainly due to space in my shop and resale value). A friend has the 8"
Canwood, and admits that he has to use a little more finesse than he has to
on General tools to get it accurate. I hear similar things about Grizzly.

I have no experience with King, although I see Costco selling them these
days. Lost of people sell them but I don't know anybody (personally) that
owns one. Does anybody have a comment?

Finally Busy Bee. Driven by the store, never stopped in. I get nervous
with tools that are just price too low, there has to be a point where
quality really drops off. But then again all the model above are produced
overseas.

Anyway, just looking for opinions on these brands of tools for the remaining
equipment I need to buy.

"Buster" wrote in message
news:BtG3f.175962$oW2.34865@pd7tw1no...
General International, Canwood, King Canada, and Busy Bee. These are the
four brands readily available here in Canada. I can find a limited
quantity of Jet tools around as well as some others. The Box stores of
course have some Delta, Rigid, Black and Decker and such.

Now in my experience the General and Canwood tools seem almost identical.
Speaking to the store rep at the House of Tools (where Canwood is the
house brand), the jointers ARE identical with the general having more
attention to detail (tighter specifications, better paint jobs... etc).
Now in the case of the 8" jointer I was looking at I could get the GI for
$1800 or the Canwood for $900 (for those who care I ended up with a 6" GI
for $800, mainly due to space in my shop and resale value). A friend has
the 8" Canwood, and admits that he has to use a little more finesse than
he has to on General tools to get it accurate. I hear similar things
about Grizzly.

I have no experience with King, although I see Costco selling them these
days. Lost of people sell them but I don't know anybody (personally) that
owns one. Does anybody have a comment?

Finally Busy Bee. Driven by the store, never stopped in. I get nervous
with tools that are just price too low, there has to be a point where
quality really drops off. But then again all the model above are produced
overseas.

Anyway, just looking for opinions on these brands of tools for the
remaining equipment I need to buy.


I have a King contractor saw, a King 14" band saw and a 10 " King mitre saw.
The table saw itself is ok, but the fence SUCKS so I intend to replace it
with an Accusquare. The band saw is fine, I added an Accusquare fence to it
already. I wouldn't recommend the mitre saw because of the poor ability to
set angles. The settings using positive stops (90, 45, 22.5) are fine, but
it's extremely difficult to set accurately to anything in between. I'm
hoping it will break so I can justify a new big-name saw (DeWalt, Bosch,
Makita, Hitachi, etc.). My dream table saw is a General 350. Hope this
helps.

Ed