Start your drooling: Grizzly recently introduced a sliding table saw with a footprint small enough to fit into smaller shops. Why would you even want one of these saws? For one, forget about complicated miter sleds, the whole 12-1/4″ x 39-3/4″ extruded aluminum table on the left side of the blade can slide.

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Sometime in early spring it came out that Shiraz Baliola, the man who owns Grizzly, has taken over the South Bend Lathe company. The plan is to have South Bend Lathes made in Taiwan but using South Bend designs, patterns and high-quality components. Their website is live but so far there are no details on most of the products they promise. You can see the Grizzly - South Bend Link as Grizzly is handling spare parts purchases for South Bend, which retains an impressive quantity of original parts and promises to reproduce parts they don’t have.

There’s a long thread that was closed (due to typical internet forum shenanigans) on the Practical Machinist site that has interesting details on the resurrection as well as many posts from Mr. Baliola about the deal. Many years ago someone tried something similar with the Atlas Press company, but they were just rebadged typical import mills and lathes. It will be great if South Bend pulls this off, although given the state of the economy we’re not sure if the demand is there for import machines that cost more than the import machines already available from sellers like Grizzly. Now my head hurts…

Grizzly [Website]

Want perfect miters in applications where precision really matters, like making picture frames? This miter trimmer uses high-carbon steel blades that are razor sharp to shave fractions of an inch from miters, leaving a cut that some might call glass-smooth.

Since you can’t actually use the trimmer to make miters, you first need to make a rough miter cut with a miter box. Then with the miter trimmer you can shave the piece for the perfect fit. The trimmer is made from cast iron, so it weighs 35 lbs. It has angle presets at 90° and 45°.

We’re not sure who actually makes this trimmer. Rockler, Dieter Schmid, Grizzly, Highland Woodworking, and other companies sell what looks to be the identical tool for anywhere from $150 to $200.

Miter Trimmer [Grizzly]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Why carry when you can roll?  A platform truck — some might call it a dolly or a cart — can come in handy hauling stuff around the warehouse, the shop, the office, heck, even around the house. What makes this version from Grizzly nice for less-industrial applications is that it has a continuous rubber bumper around the entire cart and a multi-position handle that looks like it might fold flat for storage.

The platform truck measures 35″ long by 24″ wide and can carry up to 600 lbs. The non-skid deck rides on four casters with solid rubber wheels. The truck retails for $50, but at 49 lbs. it’s going to cost you an extra $20 to ship it.

Platform Truck [Grizzly]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Yes, we know that drill press bearings aren’t designed for sideways loads, but that doesn’t seem to stop companies from designing gizmos like the Wagner Safe-T-Planer. This rotary planer chucks into any drill press with a 1/2″ chuck to shave off up to 3/8″ in one pass.

The 3-1/8″ diameter planer can make passes up to 2-3/4″ wide. The three shielded high-speed steel cutters spinning at 3,000 to 6,000RPM supposedly don’t grab the work piece or kick back, which is probably the origin of the Safe-T in the name. You can use it to surface plane, cut tenons, rabbets, raised panels, and tapers — though we’re guessing you have to tilt the table to do the last two.

Although the Safe-T-Planer is sold by Grizzly, WoodCraft, and a handful of other retailers, the manufacturer is unclear. Trying to track down them down led us to a trademark filed by Aurthur Gilmore of G & W Tools. It’s possible the “W” stands for Wagner, but that’s where the trail ends.

You can get the Safe-T-Planer shipped with a special grinding wheel and a 12-page manual for $58.

Safe-T-Planer [Grizzly]
Safe-T-Planer [WoodCraft]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

I’ve always looked at metal-milling machines like they were only half-functional.  I felt that any machine built to cut or drill metal would work just as well with wood stock rolling through it –- still do, actually.  Metal guys will give you the stink-eye about it, but still, I’m a wood guy.  I see that Grizzly designed this G9959 mill for both metal and wood;  now there’s a forehead-smacker if ever I’ve heard of one.

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Yesterday I mentioned Grizzly’s SuperBar, but if you really want to be accurate when adjusting your saw blade, you’ll want to use that gauge in conjunction with a Master Plate.  You install Grizzly’s Master Plate on your saw’s 5/8″ or 1″ arbor — unlike a blade, the Master Plate won’t flex when you’re making your measurements.  It’s worth the extra effort to keep the blade at exactly the correct angle to the work surface, ’cause if you’re off just a degree, or a fraction of a degree, it’ll show up as loose joints in the end product.

Grizzly’s Master Plate measures 6″ by 10″ with zero runout, and it’ll help you set your saw to 90 degrees or any other angle.  It sells for about $50.

Master Plate [Grizzly]
Street Pricing [Google]

Grizzly’s SuperBar not only helps you align your saw blade to exactly 90 degrees, it’ll also help keep the blade parallel with the miter slot and the fence.  It runs in the miter slot, and its precision dial indicator gauge is accurate within ± .001″.

The dial gauge features a full inch of travel.  You can measure the saw blade itself or a Master Plate made by Grizzly or someone else — the gauge’ll measure other tools as well.

The SuperBar sells for $80.

SuperBar [Grizzly]

What do you do if you need to sand a curved project that’s too big to get to your oscillating spindle sander — an assembled piece of furniture, for instance?  Most of us aren’t big fans of hand sanding, so this Grizzly Handheld Pneumatic Sander looks pretty appealing.

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Grizzly’s come out with a new cabinet saw for 2009, and to my untrained eyes it looks equivalent to the Jet, PowerMatic, or Delta saws — but it’s priced $500 to $1,500 less than all of those. Maybe the build quality isn’t as good as the competition, but I’m guessing this saw could keep any hobbyist or pro woodworker happy.

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When someone passed us a sales flyer from Woodcraft we thought the sale price on their tenoning jig was good, until we checked and found Grizzly sells one for only $60 through their Amazon store (and Grizzly.com as well).  This jig helps you make tenons with your table saw — it’s handy for other sawcuts as well.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Tenoning Jig [Grizzly's Amazon Webstore]
Street Pricing [Google]

It’s not easy sharpening a curved edge with a flat stone, so why bother?  Get a curved stone like one of these slipstones from Grizzly.  These tapered Japanese stones can sharpen gouges from 1/2″ to 2″ wide.  Made from aluminum oxide and available in 240, 1,000, and 4,000 grits, these water stones both sharpen and polish.

One curved slipstone will run you about $16.

Curve Gouge Slipstone [Grizzly]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Looking around for a benchtop slitting shear we found the lowest price on these 5″ shears from Grizzly — they go for $55 at Grizzly’s website and Amazon.  A benchtop shear makes straight cuts on sheet metal, with more force than a pair of tin snips will allow.

5″ Sheet Metal Shears [Grizzly]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Grizzly is blowing out their open-sided planer/molders — they’re listing the G0552 planer/molder, with a 7″-wide cut, for $627, shipped. It’ll plane boards and mold profiles on casings, etc. They started selling at $995, but we sense the market for these was a little thin, so they’re dumping ‘em.

G0552 Planer/Molder [Grizzly]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

If you’re a left-hander, do you feel awkward using a right-handed caliper? No longer do you have to struggle with right-handed calipers — Grizzly sells this 6″ left-hand digital caliper for $30.

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Just when you thought your multi-talented angle grinder couldn’t get any “multi-talented-er”, along comes the Grizzly Industrial angle grinder stand. This cool grinder accessory effectively turns your 4-1/2″ angle grinder into a mini metal-cutting chopsaw.

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Who needs a Rotozip, when your cordless drill will work just as well? Grizzly’s Beaver saw-drill can cut a starting hole with its tip and rip through material with its tooth-covered shank. Chuck this bit up into any drill with a 1/4″ chuck or larger, and you’re ready to cut drywall, paneling, and a slew of other materials

For drilling the initial pilot hole, the first 5/8″ of the Beaver saw-drill’s tip resembles a common, 135°, split-point drill bit. The saw portion — with 90 sharp, side-cutting teeth — makes up the next 1-3/4″. For faster cutting and longer life, both the drilling and cutting portions are precision-ground and coated with titanium nitride. Grizzly makes the entire bit from M2 high-speed steel.

Made in USA, the Beaver saw drill will only run you $4 at Amazon — a heck of a lot cheaper than a Rotozip, and one less power tool to lug around.

Beaver Saw-Drill [Grizzly]
Via Amazon [What's This?]