Reply by CaptainKlutz

LOL,
Is the G1021z any good?
Not many will know, as I am sure you can tell by lack of responses?
Hate to see you hang, so here is more than you had before I posted:

Grizzly discontinued the Taiwan made planers and moved everything to China many years ago. The US tariffs forced them to restart Taiwan tool production with new G1021 part numbers, and freshened option list. They didn’t start shipping the G1021z until last November.

FWIW –
The G1021 15” planer design has been sold by most every major wood working mfg for decades. The Taiwan produced tool started production back in 80’s as clone of Delta industrial planers (like US made RC-33). Even Delta hired the same mfg that Grizzly uses to make planers for them for short while in the last century. The current Taiwan produced Grizzly, Shop Fox, Jet, Powermatic, and Oliver 15” planers all come from same factories, using many of same molds and parts. If you buy any one of them; it either works well, or you get a lemon and waste time dealing with warranty issues. This is because the original Delta design worked well.
Hence, part of answer is how well does Grizzly support new equipment?
Suggest you can read about Grizzly in the reviews section.

Making the wood working planer mfg shell game even more challenging: Chiu Ting Machinery Company has factories in both Taiwan and China. They built/partnered with China plants to help reduce mfg cost and be competitive. As a result all of the newTaiwan produced tools they produce are using China produced cast iron parts. So even if you buy a tool labeled as mfg in Taiwan, all you can really say is assembled in Taiwan.

The 50,000 foot view on planer mfg is pretty simple. There are two major conglomerates that produce majority of 15” & 20” planers in market. All of the tools work about same. The big differences between models are:
- Cutter head design (Different shellix carbide insert size/qty or straight .vs. segmented spiral blade)
- Color/cabinet/look
- Motor/starter package
- Warranty coverage
There are posts here on LJ covering these differences if you search for 15” planer information.

Hope this helps. If it doesn’t, ignore me.

Remember half of everything you see on WWW is not true. Hard part is figuring out which half you want to believe. :-)

-- If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all, - Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign released 1967