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John 'Sarge' Thompson's Steel City Black Granite Jointer Fence review
John "Sarge" Thompson at the SawMillCreek forum:
 "My new Steel City Black Granite jointer fence arrived by "very special courier" the Wednesday morning after the Steel City unveiling of their Black Granite line at AWFS in Las Vegas the previous week. It sits proudly black and polished on top of my SC 8" jointer. It sits tall at 5 1/2" and it sits long at 48". It sits "monumentally dead flat"... and I mean Dead Flat! A 6' Starrett machinist straight edge and a Starrett 12" machinist Square insured me of that fact as I checked from every angle known to man before attached it to the jointer itself.
Precision laser cut to within .000,000,001 of an inch with extremely high-grade Chinese black granite I was told. I can't physically see 1 millionth, so… I will take the Steel City's Tool-guys word for it. I can tell you that the .0001 feeler gauge I brought home from work (YEAR ONE where we restore older "muscle cars" and their engines) couldn't be forced between the fence face and Starrett machinist edge. That's good enough for an old "Georgia boy" as me without further high tech investigation.
So far, in it's short history, the black granite jointer fence has seen only 150' linear feet of white oak, 300' linear feet of red oak and a little over 1000' linear feet of pecan (hickory family). There's another 1000' of rough pecan to do today. I did purchase 80' linear feet of birds eye maple to see how the Steel City fence and jointer would handle its squirrelly grain when skewed with HSS knives. The two attachment bolts on the fence of the SC jointer turned will "skew" the fence with ease and the results were good on the bird's eye... very good and better than any I have seen without going to expensive cutter-heads.
In conclusion... the fence was flat the day it arrived. It was flat this morning when I checked it and I expect it to be flat 30 years from now when my son checks it as he is already eyeing the "black monument".
Black granite brittle..? My dad's Georgia granite tombstone is 48 years old and as stable as the day it was planted. Tombstones that are over 200 years old stand monumentally in the same cemetery. Would I or any machinist build an automotive crank-shaft with black granite and expect it to stand the rigor of that task? Absolutely NOT! But.. then again cast iron WON'T be seen or used in that role either as anyone that knows the properties and characteristics of gray cast iron knows it will break also under the same grueling conditions.
Someone suggested hitting the black granite hard with a ball peen hammer. Would they care to slam their cast iron top with a ball peen hammer as if it is some "new ritual" that WW machines "must" be subjected too to prove their worthiness? I suggest those that try that look for a good replacement top before they commit the foolish act. Cast iron is definitely not "kryptonite" as some believe it to be. Superman knows what I mean and will eat cast iron layered between black granite in a sandwich for lunch. ha.. ha...
From what I have experienced and know about the granite fence and BS-TS tops... things look like they might continue to come up "in the Black" around my shop. This old country boy is on the verge of feeling very comfortable surrounded by all the good things that come from the City… STEEL CITY to be exact!"
The Steel City Black Granite Jointer Fence will be available this fall.
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