Jay Stellers
04-12-2009, 4:49 PM
So far it's a positive experience with the new 15" planer.
My biggest gripe is that the gear oil box was BONE dry and I had to fill it. The manual says it was shipped with oil but It must have been "overlooked" on this machine.
That aside, my assembly went without too much problem. The biggest PITA was cleaning all the cosmoline (waxy oil protectant) off the un painted surfaces. The hardest was the infeed drive roller. It was all over in those deep spiral grooves, and I had to keep pushing the belt on the pulleys by hand to rotate the infeed and outfeed drive wheels. They are on a reduction gear so it was a lot of belt pulling to move those in a complete circle. The spiral pattern didn't help with getting the gunk out either. It just took time, tunes, and dilligence to get 'er done.
My first few test boards were alright except for the chips from the planing got mashed into the board by the outfeed drive roller. Adjusting the chip deflector didn't help at all. I found a few posts here that talked about removing the foam strip from the underside of the cutterhead cover. There wasn't anything really definative about the results, so I tried everything else first. Nothing worked. Then I bit the bullet and ripped the foam off. All the boards I ran through after than were clean as a whistle. I'm wondering why that foam was included to begin with. Seems odd to add an extra part (added expense) that hinders performance but when removed solves the problem. So for everyone out there with that problem, removing the foam is definately the way to go.
Removing the D/C chute is not that pleasant. It's not hard to do but it's a tedious task because you have to stick your hand into the dust chute with a wrench and work half blind. That's a really minor gripe though.
I need to adjust my bed rollers because my boards are coming out with the striations from the outfeed drive roller. I've read that adjusting the rollers to .002" above the table height will resolve that issue. The rollers are adjusted at .02" above the bed at the factory, thus giving the wood more pressure against the feed rollers. I don't have a dial indicator yet so I can't really mess around with the roller height just yet. Does anyone know of a way to adjust them accurately without a dial indicator?
So that's all for now.
My biggest gripe is that the gear oil box was BONE dry and I had to fill it. The manual says it was shipped with oil but It must have been "overlooked" on this machine.
That aside, my assembly went without too much problem. The biggest PITA was cleaning all the cosmoline (waxy oil protectant) off the un painted surfaces. The hardest was the infeed drive roller. It was all over in those deep spiral grooves, and I had to keep pushing the belt on the pulleys by hand to rotate the infeed and outfeed drive wheels. They are on a reduction gear so it was a lot of belt pulling to move those in a complete circle. The spiral pattern didn't help with getting the gunk out either. It just took time, tunes, and dilligence to get 'er done.
My first few test boards were alright except for the chips from the planing got mashed into the board by the outfeed drive roller. Adjusting the chip deflector didn't help at all. I found a few posts here that talked about removing the foam strip from the underside of the cutterhead cover. There wasn't anything really definative about the results, so I tried everything else first. Nothing worked. Then I bit the bullet and ripped the foam off. All the boards I ran through after than were clean as a whistle. I'm wondering why that foam was included to begin with. Seems odd to add an extra part (added expense) that hinders performance but when removed solves the problem. So for everyone out there with that problem, removing the foam is definately the way to go.
Removing the D/C chute is not that pleasant. It's not hard to do but it's a tedious task because you have to stick your hand into the dust chute with a wrench and work half blind. That's a really minor gripe though.
I need to adjust my bed rollers because my boards are coming out with the striations from the outfeed drive roller. I've read that adjusting the rollers to .002" above the table height will resolve that issue. The rollers are adjusted at .02" above the bed at the factory, thus giving the wood more pressure against the feed rollers. I don't have a dial indicator yet so I can't really mess around with the roller height just yet. Does anyone know of a way to adjust them accurately without a dial indicator?
So that's all for now.