Delta Planer (22-560) Troubles

[Anthony Whitesell]

I was prepping some stock tonight for making the last drawer for my router table. When I was planing it, on the aforementioned Delta 22-560 planer, the stock was coming out with stright stripes on the top. If it was the bottom, I would assume I would find something on the bed. But no, it's the topside. The rollers are clean and the cutterhead doesn't show any odd signs of rubbing. I even went so far as to cover any possible surface that could be rubbing on the stock as it passed through with purple chalk, thinking that if anything was rubbing, the chalk would be rubbed off. But unfortunately, all the chalk is still stuck where I put it.

The stripes don't appear to be raised thin lines, as in a nicked knife. But depressed like something is dragging on the board. The stripes are 1/2 to 1" wide and there seems to be four of them across the 12 1/2" width and they aren't evenly spaced.

I'm really hoping the experts here have an answer or somewhere/something to look at.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Anthony, no experience with portable planers, however the width of the stripe suggests an anti-kickback finger to me.......Regards, Rod.

[Chip Lindley]

+1 for Anti-Kickback fingers! One may be jammed or stuck due to pitch build-up! I doubt your *lunchbox* has a pressure bar, but may have a chip breaker! These parts would be on the outfeed side of the cutterhead. Crank the planer head UP all the way and take a closer look!

[Howard Acheson]

There is no anti-kickback or breaker bar on the 22-560 planer. If the "marks" are depressions, they have to be coming from the rollers. Have you cleaned them recently? Wiping them down with denatured alcohol is the usual method of cleaning them.

It's possible that there is something wrong with the knives but I can't think of what that might be. When was the last time the knives were sharpened or replaced?

Does this happen will all types of wood?

[Anthony Whitesell]

It happens on all types of wood.

I cleaned the rollers last night during the testing.

The blades appear sharp (you can tell when a blade is really because light will reflect off the cutting point) but maybe they aren't sharp enough. That was the only thing I had left to doubt. I'm planning on flipping the blades tonight for a test run to see if it improves.

I'm still open to any other suggestions.

[John Ricci]

Anthony, I have a 560 and one time I encountered a very strange problem similar to what you describe and when I inspected the knives I found that somehow chips had actually worked their way under the knives and deflected them slightly. I don't know if this might be your problem or not but one tip I can give you with regard to that planer would be to lose the factory knife hold down bolts and replace them with 6-10 hex head bolts. This will make the knives much easier to change and will give a more uniform tension across the knife than those Allen heads that jam and strip out eventually.

J.R.

[Kirk Poore]

Anthony, I have a 560 and one time I encountered a very strange problem similar to what you describe and when I inspected the knives I found that somehow chips had actually worked their way under the knives and deflected them slightly....

J.R.

I also had wood chips jam under the knife locking bar more than once on the 22-560 I used to have. It's worth checking out. It happened to me when I didn't get the screws tightened down enough. I don't recall the planing difference though--maybe because the chips got between the locking bar and knife on mine.

Kirk

[Anthony Whitesell]

I had loosened them last night to make sure the hold down bar wasn't too far forward and rubbing on the work as it went past, but I didn't remove it or the blade. I will check for chips prior to flipping the blades.

[Anthony Whitesell]

Well, the dull blades have it. Nothing under the hold down bars and nothing but the rollers and cutterhead could possible touch the stock in the tunnel based on the machines design. I'll have to remember that for next time.

Anyone come up with a linear foot counter for mounting to their planer? I'm aweful curious as to how many feet of lumber I actually put through it. I can't imagine it's been that many, but I guess it has.