JohnT Fitzgerald
11-25-2009, 4:07 PM
I spent some time last week making a planer sled for my DW735, like the plan from FWW. I do not have a jointer, and I want to be able to mill from rough stock.
I used a 12"x6' piece of melamine shelving for the bottom, attached some frame pieces and then a top of 3/4" plywood to keep it all rigid (torsion box approach). I used our granite countertop as a reference flat surface. I made the 1"x1" cross pieces, on which the board rests; and then made the 15deg wedge system to lift up the cross pieces. I have pics I'll post later. It looked good, complete with a bungee cord to hold the cross pieces down. I was feeling pretty good.
I started to run some 4/4 maple through it, and the first few pieces went through very nicely. I quickly got the knack for adjusting the wedges. One piece 'slipped' forward as it went through, so I decided to mount a cleat on the front of the sled, so the planer rollers would push the board along, but the board would push the cleat and the sled along. Taking rough hard maple to a beautiful flat surface......Again - I was feeling pretty good.
Then - I'm not sure what happened. The sled was not sliding through easily, and I was getting very very bad snipe. Once or twice a screw (used to hold the wedges secure) fell off and onto the floor, so I had to readjust that particular wedge....in retrospect, I think this is what happened: a screw maybe - somehow - got jammed under the sled and dug a nice gouge onto the planer bed. Not noticing it though, I kept using it.
Unfortunately, the gouge in the bed also left a nice burr on the planer bed, which scraped and scraped the melamine off the bottom of the sled. So more and more, because of the burr scraping as well as the rough surface left on the melamine, more resistance was encountered until the sled would not go through on its own. Of course, a result of this was that as infeed roller pushed against the board and when the board just completed under the infeed roller, there was so much resistance that the infeed roller basically lifted up the trailing part of the board into the cutter. The snipe was horrendous, and it took me a few test pieces to finally figure out what was going wrong. That's when I noticed the scraped melamine and, on closer inspection, the scraped and scratched planer bed.
I was so disappointed and aggravated that I just that I just left it there, turned off the lights and went to bed.
Lessons learned...
when something seems wrong, there usually is. I should have checked the bottom of the sled and the planer bed more thoroughly when things started to go wrong.
The wedge system looks good in principal, but in reality is not that reliable (at least for me).
I don't need a 12" wide x 72" long sled to plane 4" x 36" pieces.
Loose drywall screws in a lunchbox planer are NOT a good thing. Thankfully, one did not get sucked up through the blades.
my plans:
laminate some formica to the bottom of the sled, to get a sturdier surface and to 'repair' where the melamine got scraped off.
use the advice I saw here on another thread, and build an 'insert' - probably also topped with laminate - to put on the planer bed, on top of which the sled will ride. I don't want to beat the crap out of my planer bed anymore with a heavy sled, and this insert will be replaceable
Ditch the "wedge" system. The crosspieces seem to work well otherwise, so I came up with the following:
I bored a 1/2" diam. recess in the bottom of the crosspieces near the ends, just deep enough to hold a nut, and then drilled a 1/4" hole through to the top to hold a set screw.
I epoxied a nut in the bottom, and a 1" 1/4-20 set screw will now be my adjustment mechanism. When I adjust the set screw from above, it will extend through the nut onto the bed of the sled, lifting the cross piece. I like that the parts are fully captured, unlike the drywall screws in the 'wedge' design.
I'm going to make a similar but smaller sled, for when I have smaller pieces. I do not have any rough stock wider than 6" or 7", so I'll size according to that. I'll use the larger planer for when i have wider boards.
I made the new set-screw system last night, and I hope to get to the laminate work tonight or over the weekend. I have pictures of the sled from when I first built it, of the scraped bottom, and of my revised elevation system. I'll post later when I get home.
I used a 12"x6' piece of melamine shelving for the bottom, attached some frame pieces and then a top of 3/4" plywood to keep it all rigid (torsion box approach). I used our granite countertop as a reference flat surface. I made the 1"x1" cross pieces, on which the board rests; and then made the 15deg wedge system to lift up the cross pieces. I have pics I'll post later. It looked good, complete with a bungee cord to hold the cross pieces down. I was feeling pretty good.
I started to run some 4/4 maple through it, and the first few pieces went through very nicely. I quickly got the knack for adjusting the wedges. One piece 'slipped' forward as it went through, so I decided to mount a cleat on the front of the sled, so the planer rollers would push the board along, but the board would push the cleat and the sled along. Taking rough hard maple to a beautiful flat surface......Again - I was feeling pretty good.
Then - I'm not sure what happened. The sled was not sliding through easily, and I was getting very very bad snipe. Once or twice a screw (used to hold the wedges secure) fell off and onto the floor, so I had to readjust that particular wedge....in retrospect, I think this is what happened: a screw maybe - somehow - got jammed under the sled and dug a nice gouge onto the planer bed. Not noticing it though, I kept using it.
Unfortunately, the gouge in the bed also left a nice burr on the planer bed, which scraped and scraped the melamine off the bottom of the sled. So more and more, because of the burr scraping as well as the rough surface left on the melamine, more resistance was encountered until the sled would not go through on its own. Of course, a result of this was that as infeed roller pushed against the board and when the board just completed under the infeed roller, there was so much resistance that the infeed roller basically lifted up the trailing part of the board into the cutter. The snipe was horrendous, and it took me a few test pieces to finally figure out what was going wrong. That's when I noticed the scraped melamine and, on closer inspection, the scraped and scratched planer bed.
I was so disappointed and aggravated that I just that I just left it there, turned off the lights and went to bed.
Lessons learned...
when something seems wrong, there usually is. I should have checked the bottom of the sled and the planer bed more thoroughly when things started to go wrong.
The wedge system looks good in principal, but in reality is not that reliable (at least for me).
I don't need a 12" wide x 72" long sled to plane 4" x 36" pieces.
Loose drywall screws in a lunchbox planer are NOT a good thing. Thankfully, one did not get sucked up through the blades.
my plans:
laminate some formica to the bottom of the sled, to get a sturdier surface and to 'repair' where the melamine got scraped off.
use the advice I saw here on another thread, and build an 'insert' - probably also topped with laminate - to put on the planer bed, on top of which the sled will ride. I don't want to beat the crap out of my planer bed anymore with a heavy sled, and this insert will be replaceable
Ditch the "wedge" system. The crosspieces seem to work well otherwise, so I came up with the following:
I bored a 1/2" diam. recess in the bottom of the crosspieces near the ends, just deep enough to hold a nut, and then drilled a 1/4" hole through to the top to hold a set screw.
I epoxied a nut in the bottom, and a 1" 1/4-20 set screw will now be my adjustment mechanism. When I adjust the set screw from above, it will extend through the nut onto the bed of the sled, lifting the cross piece. I like that the parts are fully captured, unlike the drywall screws in the 'wedge' design.
I'm going to make a similar but smaller sled, for when I have smaller pieces. I do not have any rough stock wider than 6" or 7", so I'll size according to that. I'll use the larger planer for when i have wider boards.
I made the new set-screw system last night, and I hope to get to the laminate work tonight or over the weekend. I have pictures of the sled from when I first built it, of the scraped bottom, and of my revised elevation system. I'll post later when I get home.