Need Advice on Vintage Planer Setup (Fay & Egan)

[Jordan Schulze MI]

Hi All,
This past weekend I picked up a Fay & Egan 24" planer. All of my planer experience has been with small lunch box types and this is quite a different animal. After a rough check with an indicator and straightedge things seem to be reasonably well setup (within .005").

I have a relatively good handle of basic setup, but the big question I have is about the chipbreaker. It has a spring loaded segmented chipbreaker that is anything but precise at this point. It also has a counter weight to apply pressure. None of the articles or videos I could find addressed this type of setup. Anybody have any pointers or advice on how to properly setup this type of chipbreaker?

Any other advice for setup would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jordan Schulze

[Brian Backner]

First off, nice score!

I just checked the OWWM website and there are no F&E planer manuals there. You might want to look at some of the other manuals, however. Several of the early Crescents and the like had segmented chip breakers and some of those manuals have to have adjustment procedures spelled out.

Just a thought.

Brian
Taxachusetts

[Dave Cav]

Head over to OWWM.org, sign up and post your pictures and questions. We love pictures. Someone will have the info.

[Paul Murphy]

I have segmented chipbreakers that apply pressure by springs, and the entire assembly has a left and right "depth" adjustment. If one is dragging I either have to lift one or both ends of the assembly, or grind the offending segment. That said, I dont find the suttings to be all that critical.

[Logan William]

+1 on this, if the .com site doesn't have any lit for the machine join the .org site and post in "The Shop" which is the area devoted to "Old Arn" which a 24" F&E definitely qualifies. Same rules of if pics don't exist it didn't happen qualify as well so make sure to post the pictures.