What is a uniplane?

[Drew Sanderson]

I saw this ad and pictures and I would like to know what this machine does.

"Rockwell Uni-plane Cast iron bed with miter slot. Bed swings up! It has a 1 and 1/2 HP delta motor. 115 or 230 volt. Set up for 115 volts right now. Series 22-300 About 6 inch cutting height."

http://rochester.craigslist.org/tls/1842072812.html

[Jeff Willard]

Heh. Haven't seen one of those in 35 years. It's a surfacing machine that operates much like a deli slicer.

[Mark Major]

Heh. Haven't seen one of those in 35 years. It's a surfacing machine that operates much like a deli slicer.

Ha! ...yep, and if they had actually sold it as a meat slicer it might have sold better. :D This is the third one of those I've seen advertised just this year, and hadn't seen one previously for a very long time.

Unless you actually do want to open a deli, I'd steer clear. ;)

[Andrew Nemeth]

We had a Uniplane in my HS woodshop. In theory, it is a safer machine to use as compared to a jointed. The "blade" kinda looks like a table saw blade with the teeth turned 90 degrees to one side. IIRC each tooth is replaceable. You can see in the photographs above that the business of a uniplane is where the fence on a jointer would be and the "fence" on the uniplane is actually the table. A few of the advantages to this setup is that it can plane end-grain fairly well and it can be used on much shorter pieces of stock than a traditional jointer since there is an auxiliary support piece that sits in the middle of the blade that allows only the cutting teeth to be exposed. The downside of this machine is that it did not tend to leave the smoothest surface. It appears to me to be a more complicated machine than a jointed. The one I used was often out of commission because it was out of alignment.

-Andrew