Larry Edgerton
02-12-2011, 11:07 AM
Lion trimmer......
I recently aquired a NOS Lion Trimmer and just did my first job with it. I was doing a coffered ceiling with African Cherry/Makore and ran into some issues, was wondering how you fellows with a trimmer dealt with them. I used it for the small moulding that go in between the beams.
#1
African cherry is fairly hard, but no harder than say white oak I would say. It does chip easy though. The problem that I had was that the gear would skip even on the lightest cuts, say 1/64". Then you had to run the knives out and reset the gear where it needs to be. I temporarily fixed the problem by putting some sawdust in the gear rack to raise the rotating gear.
I was thinking about pouring some molten soldier in the bottom rack to raise the gear wheel for better bite on the top rack. Any problem with that?
#2
Again, this may have to do with the hardness of the wood used, but I had a hard time keeping the fences at 45 degrees. I had the stop adjusted perfectly. and the thumbscrew tight, by hand, but it would push the springloaded stop down and slide back toward 90 degrees.
Are these not really suited to very hard wood? I played with it in the shop with poplar and did not see these problems.
Is there a way to adjust the rack to rack distance that I am missing?
I knew that this was its virgin run, so I made extra mouldings, and I did get the job done. It worked very well other than these small problems. The blades are very sharp by the way, so that was not an issue. I figured that out when I caught my hand on the point of the knife when the round gear was not set right and sliding it back too far.http://familywoodworking.org/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif
This wood chips bad with a chop saw on miters, so it actually worked out better than power tools. I mitered because there was not enough money for coping, and this stuff does not cope well anyway.
Any input would be great as this is the only Lion trimmer I have ever seen.
Larry
I recently aquired a NOS Lion Trimmer and just did my first job with it. I was doing a coffered ceiling with African Cherry/Makore and ran into some issues, was wondering how you fellows with a trimmer dealt with them. I used it for the small moulding that go in between the beams.
#1
African cherry is fairly hard, but no harder than say white oak I would say. It does chip easy though. The problem that I had was that the gear would skip even on the lightest cuts, say 1/64". Then you had to run the knives out and reset the gear where it needs to be. I temporarily fixed the problem by putting some sawdust in the gear rack to raise the rotating gear.
I was thinking about pouring some molten soldier in the bottom rack to raise the gear wheel for better bite on the top rack. Any problem with that?
#2
Again, this may have to do with the hardness of the wood used, but I had a hard time keeping the fences at 45 degrees. I had the stop adjusted perfectly. and the thumbscrew tight, by hand, but it would push the springloaded stop down and slide back toward 90 degrees.
Are these not really suited to very hard wood? I played with it in the shop with poplar and did not see these problems.
Is there a way to adjust the rack to rack distance that I am missing?
I knew that this was its virgin run, so I made extra mouldings, and I did get the job done. It worked very well other than these small problems. The blades are very sharp by the way, so that was not an issue. I figured that out when I caught my hand on the point of the knife when the round gear was not set right and sliding it back too far.http://familywoodworking.org/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif
This wood chips bad with a chop saw on miters, so it actually worked out better than power tools. I mitered because there was not enough money for coping, and this stuff does not cope well anyway.
Any input would be great as this is the only Lion trimmer I have ever seen.
Larry