Delta Planer / tearout

[Bob Cooper]

Help me out.

Problem 1) Tearout.

THis is my first real chance to use my new Delta Thickness planer and i'm getting tearout (dips/tears along the face of the board) -- at least that's what i call it. I just bought 3 exotic hardwoods (yellowheart, granadillo and wenge) for project. On the granadillo i'm getting tearout and i've tried taking off 1/64th" at a time and running the planer (the two speed 12" delta model 22-580) on the finish setting (90 cuts/inch).

What am i doing wrong? Blades should be sharp as it's brand new. I've run some pine and the yellow heart through it and they look great. Haven't tried the wenge. The other odd thing is i ran this wood over my old, heavily used sears jointer (recently inherited from my dad...sat idle for the past 10 years). The wood finish looks better (no tearout) from the jointer than the planer -> i'm really confused. Any ideas?

Problem 2:

When i run the yellow heart through, the wheels don't seem to want to push the wood through -- it'll stop at a couple spots along the way. What typically causes this?

Any help the forum can provide is appreciated...like i said, it's a new planer and i was pretty psyched about this project but sure didn't expect to run into this.

Bob C

[Michael Perata]

Bob

I don't have any experience with the woods you mentioned, but a couple things you might try:

1) Turn the wood around, you might be planing into the grain

2) Feed the stock at an angle (if not too wide)

3) Slightly dampen the pre-planed surface

4) Find some REALLY sharp HSS knives and use them only on the tough woods

5) Keep the beds as slick as possible. I like Bri-Wax, but there are others.

If none of the above work, get a #4 1/2 and start hanging with the Neandertals.

[Steve Cox]

Two things, the first thing to check on the tearout is the grain of the wood. If you're getting tearout, try running it through the planer the other direction. As for the wheels stalling, if the lumber is rough, you're are probably getting to a point where the board is thicker than at other spots. Try running the board through at a hit and miss setting first.

[Ted Shrader]

Bob -

Welcome to the Creek. A great place to hang out and exchange ideas.

Ditto all of Michael's comments. My bet is you are planing "against" the grain.

Make sure the rollers are clean. Wipe them with denatured alcohol to get the gunk off from previous feeds pf wood through the planer.

Ted

[Bob Cooper]

OK, great. Well i sure hope that's the problem (going against the grain ... seems to fit my personality). Tomorrow i'll try it from both directions and wipe down the rollers.

Now i do notice that some of the worst tear-out is in areas where the grain swirls or kind of 'bird's eye's if you know what i mean. Seems like in that case there is no real w/the grain. What do you do in those cases?

How much do you guys plane off in a single pass when dealing w/pretty hard wood?

[Bob Cooper]

One other question for you. Michael bring up 'really sharp knives'. Can you give me some suggestions? Are the stock knives just sorta sharp? I guess i was thinking that they would be pretty sharp just may not hold an edge as long as something better than stock.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Bob, I just bought one of those planers a few months ago and the blades were sharp right out of the box and stayed sharp quite a long time. I've not used any of those woods, but grain direction is the usual culprit for tearout. Oak is particularly bad because it is a somewhat brittle wood and has a lot of grain reversal. The ideas you've gotten are all good as is handplaning and scraping to get a smooth surface.

[scott spencer]

Hi Bob - Welcome to the forum. One thing I didn't notice mentioned so far is DC. If you're not using any DC on the planer, you're more likely to get some tear out.

[Ted Shrader]

Now i do notice that some of the worst tear-out is in areas where the grain swirls or kind of 'bird's eye's if you know what i mean. Seems like in that case there is no real w/the grain. What do you do in those cases?

How much do you guys plane off in a single pass when dealing w/pretty hard wood?Bob -

Moisten the areas where the grain swirls. It will help a little. And take extremely light cuts - just barely make a cut when you get close to thickness.

Good luck,
Ted

[Ellen Benkin]

Ditto on the dust collector. Sometimes the "tearout" is actually impressions made by wood left on the rollers. I have the same problem with my Delta. A dust collector helps, but does not completely solve the problem. But it's not so bad that the final sanding doesn't fix it.

[Joseph N. Myers]

Problem 2:

When i run the yellow heart through, the wheels don't seem to want to push the wood through -- it'll stop at a couple spots along the way. What typically causes this?

Bob C
Bob,

What will cause the wheels (rollers) not to work is that they are not engaged (or engaged tightly). With your planer, you change the speed with the unit on (I've made the mistake more than once). So turn on the unit, change the speed a couple of times and you should be ok. You can also check by looking at the reflection of the rollers.

Regards, Joe

[Tom LaRussa]

Hi Bob,

Welcome to the 'Creek -- where the water is always refreshing. :D ;)


Now i do notice that some of the worst tear-out is in areas where the grain swirls or kind of 'bird's eye's if you know what i mean. Seems like in that case there is no real w/the grain. What do you do in those cases?
I do as much as I can with the planer, (also a Delta), and finish up by hand -- Stanley #4 and/or card scrapers, followed by 3M "non-woven" hand pads.



How much do you guys plane off in a single pass when dealing w/pretty hard wood?
I think that it's not how hard the wood is, it's how irregular the grain is.

In any case, I lower the cutter by turning the crank/handle 1/8 or even 1/16 of a turn at a time.

[Bob Cooper]

Thanks for all the good input.

question 1 thoughts)
I tried wetting the wood the other night -- i swear it was 15 degrees outside and i was questioning my sanity at the time -- and it may have made a little difference.

Dust collector -- i don't have one, so that's something to consider.

It's definately the grain. I planed some more wood, same species (sp?) which had a very straight grain and it came out great. But those bird's eye areas/swirls are just a bear. I seem to be getting two severities of tearout
small ones which are probably 1/64" deep -- rough and cloudy
1-2 bigger ones -- maybe 1/16" deep -- a divot about 1/4" in diameter.
The thing that has me *most* confused is why my old/dull/craftsman joiner does't show similar result <-- it seems to give a more consistent finish even on this grain pattern.

question 2 thoughts)

waxed the base and that helped a lot. After planing for half an hour i got some resistence especially on the 1.5" wide wenge but it seems like an oily kind of wood.

I'd like to clear the rollers. Does anyone know off hand if there's any easy way to do this -- can't really turn them by hand that i can tell.

[Bryan Nuss]

Bob,

To clean the rollers, crank the planer up to max height. You should be able to see the rollers quite well. To rotate the rollers, quickly turn on the planer on and off. The rollers move so slowly that they will rotate only a little bit when you briefly hit the power.

Be careful when cleaning the rollers. Unplug the machine. Don't cut yourself on the blades!

[Carole Valentine]

Help me out.

When i run the yellow heart through, the wheels don't seem to want to push the wood through -- it'll stop at a couple spots along the way. What typically causes this?

Bob C
Bob, if your rollers are clean and the beds are waxed, your board may be thinner at the feed end and have some thicker areas further on. Try feeding it thru so that it take no cut at all first, then verry gradually lower the blades. You may find that the planer takes wood at various spots along the board until it gets it to a point of even thickness. Then the rollers should feed it thru smoothly. I'm certainly no expert, but am just speaking from my own experience.

[Joseph N. Myers]

Bob,

A couple of things:

1. Granadillo (name in Mexico) is also known as Cocobolo (West coast of Central America), probably my favorite wood. I've planed it with little trouble but most if not all, has been straight grained. It is a very heavy wood and it is recommended that "a reduced cutting angle is required for planing or molding".

This "reduced cutting angle" might explain tearout when planing as the blades are far from a reduce angle. It also might explain why a jointer would give a smoother cut as the blades are at a much reduced angle (at least my 6" Delta is).

2. Tearouts are common with lumber that have swirls, bird-eyes, curly, etc. in them. That is one of the reasons that a lot of woodworkers get drum sanders. I have a Performax 16/32 and use a planer to get close to final thickness than use the drum sander.

Or as Tom LaRussa said in one of the posts to you, ".. I do as much as I can with the planer, (also a Delta), and finish up by hand -- Stanley #4 and/or card scrapers, followed by 3M "non-woven" hand pads."

3. I agree with getting a dust collector as a planer generates much chips/sawdust and will leave some of it on the wood and cause indentations in the wood.

4. Others have mentioned that if your using wood that is of different thickness, you will have various problems, i.e., sometimes cutting too much, sometimes too little. But that's typical of rough lumber. I find that chalk helps me out a lot with this problem. Just run bunch of lines across the lumber at a slight angle. When the chalk line goes away, its been planed (cut).

Regards, Joe

[Bob Cooper]

Thanks all so much for the comments. i worked on this one piece of swirley Granadillo for a while and got it about as good as i could on the planer. I've never used a hand scraper but this may give me the oppty. All the other pieces look great.

Regarding the roller issue -- The thing that made the biggest difference was waxing the base surface. Once i did that, the wood seems to slide through much much better. I'll keep the rollers fairly clean too.