Ridgid TP1300 planer w/ Steel City cutterhead?

[Jon Endres]

I have owned a Ridgid TP1300 lunchbox planer for several years, bought it just after they were introduced at HD.

I've seen pictures of the Steel City machine and it looks identical to the Ridgid machine except for color.

So question is - any chance that a SC cutterhead will fit in the Ridgid chassis? I'd really like to have the spiral insert cutterhead.

[Alan Bienlein]

I just saw the same planer and was wondering the same thing. I tried goggling for a parts list or schematic but have yet to find one. Looks like it might take a phone call. I love my ridgid planer but hat the knife setup and this looks like it could be a cheaper solution than buying a new planer.

I just found this website that carries the planer head I think we are looking for.

www.accu-head.com/ (http://www.accu-head.com/)

They apparently are the ones that make the cutter head for the steel city planer.

[Brian Ross]

I was at the AWFS show in Vegas a couple of weeks ago and Steel City had a booth there. Sitting on a display was a Steel City and a Ridgid bench top planer. The sales rep informed me that they manufacturer the Ridgid bench top for Ridgid. They also had the head featured in the link and were offering it for sale for $250. If the Steel City bench top is as good as the Ridgid it is a good little planer. I got to use my brothers Ridgid for 3 weeks while I was working on his house. After changing the knives I was impressed all to heck with the quality of this little bench top and am on the look out for one to place in my trailer. With the lock on there was never a problem with snipe. As this is a bench top you have to settle with light cuts, a 1/16th is close to max on a wide board.

Brian

[Brett Robson]

I have the same Ridgid planer and have the spiral cutterhead installed. It was a pretty easy swap. I seem to remember pulling the old bearings off the stock head with my bearing puller so I guess the new head must not have come with bearings. Aside from that, it was a straight forward install and has proved to be a great upgrade. Keep in mind it's not a true helical cutterhead as the inserts are presented at a 90 degree angle to the wood as opposed to a helical head where they shear into it at a slight angle. It still cuts with less tearout than the straight knives ever did and I've planed several hundred feet of ash, poplar and cherry since installing and the inserts are still going strong.

I ordered the head from the link above to Accu-head. The new head came shipped from Steel City's parts place. You might check on the head's cost when ordered directly from Steel City to see if there's any difference in price or shipping. Accu-head charged me $40 to ship the part from CA as I recall.

[Edward Harp]

I had the Steel City spiral head planer. When it arrived, the foam inserts in the box were stamped "RIDGID."

Personally, I wouldn't chase after that head. I also have Steel City's earlier three straight blade planer, and it produces much nicer results. The spiral head is essentially a segmented single blade cutter. The cutters are not at an angle so you don't get the shearing action that a Byrd does, and there is only one row of cutters. A typical spiral head from, say, Grizzly has three or four rows of cutters. If it had worked well, I'd be happy to say, but it did not. Not even in vertical grain douglas fir, which is a very easy material to plane.

I actually gave the planer away to a stranger for free. That's how much I liked it. I do still use the older SC planer, but now own an FS30 so that is only used for rough stuff.