Grizzly planer question

[Patrick Galpin]

Recently set up my new 20" spiral head planer and am very happy with it except for one issue. There are no guides to prevent the wood being planed from "wandering" to the side and outside the cutterhead area. Has anyone come up with a simple fix to this issue?

[glenn bradley]

Interesting. I have the 15" version and the "guides" are cast right into the table. Are you saying that the material can wander over into the posts? That does not sound good. What model do you have? In the pictures the G0454Z appears to have the same 1/8" high (approx) shoulders on either side that my G0453Z has. Also the wood should follow a controlled path directly along the line that you feed it. You can see if you are out of line at the start unless the material is wandering around as it feeds through; that is another discussion. Toss us a little more info to see if we can help ;-)

[Maik Tobin]

I would bet that the rollers are not parallel to the table. Also, I agree with Glenn.....my Griz has the raised shoulders he spoke about. They will prevent the wood from wandering outside of the cutterhead area.

[David Nelson1]

What Model?

[Mike Cruz]

As far as I know, with the power that any full size planer has, no "guide" would keep the wood in the "cutting path". I have a Grizzly 20" planer. It pulls the wood straight through. I though, do not feed wood through if I can help it. I always angle the wood to feed diagonally. But when feeding a wide plank through, again, it doesn't "wander". So, if your wood is wandering, I would check to make sure the feeder is adjusted properly. Also, granted, I have an older model than you, and I bought mine used, I would HIGHLY recommend going through ALL the set up and adjustments that the planer has. When I got mine, it "seemed" to work fine, but the adjustments were WAY off. It took my brother and I a good couple of hours to go through them all. But it was well worth it. Snipe is almost nonexistant, and the material comes out uber-flat. Man, I wish I had your spiral head...have it on my jointer, but can't get myself to fork over the $900 for the planer head. Lucky dog...

[David Nelson1]

I know what cha mean Mike:cool:

[Matt Mackinnon]

Having just taken delivery of one of these units, I can see what Patrick is saying. there really isn't a ledge, but more of a groove to either side of the cutting zone. With a flat edge, the outsides are slightly taller than the flat ground surface in the middle of the cast iron. I have seen models where there was a more pronounced edge to either side.
I also would tend to agree that your boards should not skate around when running through the planer. But from experience when cutting with my old 15" planer, they would when the boards were not all that even to begin with. But I also know that if they skating, then you can twist the back end of the board to bring it back into general alignment quite easily.

Matt.

[glenn bradley]

Mike C speaks true. I mis-fed a piece and when it hit the shoulder it literally cut a rabbet into the edge of the board. My point is that you should align the material so that it clears the shoulders. Even with the roller height and tension adjusted for smoother material the thing still has a grip like an alligator. Unless the board is long enough to provide considerable leverage, nothing is going to alter the path of a board much once the planer has control of it.

[fRED mCnEILL]

"Nothing is going to alter the path of a board much once the planer has control of it."

I dissagree. On my Griz 20 in planer I quite often change the path if it starts to wander.

[Mike Cruz]

Fred, you may be a seasoned wwer, so my comment is not directed at you specifically, but moving a piece of wood that is feeding into the planer (especially a short one) is a great way to get a pinched finger or hand that you will not soon forget. There is a LOT of downward pressure greated by the infeed rollers. Not saying that you should never do it, but I would advise anyone who isn't well veresed in the planer not to mess with a board after it starts feeding. Obviously, a really long board that you can grab from the end is no biggie, but within a foot or two of the infeed table can really hurt.

[Patrick Galpin]

The model is the G0454Z, it does not have any "shoulders" at all, the bed is dead flat. and yes, I did go through the complete set up. My other unit is the Dewalt 735 that has guides to prevent any wandering. Most of the time the boards feed true and straight but sometimes they do skew to the side. Yes, I can sometimes adjust the path but there is little I can do if there is only a foot or two left on the in-feed side. The power of the feed unit is pretty high on a 20" unit as you can imagine and I am cautious about my fingers, would rather re-pass the board than risk a pinch or worse.

Has anybody develpped an easy way to install guides, even 1/4" high to prevent this?

[Don Wacker]

Drop the bed rollers even with the table and wax the table, also pay attention to the grain direction.

Don

[scott vroom]

Patrick, the infeed and outfeed tables do not have shoulders, only the planer bed itself (i.e., the area directly under the cutterhead). Please take another look and let us know if this is the case.

The most likely cause of your wood drifting is uneven roller pressure. The manual that came with your planer has instructions on how to fix this.

Have you discussed your issues with Grizzly technical support?