Scallops from planer NOT caused by knife alignment?

[Matt Armstrong]

Hi all,

I picked up a G1033 and spent the better part of 5-6 hours tuning it. I'm having a real heck of a time trying to get it not to scallop (especially when planing long boards). The scallops are approx 1/4" wide and about 0.005 deep. They appear to be caused by the infeed roller ridges (the spacing per scallop seems to be consistent with the spacing of the infeed roller serrations) but I can't fathom why it would want to lift off the table or what options I have for remedying it. I can deal with small scalloping from the knives, but this is pretty bad...

Thoughts?

[johnny means]

If you're seeing marks from your infeed roller you really do have a problem. If you posted some pictures it might be helpful.

[johnny means]

BTW, was this a little drive-by gloat?

[Matt Armstrong]

They aren't from the roller serrations, but occur in the same frequency as roller marks would.

[Matt Armstrong]

And no, no gloating here. Its just a nuisance so far

[joe milana]

Can you slow the feed speed?

[Gary Pennington]

Did you check the bed rollers? Maybe a bad bearing on the outfeed side causing it to wobble.

[Peter Quinn]

Any chance one knife is a little higher than the other two? Do you have a pic of the defect? Does the spacing of the scallop change when you change speeds? Is there any wear on the indeed rollers that could cause them to be flat in one spot? Honestly it sounds like you are cutting with only one knife, and it doesn't take much to do that. But the look of it should change a bit when you change feed speed, or the distance between centers should change to correspond to feed speed if that is the problem. Its best to check this with a gauge block from the table up as well as checking knife height with a knife setting jig that references the cutter head. I had an issue with a DC-380 planer where the table height raising mechanism was out of sink when I got it (used), and I had one knife set high, caused a problem like you describe.

[Mikail Khan]

Is this a 1033 or a 1033X with a Byrd head?

Byrd cutters have a radius which will leave evenly spaced scallops along the length of the board.

MK

[Matt Armstrong]

Bed rollers are at 0. Feed speed is slow. the scallops are about 1/4" long. Regular knives. This is not scalloping caused by simple knife misalignment.
http://i.imgur.com/Vvar8.jpg

[Rod Sheridan]

Out of round bed roller, improperly adjusted chip breaker or pressure bar..............Rod

[joe milana]

Out of round bed roller, improperly adjusted chip breaker or pressure bar..............Rod

My guess too, but you'd think the scallops would be a bit farther apart, or more of a sine wave shape.

[Mike Heidrick]

How deep a pass are you taking?

[larry senen]

the only time i've seen something similar is when i plane thin stock [1/8 or less] .in that case the knives would grab and pull the board up off the table.
your pic seems to show some irregular cuts toward the middle of the pic just above the crescent shape indent.
that is what i would expect to see if the board was somehow lifted into the knife

[Matt Armstrong]

Out of round bed roller, improperly adjusted chip breaker or pressure bar..............Rod

The bed rollers are below the table surface... I've tried adjusting the chipbreaker and pressure bar in all sorts of positions. If I have them apply a lot of pressure, it reduces the scalloping but the wood can't feed without denting

[Steve Griffin]

I get a very similar pattern sometimes when my board doesn't have a nice flat bottom face from the jointer.

[scott vroom]

Have you called the manufacturer to discuss possible causes?

[Rod Sheridan]

The bed rollers are below the table surface... I've tried adjusting the chipbreaker and pressure bar in all sorts of positions. If I have them apply a lot of pressure, it reduces the scalloping but the wood can't feed without denting

Well, that's part of the problem.

The chip breaker and pressure bar must be set with a measuring device such as a dial indicator to be exactly at a certain dimension relative to the knife circle.

Adjust the planer as per the manufacturers specifications and report back please................Regards, Rod.

[johnny means]

I can see what looks like regular scalloping, in between the larger ridges. These larger ridges look to me to be a series of snipes rather than scallops caused by the path of your knife edge. I would check to see if my table were locking properly. Are you locking the table? Is there any movement when the bed is locked in place. If not, I would then check to see that there was no loose connections in the cutter head or journal areas. Also inspect for any hidden cracks or brocken attachment points that would allow the cutter head and be to move relative to each other.

[johnny means]

Are you not getting this marking on either the leading or trailing end of the board?

[Rick Fisher]

Get a flashlight and a camera that takes video .. Ideally some 8/4 lumber ..

Shine the light in .. turn the video on and set the camera on the planer bed ..

I bet you will be able to figure it out watching the video ..


When my planer gets dull, or the beds get sticky, the wood will stop while planing .. drives me nuts.. I get those marks each time the board stops.. Typically waxing the planer bed fixes it for me, once I had to turn the carbide cutters.. If the wood is not stopping and starting, you need to see what's going on in there.

If you want, I can make a video with my Chiwanese General and you could watch both.. see what's happening an compare ..

[Matthew Hills]

Hi all,

I picked up a G1033 and spent the better part of 5-6 hours tuning it. I'm having a real heck of a time trying to get it not to scallop (especially when planing long boards). The scallops are approx 1/4" wide and about 0.005 deep. They appear to be caused by the infeed roller ridges (the spacing per scallop seems to be consistent with the spacing of the infeed roller serrations) but I can't fathom why it would want to lift off the table or what options I have for remedying it. I can deal with small scalloping from the knives, but this is pretty bad...

Thoughts?

Is the wood face-jointed?

Matt

[Roger Myers]

You mention that it is especially when feeding a long board...are you using any extension tables or roller supports? If the board is unsupported, i could see this issue occuring....

[Matthew Hills]

Well, that's part of the problem.

The chip breaker and pressure bar must be set with a measuring device such as a dial indicator to be exactly at a certain dimension relative to the knife circle.

Adjust the planer as per the manufacturers specifications and report back please................Regards, Rod.

I'd recommend reading Bob Vaughan's article on "Getting Peak Planer Performance" (getting the manufacturer's specs is also a good idea):

- http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/Getting%20Peak%20Planer%20Performance.ashx

and the corresponding on video:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7peFNT2vS0å



Matt

[keith micinski]

Honestly that is so bad and pronounced I would be surprised if it was an adjustment and not a bearing going out or something else broke or loose. in essence the head is either bouncing across the board or the board is bouncing across the head. Out of adjustment might let this happen a little but that looks like a lot more then a little.

[John Coloccia]

I looked at the Grizzly manual, and there's a pretty detailed explanation of the setup procedure for the various settings. I wouldn't do anything at all until going through the manual, step by step, and setting everything up to factory specs, including the knives.

[Matt Armstrong]

Well, that's part of the problem.

The chip breaker and pressure bar must be set with a measuring device such as a dial indicator to be exactly at a certain dimension relative to the knife circle.

Adjust the planer as per the manufacturers specifications and report back please................Regards, Rod.

One of the (many) positions I set it to was the exact manufacturer specs. No change.

[Matt Armstrong]

I can see what looks like regular scalloping, in between the larger ridges. These larger ridges look to me to be a series of snipes rather than scallops caused by the path of your knife edge. I would check to see if my table were locking properly. Are you locking the table? Is there any movement when the bed is locked in place. If not, I would then check to see that there was no loose connections in the cutter head or journal areas. Also inspect for any hidden cracks or brocken attachment points that would allow the cutter head and be to move relative to each other.

I'm thinking this may be an issue of dull blades "lifting" the wood. But they are new (old stock) blades, so I find that hard to imagine.

[Matt Armstrong]

I looked at the Grizzly manual, and there's a pretty detailed explanation of the setup procedure for the various settings. I wouldn't do anything at all until going through the manual, step by step, and setting everything up to factory specs, including the knives.setting everything to factory was the first thing i did. took 6 hours and a lot of patience.

[Matt Armstrong]

Honestly that is so bad and pronounced I would be surprised if it was an adjustment and not a bearing going out or something else broke or loose. in essence the head is either bouncing across the board or the board is bouncing across the head. Out of adjustment might let this happen a little but that looks like a lot more then a little.

This is what I'm thinking now. Or dull blades. But definitely some sort of periodic oscillation.

[Matt Armstrong]

Is the wood face-jointed?

Matt
tried both face jointed and rough. no difference.

[Will Blick]

I have the same in PM model....
clearly you have either the rollers mis aligned or non concentric....

you confirm concentric rollers, but putting straight edge between rollers, and measure distance to table in middle. Turn roller 1/4 turn, re check measurement, you might have to use finger shims to measure.

Mis aligned rollers confirmation, straight edge to table distance should measure the same at both ends, at all turns of the roller... as you can see, concentric and equal alignment can both create erratic snipe.

or the more obvious, knife to table distance is not consistent for all knives at all lengths.... It sounds like you measured this already.... sometimes his is hard to measure, lots of patience. thousands of an inch really matter here...

this represents a strong argument for helical heads, you remove one of the variables forever.

[Bob Wingard]

Not familiar with that machine, but, just a general question ... could it be that somehow the entire table or it's support columns has gotten loose, and is bouncing up & down to some extent ???

[mreza Salav]

The spaces between the ridges are too big to be caused by different height of the knives (the speed at which the cutter head rotates vs the feed rate is simply too fast to have 1/4" space between different knives). I would agree with Rod that this is caused by pressure rollers.
I suspect that this is combined with dull knives: You say that if you apply more pressures you get less of these but you get dents in the wood. That is typical if you are taking too light of a pass, the knives will remove those dents, and if your knives are dull it will be harder on the machine, JMO.

[Kevin Bourque]

Did you check the roller spring tension? Sounds like it needs to be adjusted higher.
You can set the rollers and chip breaker to manufacturers specs and still have scalloping due to improper roller spring tension.

[Ronald Blue]

When you say you picked up I take that to be you obtained a used machine. Is that correct? Have you tried different blades? How long are the boards you have been running through it? I may be not seeing because of light conditions but it appears the scallops diminish as you look towards one end or the other? I defer to those who are far more knowledgeable then I here but it seems like making sure the knives are sharp is first order of business. Just my .02. A couple more questions.... When the stock is feeding does it feed smoothly? Possibly feed rollers slipping or table not slick enough and needing a good waxing?

[keith micinski]

I don't think it is to light of pressure on the feed rollers. I run mine just tight enough to feed the piece through so as to limit the amount of roller marks I get on the piece of wood. When I had them to light I still didn't get this action on the wood it just stopped feeding it threw. I also am not sure about dull knives. It seems like the quality of the cut would be worse and there would be more chip out if the knives were dull. I still say this is being cause by the head bouncing or the whole table is bouncing. I would think the table bouncing would be fairly easy to see so it has to be the head bouncing. If the piece of wood was a thin piece like 1/4 inch I could see it bouncing on its own.

[Jim Finn]

I have this same problem with my DeWalt planer on slow or fast feed rates.

[Kevin Presutti]

I agree with Rod. Watch this video with Bob Vaughn. He is very insightful and will get you going in the right direction. There is also an article which walks you step by step through the process. Is the lumber you are planing rough or sized? The setting in the infeed/outfeed rollers are somewhat different for roughcut as opposed to sized lumber. Bob goes all through this. If I can dig up the FWW link I will PM you. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSM7Jrg34a8&feature=gv&hl=en