Planer feed rates

[Jim Andrew]

I've been considering buying a new planer, the one I have now just takes a long time planing a pile of boards, and my neighbor bought a Grizzly GO453z, so had him demonstrate it to me. The slow speed was about the same as mine, but he put the thing in the fast speed, and the wood just went through about twice as fast, and I could not hear the planer pulling down. Would assume going much faster would result in the motor pulling down, but I could hear no difference. He even ran a pass in the fast speed taking 1/8" and still I could hear no difference. The board he planed was a piece of American elm, hardwood, maybe not as hard as white oak, but still a hard wood. The planer has a 3 hp motor. Now, comparing the G0454, the feed speeds are 16 and 20, compared to the 453 speeds which are 16 and 30. The 454 has 20" cut, and a 5 hp motor, which is 4" of cutterhead per hp, vs 5" of cutterhead for the 453. What am I missing here?

[Sam Babbage]

Pushing the envelope in depth of cut will bog down the motor at faster speeds, but the speed trade off is usually worth it. You don't mention the width of the board your neighbor ran. Running a narrow board with an aggressive depth of cut at fast speed will never (within reason) bog down the motor, but it might tear out badly. Assuming moderate board widths I tend to run the majority of passes at fast speed then slow the feed for the last two passes (one each face). I tend to never run boards on edge at fast speed, admittedly it's just what I was taught, but assuming you have ripped close to final dimension you are generally only taking one pass anyway.

[Jim Andrew]

The board he demonstrated with was about half the width of the planer, a 1 x 8. What I was thinking was, if I had a 20", should be able to run like that with a 1 x 10. But they feed slower?

[Edward Dyas]

Keep in mind that when you surface wood faster it doesn't surface as good and running it slow. It takes a lot more sanding to smooth out the chatter marks with wood that was run faster and there is a greater chance of blowout at higher feed rates. I would rather spend more time at the planer than the sander.

[Jim Riseborough]

Also, you want good dust collection so you dont get chips on the outfeed and mashed in by the rollers/feeders

[Rod Sheridan]

It's all about surface finish and speed.

The higher speed results in less cuts per inch, which makes the surface more wavy. The planer also requires more power.

The best combination is a high speed pass to remove most of the material. followed by a slower speed pass to produce a finer surface finish.

Fewer passes per board also increase knife life.

This is like jointing, I use a heavy pass, followed by 1 shallow pass...............Regards, Rod.

[Jeff Duncan]

If the planer is properly setup and of decent quality you can run pretty much everything at the higher speed. The difference is in CPI which is going to be about half of the slower speed. Since the actual depth of the marks remains relatively the same, it really shouldn't take much more time to sand the piece run faster. The only time I use the slow speed on my planer is when something is prone to tear-out, otherwise it's full speed ahead:D

Now FWIW I find 5hp to be the minimum for a 20" planer, which should be plenty adequate for most use. In a professional environment however I'd recommend going higher.

good luck,
JeffD

[J.R. Rutter]

Now FWIW I find 5hp to be the minimum for a 20" planer, which should be plenty adequate for most use. In a professional environment however I'd recommend going higher.

good luck,
JeffD

2nd. Especially with a helical insert cutterhead.

[Jim Andrew]

You guys are missing my point. The high speed on the 15" 3 hp planer is 30fpm The high speed on the 20" 5 hp is 20 fpm. Why is the 15" able to feed that much faster? And I'm not concerned with the finish on the boards. I have a wide belt sander.

[Rod Sheridan]

Jim, the feed speed decision is an engineering choice.

The smaller planer has a higher speed as they weren't concerned about finish quality, they provided a fairly fast roughing pass and slower finishing pass feed.

The smaller planer would not be able to take a full depth pass at rated width in hardwood at high speed, however planers seldom are required to do that.

The larger planer may be able to do that, however once again it's an uncommon task.

Many larger planers have variable speed feeds, one I used would go from a few feet per minute to 70 or 80, we often ran it at 40 to 50 feet per minute. It had a 4 knife head and gave excellent finish at higher speeds, of course it also had a 30 HP main drive motor...........Rod.

[David Kumm]

When the Asians copied the planer design they went 16 and 30 for some reason back in the 80s. The Delta was about the only one back then that was 16 and 20. Can't tell you why but once the design is set everyone copies it exactly and since most stuff is produced at the same factory it stays that way. I can't tell you whose design got copied as the Delta had a fixed table design vs all the others being fixed head. Delta used to tout their feed speeds as a better choice back then and the copies likewise. Dave

[ed vitanovec]

I know the 20" Planer rotating assembly has a lot more mass verses the 15", that is one reason. Gee Tech manufactures a majority of the planers 15" and 20", then private lables them for other companies. My Gee Tech 15" planer had 2 speeds 16/20, is it possible the 30 is a misprint?

[Rick Fisher]

I'll tell you why ..

Because of the size of the gears.. There is no fancy plan per-se .. I have a General 20" HH which came 16 and 24 ? I asked for the Powermatic gear set which was 20 + 32 ? So I have both sets of gears .. 4 speeds..

I used the 32 speed on some Rough Cedar .. worked awesome .. On Maple.. its too fast to avoid tear out all the time ..

I think I run mine at 20 fpm now ...

[Jim Andrew]

My neighbor demonstrated his G0453z for me, and ran in both slow and fast speed. Fast was really fast! So think the 30 fpm is accurate.

[Jeff Duncan]

Yup, it just comes down to what the company wants to offer, the market they're selling to, and what guys want. Grizzly focuses on price so I'd bet most guys are fine trading a little performance for the cost savings they get. The faster the speeds the beefier the planer needs to be. So adding 5" of width to go from 15" to 20" means everything has to be beefed up considerably or......speed needs to be slowed down. Personally I'd find 20' per minute far too slow for most work. My 20" planer runs at 25' or 43' per minute w/ a 9hp motor, and even 43' can be on the slow side when I'm trying to rip through a job; the 25' per minute setting feels like watching paint dry:(

All this to say if your considering upgrading your planer b/c it's too slow, it may be worth looking a bit more to find beefier machines that can handle faster speeds;)

good luck,
JeffD

[Keith Avery]

I have a older General 20" planer(made in Canada) it is variable speed 20-55fpm and only 5hp. It is a little slow on start up as the head likely weighs 150lbs but it has not bogged down at max speed yet.