Tuning up a DC 380 planer

[Dave Zellers]

Here's the situation:

Ideally, you want the four corners of the top (head), the cast iron that holds all the moving blades and rollers, to be the same distance from the cast iron bed. This makes total sense because if it is off side to side, and you set the knives the same distance off the cutter head using a jig, then the thickness will be off from one side to the other.

But what if it is only off front to back? IOW, mine is parallel to the bed side to side, but the back (outfeed) is higher than the front by perhaps 1/16". The instructions for setting the rollers reference everything off the bed using feeler gauges so why would this matter?

I'm getting ready to start our kitchen and I'm willing to spend a few hours tuning up this baby from being pretty good, to being close to perfect. For some reason, fiddling with the gears underneath spooks me and if aligning the rollers and knives to be the correct distance off the bed can achieve perfection, is there any reason why I should fiddle with the gears to lower the back of the head?

I'm sure I'm already getting some eye rolls from those who have been doing this for years and understand it but it's kind of new to me. I bought this planer used 2 years ago or so and have just used it as is with pretty good results. But it clearly would benefit from a tune up, so I can boil down all my wordiness to this, for those who have persevered this far: Do I really need to adjust the head to be coplanar (given it's only out front to back) before I adjust the knives and rollers?

[David Kumm]

Front to back only matters if you can't adjust the outfeed roller enough to pull the wood through. The knives don't get affected by the front to back thing. As long as side to side is good and the rollers front and back both pull the board you will be fine. Dave

[Peter Quinn]

Its not spooky, but it is a tough tight space to work in under the DC-380. Real knuckle buster. I got mine used, spent a weekend setting it up, has never been necessary to touch again. I would do the whole adjustment personally, I would think that if you were truly off by 1/16" front to back the raising/lowering would bind up a bit? I suppose if your results are good, no compelling reason to mess with it. I checked and adjusted everything to learn the machine and sort of establish a baseline for what I could expect in terms of performance.

The actual adjustment involves releasing the tensioner, using a gauge block you make as a reference, turning just the sprockets at the corners that require adjustment, putting the chain back on the four sprockets and replacing the tensioner. Its the putting the chain back on and replacing the tensioner part thats tough. Not much space under there. Whole process took me under 1Hr, so its not the end of the world. Its all spelled out pretty well in the manual, very well written as I recall.

[Dave Zellers]

I don't know why I'm spooked by it but I am. The instructions say to lay it on it's side which is out of the question so it would have to be done upright, which I was told here earlier (by Alan Schaffter, I believe) is fine to do.

Maybe I should just grow a pair and do this right from step one. It's just That I know it will be a huge pain working in a tight space as you say Peter and likely with a mirror.

OTOH, if I get it and all the other adjustments right, happy times.

I sharpen my own knives and I've got 3 15 inch knives you could shave with waiting to be installed.

[Peter Quinn]

Oh yea, the lay it on it's side thing is pretty much out, not that easy to stand back up, and hard to measure once your there. I definetly worked on mine in the upright operating position. It wouldn't make it any easier, but you could see without neck strain. Still, too heavy IMO to go flopping around for maintenance.