Andy Pratt
02-09-2014, 2:08 AM
I have struggled with poor cut capacity on my planer since replacing the standard cutterhead with a shelix byrd head about six years ago. Recently, I replaced the motor and added a vfd and gained significant improvement, but it still wasn't where I wanted it.
After exhausting all other options, I tested out what would happen if I removed every other row of cutters on the shelix head. I am fortunate in this regard, because my head has 6 full rows of cutters (6 spirals with blades nearly touching). If it had 5 I couldn't have done this, as the head wouldn't have remained balanced. Don't do this without really thinking it through and looking over your particular cutterhead, it worked for me but could be dangerous if your setup is different than mine and you create an unbalanced system. I know some cutterheads have much fewer spirals and/or cutters per spiral, so you could also get into mischief if you remove a row that is necessary to complete a full width pass.
After doing this, I now had a cutterhead with 3 spiral rows of cutters, making a total of three full cuts per revolution instead of the previous six. The result was vastly improved cut capacity, with no noticeable degradation in surface quality. I compared before/after on side-by-side passes on a birds-eye maple board and a curly maple board and you had to get it in raking light to even tell which was which. Even in the raking light, the only difference was in the visual appearance of the cut markings, there was no tearout on either, everything felt the same and the marks still needed just one pass on the sander to go away. There was no unevenness to the 3-cut surface like I had worried there might be.
I planed off 1/6" (not 1/16th) off a 6" western maple board, and did the same almost non-stop on a series of pine 2x6's. On wider/harder boards, where I could only have done 1/16" before, I now do 3/32" or 1/8".
If the data helps anyone decide how many cutters they want on their cutterhead (I believe some machines have multiple options for replacement heads), here are my specs: 12" robland/laguna xsd-31 jointer planer, 3hp cont. duty marathon motor, 3ph, 230v, vfd. Feed rate is modified to 16fpm (instead of 20 from the factory) and cutterhead speed is still 4500 rpm I believe.
I was worried the empty mounting holes might fill with crud but so far they have not shown any tendency to. As a side bonus, I now own a free replacement set of carbide bits, since I removed exactly half of what it came with.
This is in relation to a previous issue I had with my planer and wrote about in another thread, which contains more detail if you want it, see here: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?106794-robland-j-p-bogging-down/page7
Hope this is helpful,
Andy
After exhausting all other options, I tested out what would happen if I removed every other row of cutters on the shelix head. I am fortunate in this regard, because my head has 6 full rows of cutters (6 spirals with blades nearly touching). If it had 5 I couldn't have done this, as the head wouldn't have remained balanced. Don't do this without really thinking it through and looking over your particular cutterhead, it worked for me but could be dangerous if your setup is different than mine and you create an unbalanced system. I know some cutterheads have much fewer spirals and/or cutters per spiral, so you could also get into mischief if you remove a row that is necessary to complete a full width pass.
After doing this, I now had a cutterhead with 3 spiral rows of cutters, making a total of three full cuts per revolution instead of the previous six. The result was vastly improved cut capacity, with no noticeable degradation in surface quality. I compared before/after on side-by-side passes on a birds-eye maple board and a curly maple board and you had to get it in raking light to even tell which was which. Even in the raking light, the only difference was in the visual appearance of the cut markings, there was no tearout on either, everything felt the same and the marks still needed just one pass on the sander to go away. There was no unevenness to the 3-cut surface like I had worried there might be.
I planed off 1/6" (not 1/16th) off a 6" western maple board, and did the same almost non-stop on a series of pine 2x6's. On wider/harder boards, where I could only have done 1/16" before, I now do 3/32" or 1/8".
If the data helps anyone decide how many cutters they want on their cutterhead (I believe some machines have multiple options for replacement heads), here are my specs: 12" robland/laguna xsd-31 jointer planer, 3hp cont. duty marathon motor, 3ph, 230v, vfd. Feed rate is modified to 16fpm (instead of 20 from the factory) and cutterhead speed is still 4500 rpm I believe.
I was worried the empty mounting holes might fill with crud but so far they have not shown any tendency to. As a side bonus, I now own a free replacement set of carbide bits, since I removed exactly half of what it came with.
This is in relation to a previous issue I had with my planer and wrote about in another thread, which contains more detail if you want it, see here: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?106794-robland-j-p-bogging-down/page7
Hope this is helpful,
Andy