Byrd Planer Head Users: How do you find the nicked cutter?

[Jim C Martin]

Hello All:
I have had a Byrd Shelix cutter head on my jointer for several years and am very happy with it. Byrd now makes one for my planer (Makita 2040) and I was about to pull out the credit card.
But then I had a thought: When you get a nick in one of the cutters, how do you find that cutter to rotate it? With a jointer you can just hold the board against the fence and identify the culprit by matching up the line in the wood with the cutter. Even then its not always obvious that the cutter is nicked (with my old eyes). With a planer you won't have the same accurate reference because I would think you'll be cutting under the head and then working on it above the head.
How do you Byrd Planer head users find the nicked cutter? Maybe you drop the table way down and work from the bottom?
Thanks in advance,
Jim

[glenn bradley]

Same technique. There are only 2 or 3 inserts that are in that area. I was just chasing one down on my 15" planer which gives you 75 inserts (or thereabouts) to choose from. I just stop the board once it exist the machine, put a pencil mark somewhere to signal the location, lower the table and peek in with a flashlight or pull the top cover and look in that general area. It turned out that I had a snag on the chip breaker that was the culprit and a little file work took care of that. Just for general interest I have never chipped an insert in 7 years of almost daily use.

[Jim C Martin]

I just stop the board once it exits the machine, put a pencil mark somewhere to signal the location, lower the table and peek in with a flashlight or pull the top cover and look in that general area.

Ah, stopping the machine and leaving the board in place, excellent! I can see that working with my Makita. I was imagining taking the board out and trying to match the location from the top.
Thanks!
Jim

[Steve Baumgartner]

Really not that difficult if you leave the board on the bed and measure the distance from the ridge to the edge of the planer. If you take a small piece of wire or hard wood and slide it across the edge, you can feel if there is a nick.

[Earl McLain]

I've only had one problem so far, and it was yesterday. Planing 9" walnut, got a ridge like a straight knife nick and wondered how i was going to find the nick in one insert. Stopped cutting, unplugged, took off the top and dust shroud, rotated the head and easily spotted a broken insert. Replaced it, cut the ragged end of 3 of the 6 boards, back at it in under 10 minutes. My fault for not squaring off the chunks on the ends of the boards--no need to try to squeeze out the last 2" of the board that i'm not going to use anyway.
earl

[Jim C Martin]

My fault for not squaring off the chunks on the ends of the boards--no need to try to squeeze out the last 2" of the board that i'm not going to use anyway.

Thanks Earl. Would you please elaborate a little on this issue of squaring off the ends? I have not heard that was bad for the planer blades before. I get a lot of nicks in my blades and maybe its because I don't make any conscious effort to square off the ends. This might be really valuable for me and I am curious to know more.
Best wishes,
Jim