Central Machinery 12" planer?

[Jeff Schmotzer]

Hi Folks,

I'm new to the board and just wanted to see if anybody might know the answer to this.

I was given a Central Machinery 12" planer (Model CT-318) and it is pretty chewed up (it looks like someones been running boards with nails through it).

The owner's manual for it is absolutely terrible.

I'm just trying to find a set of replacement blades for it and wondered if anybody happened to know what this might be compatible with... for that matter, is this planer decent enough to live with for a while?

The blades themselves are about 12 1/2" x 3/4" x 1/8"

Thanks very much,
Jeff

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jeff .....Welcome to the Creek! Neat place to exchange information! You might try HF. If I remember correctly Central Machinery is a HF brand. Good luck!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Welcome to the Creek Jeff. Ken is right...Central Machinery is a Harbor Freight brand. I don't know about that particular jointer, but some Central Machinery tools seem to be pretty decent (based on what I've seen people say here) and others are pretty poorly made. It's possible someone else here can tell you if that specific model is worth hunting down new blades for.

I hope this helps -

- Vaughn

I'm not sure if HF has the 8" blades available or not. They list blades for their 4", 6" and 7" jointers on their website, but no mention of anything for the 12" model. Here again, someone here who knows more about jointers than I do (that'd be pretty much anyone reading this) will likely tell you if blades from another maker could work.

[Dale Rodabaugh]

Yeah,I have seen the Central Machine stuff,at Harbor Freight.Personally I would not buy any of it.looks pretty cheap and shabby to me.

[Richard Wolf]

Infinity carries a full line of planer blades including the size you need. Find them at;
www.infinitytools.com

Richard

[Bill Lewis]

Yeah,I have seen the Central Machine stuff,at Harbor Freight.Personally I would not buy any of it.looks pretty cheap and shabby to me.I'd bet you'd give it a try too if all it was going to cost you was a set of blades.;)

[Andrew Ault]

You might check out Grizzly's website and see if one of their portable planers looks like yours and/or call them with the exact dimensions of your knives and see if they have some that will work. I realize that yours is from Harbour Freight, but sometimes the chinese stuff is sold under multiple brands, or the knives might happen to be the same.

Nice score!

-Andy

[Dale Rodabaugh]

Bill Lewis,I think my post was pretty clear,I said I woudnt buy any of that stuff from Harbor Freight.If someone gave me a piece of their equipment I would probably fix it up and the advertise it in the classifieds.That is how I feel about their stuff.:mad: :mad: :mad:

[Jeff Schmotzer]

Thanks folks...

I called up Harbor Freight and they don't carry anything older than about 98' from what the guy told me, and this planer is from about 95'... it actually took a while for me to convince them that I was giving them a real model number. So, out of luck there... but I followed y'alls advice and just fished around and found some similar sized knives.. a little short, but close enough.

so we'll see if I can get a $35 working planer...

Thanks again, and I look forward to asking lots of questions...

[Andrew Ault]

It would be great to hear how well it works when you're done.

-Andy

[scott spencer]

Thanks folks...
...snip... So, out of luck there... but I followed y'alls advice and just fished around and found some similar sized knives.. a little short, but close enough.

... If they're manually aligned, just shift one knife left and another right and you'll be back to full width.