John Carmack
12-16-2016, 6:07 AM
I have an older model Dewalt DW680 electric hand planer from a pawn shop. It's never worked with much precision. The old blades on it had a little nick in them from a nail or something. I would use it experimentally on rough wood and logs/branches. I put some new blades on it awhile back and recently tried to tune it up. The blades spun about 0.014" below the back plate and would cut 0.02" when the front plate was set to zero. I also discovered the blades aren't really in alignment with each other. One was about 0.03" higher than the other. Does that mean one blade does all the cutting?
I've looked online and haven't found much on adjusting/fine tuning hand held power planers. People just slide the blades in and go "that's all there is to it!" on YouTube. I watched a few interesting videos on jointer table and blade setups, but don't know if that really applies to planers.
When reading reviews for hand held planers, I found that lots of people are dismayed that they still cut when set to zero on the depth adjustment knob. Now I think that the depth of cut is set by a combination of how much the blades cut off the front and back plate; and the blades most likely have to be a hair below the back plate in order to keep the planer moving!
I just ordered a Makita KP0810 Planer. I figure I'll use the old Dewalt for nasty stuff and the Makita for tidier work. Just wondered what else I could do to get all the fine tuning out of a power planer that I can.
I've looked online and haven't found much on adjusting/fine tuning hand held power planers. People just slide the blades in and go "that's all there is to it!" on YouTube. I watched a few interesting videos on jointer table and blade setups, but don't know if that really applies to planers.
When reading reviews for hand held planers, I found that lots of people are dismayed that they still cut when set to zero on the depth adjustment knob. Now I think that the depth of cut is set by a combination of how much the blades cut off the front and back plate; and the blades most likely have to be a hair below the back plate in order to keep the planer moving!
I just ordered a Makita KP0810 Planer. I figure I'll use the old Dewalt for nasty stuff and the Makita for tidier work. Just wondered what else I could do to get all the fine tuning out of a power planer that I can.