DW735 Byrd Helical: Quality of Results

[David Utterback]

A couple of months ago, I installed the Byrd Helix carbide cutter head in my DW735. After running a few dozen board feet of mostly cherry, I am less than impressed with the cut quality. There are at least 5 distinct ridges left across the planed face. The ridges are not the result of chipped blades but clearly caused by cutter heads that are not indexed consistently.

Have others had a similar experience? Are these typical results?

Thanks
David

[brent stanley]

I have two Byrd heads and though neither are in a DW735, I can say that they haven't given me the problem you describe. I might guess either the knives aren't installed correctly or you have a dud. I'd get in touch with Byrd.

[David M Peters]

Any chance that there is some crud underneath one or more of the cutters? When I rotated the cutters on my J/P some chips got underneath one of them, causing it to protrude a bit higher than its neighbors.

[Brian Nguyen]

Did you buy the OEM sized version and reinstall the cutters yourself? Maybe some dust/debris got in there and it's as simple (though time consuming) as taking the cutters off, brush the cruds out with a toothbrush, and reinstall to the proper torque. Good luck.

[Dave Bonde]

I have one on both my Dewalt 734 and 20" Powermatic. I have not experienced anything like you are describing with either planer. So no the results you are getting would not be typical for me.

Dave

[Steve Demuth]

I've had a Byrd head in a DW735 for several years. I have experienced no serious problems.

If you have removed or rotated any of the cutters for some reason, I would double check that they are properly seated (no dust or chips underneath, etc). The cutters have to be perfectly seated or there will be trouble.

[Tony Leonard]

I installed one in my 735 a couple of years ago. What size are the ridges? Mine leaves tiny little ridges (220 grit removes them). I did have some issues with cutters not being torqued correctly. I ended up taking them all off an re-installing paying careful attention to their directions and torque specs. I used a cheap torque wrench from HF - maybe not precise, but probably consistent. Seems like I actually backed off on the torque and got better results. I cracked several inserts during my learning curve. Also, make sure the rollers are clean. They can leave indentations (yep, I learnt that). Oh, I use a brush to clean the insert seat and pay very close attention to getting them seated correctly. Watch those fingers too!

I have never gotten the glass smooth surface that a fresh set of knives can deliver. But, the surface I get is perfectly acceptable for me. Heck, I can run wood through that thing in any old direction and it comes out just fine. My knives never seemed to deliver that glass smooth surface for long! I went through a lot of them too.

Anyway, hope you get it worked out. I know how frustrating it is to lay down that kind of dough (and work) and not be thrilled with the results. Several folks suggested the re-torque thing when I did my research. Took me a little effort to get it worked out honestly. To qualify, I am a weekend warrior type and I have rarely needed to rotate to a fresh edge. I think a set of inserts will last me many years.

Tony

[Ken Fitzgerald]

There have been reports of some cutters where crud was under the bits. Removing the bits/cutters, cleaning under them with a brush and solvent and then reinstalling them resolved the issue. It's recommended the cutters being reinstalled using a torque wrench to prevent over torqueing which can fracture the brittle carbide cutters. The amount of torque is very small so I bought a special torque wrench just for that purpose.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Agree with what others said. I have one in my Jet jointer and it produces a perfect finish.

[Robyn Horton]

installing the carbide cutters by just the handle with torx bit I got ridges then on my second attempt I used a inch pound torque wrench and followed there directions with the screw pulling the carbide into position all was good then with no lines .

[Cary Falk]

I put a Byrd on my jointer some years ago. I was getting less than stellar results until I removed all of the cutters, cleaned and re-torqued all of the cutters. A $20 HF in-lb torque wrench works fine for this.

[Brian Gumpper]

The portable planer heads don't have as many rows of cutters and accurate torque on the screws is important. If you took the inserts off or rotated them it's important they be torqued about about 43 inch pounds give or take. I think the current spec is 40-45 inch pounds. If it's right out of the box then unfortunately your best course of action would be to remove the cutters and reinstall.

[Bob Cooper]

I’ve got one in a 20” jet and still get a fair amount of tearout especially around knots. Just not sure what is typical

[David Utterback]

As best as can, I followed all of the suggested actions above. All cutters were removed, re-seated and torqued while pulling the cutting tip forward as recommended. Some of the finer ridges went away but there are 3 quite prominent ones with parallel, almost square edges. I removed several cutters again in those tracks but no improvement.

Also, one edge of the planed board is at least 0.007 inches thinner than the opposite edge. The cutters on that side did show evidence of contact with the back of the holder yet there were not similar marks elsewhere on the cutters.

I have called Byrd twice and need to call tomorrow when the expert is scheduled. Including a trip to HF, this has taken at least 4 hours already. I sure hope I do not have to remove the head.

Thanks for the input.

[Carlos Alvarez]

If these issues started right away, with the new head, then perhaps it is defective. It wasn't clear to me whether this was a recent/new issue or started right away.

[David Utterback]

Yesterday afternoon, after rechecking all the torque on all the cutters, I rotated 12 of them in the center by 180*. This is the area that had created the most distinct ridges. My 8.5" wide test board was then run through 3 times on each face with pencil marks without change the depth of cut. On one facee, I began on the right and shifted to the center and then to left and on the other side I began on the left and then the center and then to the right.

The attached photos show the pencil mark patterns left on the 2 faces of the board. The ridges were milled away by the multiple passes but many gullies remained - mostly on the left half of each face.
381384
381385

I will call Byrd once again to get their guidance.

[Dan Hahr]

They better fix that.

[David Utterback]

Byrd is initiating the exchange of cutter heads. So far, they have been good to work with.

At the end of the day, I spent more than 4 hours removing and reseating and/or rotating cutters. There was little to no improvement so I should have quit earlier. My advice - if you rotate the cutter(s) responsible and see no improvement, do not continue. My guess is that there is debris in the threads. I did see some small metal chips in some machine screw threads. However, not all of them so I am not sure what might be the problem other than they were not tapped deep enough.

Thanks for the input.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Debris in the threads won't change their position. It would only be changed by anything stuck between the head itself and the cutter, or a machining error in the head.

Also never use an impact driver, even one set to extremely low torque. The vibration will cause the cutter to explode. Ask me how I know...

[Mike Goetzke]

I bought one years ago. Put it in the planer and tested it out. Let the planer set for a month before I used it for real and I noticed something on the planer bed...pieces of carbide! They sent out replacement inserts right away and I decided to take out all the cutters, clean, re-torque. I found several holes were not tapped deep enough. They sent me a new head. So the CS is good but lots of wasted time especially replacing the head again.

I also bought one of their heads for my jointer at the same time and it's been flawless.

Good Luck

[David Utterback]

Carlos, I was thinking that debris in the threads would cause error in the torque measurement. Is that incorrect? Thanks

[Carlos Alvarez]

The torque, as I see it, only changes whether you damage a cutter or have a bolt come loose. The position is determined by the cut surfaces of the head. As long as the bolt is seated, with any torque, the cutter stays in place. I've never used a torque wrench on mine, and it remains perfectly flat.

[David Utterback]

The replacement cutter head arrived yesterday though it is the larger OEM diameter, 1.93 inches. All the cutters needed to be removed for the installation. A few of them had been torqued much tighter than the rest.

The replacement also had a lot of metal debris in the female threads for the helical gear. It took quite some time to clear the debris sufficiently to install the gear and, in the end, I was not certain that it was fully seated. After I snugged it up and completed the installation, the planer appears to run normally.

Following installation, there were several ridges on the test board. I had to remove, clean and re-install 6 cutters. One continued to leave a ridge even after rotation but this was corrected when replaced with one of the extra cutters that Byrd supplies. I am seeing some fuzzy areas on the tiger maple that I used for the test cuts even though I was only lowering the cutter by 1/8 turn increments. We will see how it performs with cherry which is the wood I mostly use. I am encouraged by the comments of others who have been fully satisfied.


Byrd customer service has been great. They shipped the replacement in about a week and it arrived before I had removed the previous head from my planer. I am guessing that the OEM larger head was in stock while the smaller heads are out of stock and on their production schedule.

All-in-all, the switch over and replacement installations have consumed about 8 hours. They also required a trip to HF for a torque wrench plus a trip to UPS to ship the defective Shelix head.

I am probably in a fairly unique position of having operated my dw735 with both the smaller and larger diameter Shelix heads. It seems to me that the larger cutter head produces a little more noise. (I am uncertain because I am half-deaf and do not have a reliable sound level meter to use for measurements.) Neither cutter produces much additional noise while planing wood. Both heads are much quieter than the original straight blade cutters.

Thanks for all your responses and input.

[Carlos Alvarez]

I wonder if something has changed over the years. Mine is probably ten years old, I think. Minimum of six years.