helical investment?

[Matthew Carver]

I work with a lot of local black walnut and lumber. I'm in Kansas, but in an area with a lot of trees. I have access to two sawmills and consider myself lucky. A lot of the lumber I get is curly or has a lot of figuring of some kind. ope is that investing in something like this or segmented head will help me mill my lumber quicker and keep my schedule independent. I currently have the wen 2 knife planer and its very temperamental with figured wood. It makes me dependent on a couple of guys with better gear than I do i.e. helical setups. This is a drag since I'm dependent on other people's schedules and I don't get a lot of time to be in my little shop.

I've been considering a dewalt planer with a byrd helical head but don't know if thats the right logical step. My hI have a 12x20 shop so space is a challenge. I'm not sure I could fit a bigger planer with cabinet stand in it.

What are the thoughts of the community?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have a lunch box planer with blades. In the future, I don't know if I will convert it to helical head or if I'll buy a new planer with the helical head but I'm a fan. My jointer has a helical head and I like it.


The advantage I like most about the helical head and cutters is the rapid change to a new cutting surface with no alignment necessary!

[Matthew Carver]

I have a grizzly 6in with a helical and it's really nice. I don't know if they're lunchbox planer with quote helical cutterhead is the segmented head receipt elsewhere or if it's like their new jointer.

[glenn bradley]

Unless you are lifting your lunchbox unit onto a stand and taking it off and putting it away every time you use it, the footprint is about the same as a 15" floor planer. The big difference is that a lunchbox planer is generally a finish planer and floor machines tend to be designed to mill lumber a little further up the food chain. Some, like mine, use serrated rollers that can leave tracks on some material. The assumption being that there is a fair amount of work to be done to that surface before you are done making a part. Some floor machines have poly rollers and some folks swap the serrated ones for poly . . . be that as it may . . .

If you are processing that much material I would lean toward a floor machine. By the time you buy a DW735 and upgrade it, you are close enough to just punt to the floor machine IMHO (I know, others will see the $$$ gap as still quite large). Check the reports, do the math, the insert head pays for itself rather quickly and is still lucrative even when you get to the point of doing a full replacement of cutters (watch for sales of model specific "packages" from carbide folks).

[Earl McLain]

I bought my Dewalt 735 as a demo close-out from a Sears store for about half of current retail. Liked it, but found best results with fresher blades. After a few years...i made the switch-over to a Byrd head...got much better results. That was about 4 years ago (maybe 5), and just about ready to rotate to the second side. In that time i'd have easily gone through 5-8 sets of straight knives. So besides the improvement in cuts, there is a financial payback over time as well. Glad i did it.
earl

[Matthew Carver]

I have it on a flip top with my jointed. Maybe I'll have to drive to Springfield in a couple of weeks for the tent sale at grizzly and see what they have.

[Matthew Carver]

too bad there are no more sears...

I bought my Dewalt 735 as a demo close-out from a Sears store for about half of current retail. Liked it, but found best results with fresher blades. After a few years...i made the switch-over to a Byrd head...got much better results. That was about 4 years ago (maybe 5), and just about ready to rotate to the second side. In that time i'd have easily gone through 5-8 sets of straight knives. So besides the improvement in cuts, there is a financial payback over time as well. Glad i did it.
earl

[Gregory King]

too bad there are no more sears...

I thought that was only true in Canada. Closed our local one here about 2 years ago. Really miss their mechanics tool line.