Ridgid planer

[Rick Peek]

Hello. I would like to intoduce myself. I'm fairly new to joinery
type woodworking,but have been slowly collecting tools and
getting my feet wet by doing small projects.I found this site
and love it. Its full of great info for a ham & egger like me.
I doing a fairly large built in using Tiger Maple & maple
plywood. Now for my main problem. I bought a new ridgid
planer,set it up & ran my first board thru. It pretty much
destroyed a $50 peice of wood. I tore chunks out of the
wood all over the face. This was on a very light cut. I
checked the blades,the looked o/k. I tried another peice
thinking maybe the board was slightly cupped. The same
thing happened. :( :confused: . Any ideas?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Rick...Welcome to the Creek! Neat place to exchange information!

I'm sure some of the experienced members will jump in and give you some advice. It's my understanding that figured wood can be difficult to plane or join. I also think that dull blades could be a problem. I'm sure some more experienced members will give their 0.02 worth.

Again....Welcome to the Creek!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Rick, welcome to the Creek. Sorry to see you're having problems with your new planer. How does it do on a more typical board, like cheap 1 x pine? If it does OK on "normal" wood, then I'd guess it's the figure in the maple that's giving you the problems. OTOH, if the pine is messed up too, then you can narrow down the solution to something in the planer. (Exactly what, I'm not sure.) I know my little Delta benchtop planer (the Snipemaster) has problems with some of the nicer curly maple cutting boards I make, but it does pretty decently on more straight-grained wood, even maple. Birdseye maple also gives it fits.

And don't look at it as destroying a $50 piece of wood, but more as making some high-end hamster bedding. ;)

Hope this helps, and again, welcome -

- Vaughn

[Byron Trantham]

Rick, welcome. Sounds like dull blades to me. I presume your planner is new and the blades should be sharp but lite cuts should not rip up the board surface. I think you should try several different pieces of scrap. If it is consistently tearing up wood AND the planner is new, take it back for a replacement. Good luck.

[scott spencer]

Hi Rick - Welcome to the Creek! Curly maple can pose some special issues but taking light cuts should not destroy it. Several things could be contributing to your problem....machine setup, blades, wood dimensions, depth of cut, machine problem, etc. Was your machine new in the box or a floor model? A new machine "should" have sharp blades buts it's not a guarantee...flip them over and try the other side. It might be helpful to know what your definition of light cut is...mine's ~ 1/64" to 1/32" depending on the wood...1/16" would be a heavy cut to me. Also, what are the rough dimensions of the board in question.

As suggested, test the machine's setup on some scrap of about the same dimensions.

[Chris Barton]

I have a Ridgid planer and have done several pieces in curly maple using that machine. CM will give you problems when planing regardless of the machine you use but, it it is being rendered useless by you planer then I suspect that the blades are dull. I usually use my Performax 22-44 drum sander to thickness my CM these days.

[Chris Lee]

I have the same planer and the same issue with curly maple. It's not the planer, it is a common issue, but you should not have too bad of tearout. Most of mine was able to be sanded out without noticing. Until I get my drum sander I have been resawing to the size I want and cleaning up the saw marks with a ROS. It works for most stuff, but I have not tried making a panel or anything, just single pieces for boxes or picture frames.

Welcome to the Creek.
Chris

[John Stevens]

I've also got the Ridgid planer, and was using it to plane some curly maple last weekend. The blades are sharp, but tearout was bad when removing more than 1/128" (one eighth turn of the crank). This was true even though I was feeding the pieces (drawer sides) at an angle to skew the cut to the grain.

So I planed down to within 1/16" of the final thickness, then made about ten or twelve passes (five or six each side) at less than 1/128" each to get it to the final thickness. There was still tearout, but not so deep that it couldn't be removed with a card scraper and liberal amounts of elbow grease...or "thumb grease," as the case may be.

Hope this helps--at least as a stopgap measure until we can both get combo J/P units with Byrd Shelix cutterheads.

[Scott Coffelt]

Get yourself a spray bottle, fill with water and then spray the side you want to plane. This will soften the pours and make a smoother cut. Also, if you can feed at and angle so it is slicing at and angle. Again as mentioned, take fine passes. I have the same planer and have had good luck with this process. After you make a pass, re apply water. You don't need to soak it just make sure it is wet. I also have a drum sander that I do all the finish thickness on and it provides a much better and less pain staking process.

[Rick Peek]

Great info, I now know its the wood & not the planer. I just took
it back & exchanged it. ( a 2 hour process:mad: ). I came home and
ran a board thru it, SAME THING. Is this a problem with all planers
in this price range? Anyway,I'll try spaying with water & see what
happens. Thanks to all !!! I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions
in the future. Hope you all can put up with my lack of knowladge.

[Charlie Plesums]

The Ridgid planer is pretty good in it's class... after I had my Delta, I used the Ridgid and wished I had gotten the Ridgid instead. The problem you are describing is a common problem with highly figured wood, as several have responded.

I have since moved up to a professional class 16 inch jointer planer, and still get some tear-out with highly figured wood... less than with my small planer, but still a concern. If the first passes show signs of tearing out, despite the spray bottle trick, then I make sure the final passes are done on a sander.

[Rick Peek]

Get yourself a spray bottle, fill with water and then spray the side you want to plane. This will soften the pours and make a smoother cut. Also, if you can feed at and angle so it is slicing at and angle. Again as mentioned, take fine passes. I have the same planer and have had good luck with this process. After you make a pass, re apply water. You don't need to soak it just make sure it is wet. I also have a drum sander that I do all the finish thickness on and it provides a much better and less pain staking process.

I just want to thank you for the advice. I picked up some more
figured maple,sprayed it down with water and it planed perfectly.
I'm a happy guy tonight!! Thanks again!:)

[Scott Coffelt]

Great, see that is why I love this place... simple little things to help others not waste beautiful expensive wood. I got that tip from a place who sold expensive figured wood, they went under but it was a very nice tip.