What to do with replaced JP head?

[scott lipscomb]

I just received a Shelix head for my FS35 jointer planer, What have people done with the old head? Think it would be useful as an anvil? I have seen one sitting on the local craigslist for a few months now.

[Andrew Hughes]

Save it just in case the insert head doesn’t work out.

[John TenEyck]

I'll be interested to see how the Shelix head works out for you. I have an FS35, circa mid 80's, and it's 3 KW motor is woefully underpowered for straight knives much less trying to run a spiral head.

John

[Dave Sabo]

Gosh, those are just under 14" width; I would Think 4 H.P. would be plenty of power.

[John TenEyck]

Gosh, those are just under 14" width; I would Think 4 H.P. would be plenty of power.

Me too, and everyone keeps telling me that MiniMax machines are never underpowered but this one sure is. Soon after getting the machine one or both of the capacitors went so I took it to a motor shop and had both replaced as well as new bearings installed. After repair the shop said the motor runs perfectly. May be, but I can't take off more than about 1/16" on a 12" wide board w/o the motor badly bogging down. I've learned to live with it but it's definitely not ideal. FWIW, MM now puts a 5 HP motor on their 12" J/P.

A spiral head isn't going to happen on my machine unless I want to replace the motor, too, and at that point I'd have almost as much in upgrade cost as what I paid for it. Still a lot cheaper than a new one, but not worth it to me.

Otherwise, it's a great machine and the onboard mortise is very useful milling large mortises for things like passage doors.

John

[Brad Shipton]

Mine has been sitting in the Byrd box for 10years.

My 4hp machine struggles with 12" wide boards, and I have to be careful when planing Cherry, Maple or some other hardwood.

[scott lipscomb]

Put the Shelix head on this am, took all of 1 hour with test cuts. I just ran a piece of wild grained, dry canyon oak 12 1/2" wide over the top and through the planer a few times. The feed speed on this machine is high, but the planer had no problems taking 1/16" off and leaving surface much nicer than the old, straight blades. I guess I just feel that I rarely need to hog off much more than a 16th with my planer, so, I am pretty happy. It is my impression after a few test cuts that the Shelix head does use a little more power, maybe 15% which is based on my uninformed and subjective impression. This machine sits next to a 30" Tannewitz, so it frequently is used less for removing material and more for taking off bandsaw marks. The motor on this machine is 2.2kw.

Per Andrew, gonna hold onto the old head for a bit, then, maybe, an anvil.

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