20-24" tersa head planer

[Dan Chouinard]

Anyone care to point in a certain direction for a 20-24" tersa head planer for a two man cabinet/furniture shop?
Thanks,
Dan

[Jim Becker]

SCM

https://www.scmgroup.com/en_US/scmwood/products/joinery-machines.c884/thicknessers-planers.973/class-s-630---class-s-520.731

[Erik Loza]

Dan, we can do Tersa on any big planer. Not a lot of request for it lately (EVERYONE going spiral) but 100% do-able.

Erik

[David Zaret]

i have the SCM L'Invincible S7, but i put a tersa head in it. plenty of past discussion on this point, but i prefer tersa to spiral. that said, the planer is a beast. my only complaint with it is that the infeed rollers are aggressive and can mark up woods when doing a minimal depth cut, even with the adjustable pneumatic pressure on each roller.

[Robert LaPlaca]

i have the SCM L'Invincible S7, but i put a tersa head in it. plenty of past discussion on this point, but i prefer tersa to spiral. that said, the planer is a beast. my only complaint with it is that the infeed rollers are aggressive and can mark up woods when doing a minimal depth cut, even with the adjustable pneumatic pressure on each roller.

Ok, I will call your SCM L’Invincible S7 with a Martin T45. The truth be known, I would love to have either machine.. The Martin T45 is available with Tersa also..

[Dan Chouinard]

I have not done research personally regarding Tersa vs spiral. The local furniture making pro swears by Tersa. Said he would not buy another machine with out it.

[Darcy Warner]

I have a 1999 SAC RS63 with a tersa head. Nice finish for a steel box.

[Jim Becker]

Dan, I really like the Tersa system on my J/P. While I'm sure there are situations where a spiral/helical can provide some benefit (besides potentially lower noise), the flexibility with Tersa to adjust for a nick or to quickly change out from HHS/M2 steel to carbide and back if warranted is really great. (Carbide is uber expensive, but it has it's place for sure)

[David Zaret]

i seriously considered the martin. i own other martin machines and love them. but - at the end of the day, the Martin was $10,000 more than the SCM, and we just couldn't see why. i think for the price point the SCM is actually a heck of a deal. of course, i'm sure the martin is .... terrific, as all of them are.





Ok, I will call your SCM L’Invincible S7 with a Martin T45. The truth be known, I would love to have either machine.. The Martin T45 is available with Tersa also..

[David Kumm]

A SAC like Darcy has for sale is a good bang for the buck if cost is a concern. SAC was a little better build than SCM class series. 11" depth, long table, heavy steel base. Any eastern Euro planer ( Unitronix, EMA, a million other names ) is Martin like in quality and much cheaper on the used market. Dave

[Patrick Walsh]

Last shop I worked in purchased the Scm machine right bellow Invincible. It also did that same thing with the texture from the feed roll or whatever. Sadly enough I was just there and asked how it was running as it also did this screwed up thing from time to time but kinda regular where it just sounded like the machine was going to implode into pieces and the board would not feed then feed suddenly. It was a nice machine otherwise.

With that said I’ll buy a Martin and pray I don’t learn the hard way they suck to..



i have the SCM L'Invincible S7, but i put a tersa head in it. plenty of past discussion on this point, but i prefer tersa to spiral. that said, the planer is a beast. my only complaint with it is that the infeed rollers are aggressive and can mark up woods when doing a minimal depth cut, even with the adjustable pneumatic pressure on each roller.

[John Sincerbeaux]

I own a Martin T45 with their XPlane (helical) head. Almost everything that goes through it is extremely figured Koa and Maple. The results are literally breath taking. A Tersa head may match (can’t imagine) it’s performance but no way would it be superior.
Just my two cents.

[Joe Calhoon]

No doubt the Xplane head is better for highly figured wood. For my work I have found the Tersa fine for difficult material just by slowing the feed speed down. I like the ability to swap out knives quickly. The Martin with rubber feed rolls excels at taking as little as 1/10 mm off leaving no marks. It’s also good at running wide boards on edge without going out of square.
the rubber feed rolls do wear out and they are not cheap. I’ve had my T44 for 18 years and had to replace the rollers about 3 years ago.

[Patrick Walsh]

That’s good to hear joe about boards on edge.

My Felder AD 941 combo does great job of the same and as a result it’s just how I process material up. Those chests I have been building I run the salts through all the way down to the 3/8 thickness. The 1/4 ones I have to gang together. If a machine could not run small boards on edge it would be a real deal breaker for me as I’m so used to processing my material four sides.

It was actually Matt when I was in his shop that mentioned his Whitney not likening boards on edge. I was shocked with my only planer experience being a machine that could baring dare a say a 24” Grizzly I used for a year and half I just figured all players could do that.

What my planer can’t do is run multiple boards through at the same time without either hanging them up them firmly holding them together on the in and out feed side. If not one board feeds and the other stops till it spits one board out. Pretty annoying considering it should be able to do that. More annoying as it takes forever to process large amounts of material. Same stupid crap with the powermatic at work.

I was also talking with another Martin owner this week or last and he mentioned his outfeed roll being rubber and having had been replaced 2-3 times in the life of his machine and it costing like $600 a piece. He also suggested that the machine can be equipped with dual outfeed rolls.

I’m gonna be in for it when I buy one of these being I’ll want those dual rolls and the big infeed and outfeed tables. I’ll go tersa as I have spiral on the Felder. I’m torn, as it saves my ass so often and I’ve never even rotated the knives. But it does leave a terrible texture. I’ve never rotated as I fear something goes wrong and I need my machine for work and then I’m screwed. Tersa I don’t worry about that.


No doubt the Xplane head is better for highly figured wood. For my work I have found the Tersa fine for difficult material just by slowing the feed speed down. I like the ability to swap out knives quickly. The Martin with rubber feed rolls excels at taking as little as 1/10 mm off leaving no marks. It’s also good at running wide boards on edge without going out of square.
the rubber feed rolls do wear out and they are not cheap. I’ve had my T44 for 18 years and had to replace the rollers about 3 years ago.

[Erik Loza]

I like them both for different reasons but also get the feeling that many folks have been led to believe that this or that cutterhead will give you the same finish as a widebelt sander. Us manufacturers, all of us, are probably guilty of creating this expectation with our various marketing hypes. Having worked both sides of the aisle now, my observation is that what most folks, hobby or pro (but particularly hobby), really “want” is a spiral head: No fussing with knife changes, carbide that digests anything, “just turn it on and go”, etc. Obviously, anyone can get a bad finish if they never rotate the inserts or flip the Tersa knives but that’s not the planer’s fault.

Erik

[Joe Calhoon]

That’s good to hear joe about boards on edge.

My Felder AD 941 combo does great job of the same and as a result it’s just how I process material up. Those chests I have been building I run the salts through all the way down to the 3/8 thickness. The 1/4 ones I have to gang together. If a machine could not run small boards on edge it would be a real deal breaker for me as I’m so used to processing my material four sides.

It was actually Matt when I was in his shop that mentioned his Whitney not likening boards on edge. I was shocked with my only planer experience being a machine that could baring dare a say a 24” Grizzly I used for a year and half I just figured all players could do that.

What my planer can’t do is run multiple boards through at the same time without either hanging them up them firmly holding them together on the in and out feed side. If not one board feeds and the other stops till it spits one board out. Pretty annoying considering it should be able to do that. More annoying as it takes forever to process large amounts of material. Same stupid crap with the powermatic at work.

I was also talking with another Martin owner this week or last and he mentioned his outfeed roll being rubber and having had been replaced 2-3 times in the life of his machine and it costing like $600 a piece. He also suggested that the machine can be equipped with dual outfeed rolls.

I’m gonna be in for it when I buy one of these being I’ll want those dual rolls and the big infeed and outfeed tables. I’ll go tersa as I have spiral on the Felder. I’m torn, as it saves my ass so often and I’ve never even rotated the knives. But it does leave a terrible texture. I’ve never rotated as I fear something goes wrong and I need my machine for work and then I’m screwed. Tersa I don’t worry about that.

Patrick, the dual outfeed would be a good option. I keep thinking to check into if it can be added later but have not done that yet. The rubber rolls wear faster if you do a lot of edge work and narrow pieces. When the rubber rolls get near the end of life you can get slippage on narrow pieces as well. I keep a spray bottle of waxlit to cure that problem.
I really like carbide Tersa and running that on all. For most window work I like not to wide belt the sash and frame. Parts out of the planer and four sider are good enough for just a wipe with an orbital. Water base paints and film finishes adhere better to this than parts that have gone through the wide belt and less or no grain raising.

[Frank Drackman]

I have owned machines with straight, spiral & tersa. My clear choice would be tersa. Very easy to swap out different quality of knives & if you get a nick you can slide the knives to compensate.


I have not done research personally regarding Tersa vs spiral. The local furniture making pro swears by Tersa. Said he would not buy another machine with out it.

[Max Neu]

I recently bought my first machine with a Tersa head (20'' Minimax J/P),and I like it a lot better than the Byrd cutters I have on my other machines.The biggest improvement I see,other than quick and easy knife changes,is machining edges.The byrd cutter does not edge plane very well,lot's of chip out.The Tersa does much better in my experience.If you do much width dimensioning on your planer,I would really consider that.

[Dan Chouinard]

Thanks to all who have chimed in on this topic.
I have never actually tried width dimensioning with a planer but will try that when the next opportunity arrives. I have been getting by with my Dad's Makita 2040 planer for the last 10 years. It does not like it when its fed more than one board at a time. Moving into a larger shop necessitating a new (or new to me) planer.