SCMI S52 Planer

[john schnyderite]

See one of these posted locally. I'm in the market for a planer upgrade and wondering how much of a pain is it changing knives on these planers - what is the process?

Also wondering what the market for these is. This is definitely and old model and needs some cleaning up. Still worth 3K?

Anything else to be aware of with these planers?

[Mel Fulks]

I don’t like SCMI machines. Now it’s been years since I used one, but they had lots of small pieces and most of them I considered
trifles. It was a shaper that had a top with little overhang , that made it difficult to clamp needed set-ups. I would look for a
Powermatic. Used a lot of Powermatic machines,and liked all of them.

[Kevin Jenness]

That's a nice planer. Changing knives is like any other straight knife planer. I used to operate one in employment with an onboard grinder so you could tune up the knives in about 10 minutes, 5-6 times between resetting them. Ours had an aluminum gauge block for knife setting. It had one central column for table support, so if it's not parallel to the cutterhead you would have to use shims for adjustment. We never had to adjust the chipbreaker, rollers or pressure bar as the knives wore, so it was much less fussy than the Powermatic 160 I have now. I would look closely at the condition of the rubber friction feed drive wheel, it might be hard to find a replacement. If it has a segmented infeed roller make sure that's in good shape. $3k sounds a bit high if it needs more than cleaning.

[Phillip Mitchell]

I have the S50, which is the S52’s older brother from the ‘70s. Assuming this one is the mustard yellow color or? If so, then it’s an ‘80s era machine.

I agree with Kevin’s points. They are well made machines that are simple, precise and reliable in my experience. I would say that $3k should be plug and play condition on this machine, IMO. I paid $1500 for mine 3 years ago and it was nearly plug and play and really didn’t need much fussing to get it into production.

I will post a few photos below, but knife changes are straightforward and like any other straight knife machine. Maybe my aluminum knife setting jig is twisted, etc but I experienced poor results when using it to set knives. There is an onboard grinder often times on these machines that can be used for touch ups between sharpenings as Kevin describes. My grinding wheel needs replacing and it seems like the setup on my machine is not as precise across the board as I would like.

I use a pair of very nice magnetic knife setting “blocks” from Panhans that I got on eBay and I can set knives within 0.001” across the 20” cutterhead (measured with a dial indicator on mag base referencing the planer bed) which is a better tolerance than my onboard grinder leaves in its current state.

Panhans 1533 - https://www.scosarg.com/panhans-1533-planer-setting-gauges

As stated, I use a mag base + dial indicator referencing from the planer bed up to the bottom dead center rotation of the cutterhead / knife and set the magnetic setting blocks (for the first time) to match. This means that the cutterhead is perfectly enough parallel to the planer bed, even if not totally parallel to the cutterhead itself. I have checked many times after knife setting with digital calipers and am seeing results within 0.001-0.002” across full cutterhead width on test boards, which is good enough for me.

Maybe this will explain it enough, but feel free to ask more questions if unclear. I would love to find the time to totally go through my onboard grinding setup to see if I can get it dialed in to match the results of my magnetic knife settings blocks sometime, but I have more pressing matters on my priority list these days.

[Warren Lake]

those are good numbers Phillip. I measure from head to knife tip. Do .0005 and it always involves a bit of tapping to get that. You have a good knife grinder. My knives are always honed before they go in as we were originally taught still do it.


John you need to put in some time to be sure that nothing is broken in the machine. Last planer I got from a school has broken parts. It stated in use to end of school year. With some time into it found 3 same broken infeed pressure bars. Knife set up was plus or minus .175. No one could set knives that badly if they tried, that is a guiness level stupid number. This from a teaching facility. I havent measured under the cutting circle yet to see what is going on. It wouldnt work right as it is with the pathetic inconsistent level of set up.

Ive had good luck with SCM stuff so far. Maybe have five of them. Blows away my past equipment. Ive never adjusted the planers they just came from the last owners and worked great.

[john schnyderite]

How would you compare these 80s machines to newer Grizzly/Shopfox 20” planers? I noticed helical heads are more than double the price on SCMI. I have seen grizzly and SF planers listed for 2500-3000 - maybe better waiting for one of those if no major benefit to the Italian machine.

I hated setting knives on my jointer and get way better performance after switching to helical, so I could see wanting to do that again unless it is quick and foolproof.

[Phillip Mitchell]

I guess it depends on what you value. I don’t mind setting knives and have a good process for it so it’s not really a big deal and just part of the process. Helical carbide heads can be nice for different reasons, but not something I value enough to pay big $ for one and have to install it. That’s just me.

Scale of 1-10, The build quality/longevity/engineering value of old Italian is a solid 8-9 in my book, bested really only by the Germans and some older British stuff. More recent Taiwanese / Chinese is more like a ~5 to me, but that’s just my opinion and may be more than enough for many who don’t want to get into the nitty gritty.

Sounds like a helical head and no desire to deal with setting knives is high on your priority list. If so, and you still want the Euro/Italian quality then I would look for a slightly newer model like S520, etc that often came with Tersa 4 knife indexed head that requires no knife setting and is a 5 min job to flip/change all knives with perfect registration. That will likely be more in the $4-6k range. Then again, you may not need this class of machine and helical head 20” grizz might do it. Not sure what your needs are from this thread.

[Kevin Jenness]

I agree w/ Philip. You might look into Dispozablade, an indexed knife system for conventional planer heads. I run carbide straight knives in my jointer which cuts the changeout frequency by 3-4x.

[john schnyderite]

If setting the knives accurately is easy, I wouldn't mind it. I just had a nightmare of a time setting my jointer knives in the past. The dewalt planer I have is super easy because they just slot in place. I feel like the experience with this SCMI planer will likely mimic the experience with my DJ-20 jointer more closely -- which if that is the case, I would prefer to steer clear.



I guess it depends on what you value. I donÂ’t mind setting knives and have a good process for it so itÂ’s not really a big deal and just part of the process. Helical carbide heads can be nice for different reasons, but not something I value enough to pay big $ for one and have to install it. ThatÂ’s just me.

Scale of 1-10, The build quality/longevity/engineering value of old Italian is a solid 8-9 in my book, bested really only by the Germans and some older British stuff. More recent Taiwanese / Chinese is more like a ~5 to me, but thatÂ’s just my opinion and may be more than enough for many who donÂ’t want to get into the nitty gritty.

Sounds like a helical head and no desire to deal with setting knives is high on your priority list. If so, and you still want the Euro/Italian quality then I would look for a slightly newer model like S520, etc that often came with Tersa 4 knife indexed head that requires no knife setting and is a 5 min job to flip/change all knives with perfect registration. That will likely be more in the $4-6k range. Then again, you may not need this class of machine and helical head 20” grizz might do it. Not sure what your needs are from this thread.

[Mel Fulks]

One thing that makes planer knives easier to set is having knives that are straight. Some sharpening shops are still using machines
with worn out guides. Check and refuse if they are not straight. Sharp is only part of it.