Brian Tymchak
07-21-2023, 11:19 AM
Was planing some stock down Wednesday for another batch of childrens building blocks. Had run the stock thru twice already and was just taking off a final 32nd or so to get to finished thickness. At the tail end of a board there's a bang, some rattles in the dust duct, a rubber burning smell, and the planer motor ground to a halt, all in just a couple seconds. Realized I had a big problem and hit the power switch immediately. Thought the DC also sounded a bit odd, so I shut it down. Raised the carriage on the planer and found a chunk on the bed that had broken off the board. Apparently, there was a hidden fracture in the grain and it let loose on that last pass. Coming at the end of the day, I just did a quick triage of the situation. Found the cutter head, rollers, and motor all locked up. Checked the DC to make sure nothing was going to start burning in there. The DC seemed clear and worked OK so I decided to call it a day. I figured at that point the planer was toast. It's 18 years old and I had pushed a lot of stock thru it, so I was mentally preparing to replace or upgrade.
Started dissecting the planer (Dewalt dw735) Thursday afternoon, looking for damage. My first inclination was that something in the gear box had failed. Pulled a roller drive chain, then the V belt from motor to cutter head. Found the cutter head and front roller moving freely. Back roller and motor still locked up. Turned my attention to the motor since I had expected it to also free up with the belt off. Took a closer look all around and found something I had missed on the first inspection that didn't look quite right....
504711
Pulled the ejection chute apart. That chunk of wood had caught in the fan blades, spun around grinding and melting the housing, and evetually welding itself to the housing, stopping the motor entirely. Good news is the motor spins freely.
504714 504713 504712
Haven't powered it back up yet. Ordered a new chute from ereplacements. I think I can clean up the chute some to get the planer working for now. Not sure though if the rear roller should be freely rotating at this point. It seems locked up by the gear box. Would really like to avoid getting into that if I can. Will look at that a bit more later today.
Started dissecting the planer (Dewalt dw735) Thursday afternoon, looking for damage. My first inclination was that something in the gear box had failed. Pulled a roller drive chain, then the V belt from motor to cutter head. Found the cutter head and front roller moving freely. Back roller and motor still locked up. Turned my attention to the motor since I had expected it to also free up with the belt off. Took a closer look all around and found something I had missed on the first inspection that didn't look quite right....
504711
Pulled the ejection chute apart. That chunk of wood had caught in the fan blades, spun around grinding and melting the housing, and evetually welding itself to the housing, stopping the motor entirely. Good news is the motor spins freely.
504714 504713 504712
Haven't powered it back up yet. Ordered a new chute from ereplacements. I think I can clean up the chute some to get the planer working for now. Not sure though if the rear roller should be freely rotating at this point. It seems locked up by the gear box. Would really like to avoid getting into that if I can. Will look at that a bit more later today.