15" planer setup problems. Please help.

[Kevin Blunt]

Hi all,

My father recently purchased a shop fox w1742 15" planer. we are very happy with th eplaner but we are having some problems with a few things and are trying to sort them out.

1) When planing, we are experiencing a fairly small amount of chips end up back on the board before it goes under the outfeed roller. Due to this, we are getting small indentations in the finished board as the outfeed roller pushes the wood chips into the wood. I know this is a common occurance and in the manual mentions to adjust the chip deflector. I have adjusted to both extremes (close to the knife and further away) and that doesn't seem to help much. I searched this problem already and found a post from John Millunas (who owns the 15" Yorkcraft which is basically the same). John seemed to have the exact same problem and seems to have remedied his situation. underneath the headstock lid there is a foam strip and once John cut this out it solved all his problems. I am planning to do this as well but am a little leary about cutting the foam out and am looking for advice on what to do.

2) As well, we seem to be getting OUTFEED roller marks on the planed board. There is some spring pressure adjustments that can be made but that hasn't seemed to help. When I look at the design of the outfeed roller it seems that there would almost have to always be some sort of outfeed roller marks as the outfeed roller is made of a finely serrated steel. In order for it to grip the board enough to outfeed it, it seems that it will always contain fine outfeed roller marks. These marks can probably be easily sanded out but I would much rather have a planed board without any outfeed roller marks. Can this be done or due to the design, will there always be very fine outfeed roller marks on the planed board?

I am looking for any help at all and hopefully John Millunas or any owners of these 15" planers can help with any advice.

By the way, I must give credit where credit is due and say thank you to The Tech help guys at Shop Fox (Andrew in Bellingham, Washington) for the patience he has given me while helping to deal with these situations. He did not really no why the Foam insert was placed inside the headstock cover but when he checked with his people they told him to tell me that it was okay to remove the foam. Before I do this, I would just like to know what it is for. Kudos to Shop fox Tech help.

absolutely any help or experiences is truly appreciated.

Kevin

[Harley Lewis]

Kevin, I have the Grizzly 453, similar I think. I took that foam off that is on the top of the chip breaker, that helped with chip removal to the DC. The other thing I did was set the bed rollers at .002, and I have no snipe or issues with marking on the wood.

Harley

[Paul Simmel]

Kevin,

IMO, the chips falling on the board is likely due to not having enough suction in your DC. Chances are if you pulled the collection hood off, the chips would fly clear and away… but in your case they are likely being trapped in the hood and falling down only to be caught by the outfeed roller.

There are two rollers, infeed and outfeed. The infeed is the one with the serrated edges… that’s the one which really grabs the board. You are seeing the serrated marks on the outfeed side because you have not taken a deep enough cut. For example, the indentations may be about a 1/64th. If you are taking less than that off, the marks will still be there. Each planer is different, but you will get the feel for the minimum depth of cut, and/or how much infeed tension you need. On my planer (Grizzly), it’s about .010 or so.

Do you understand?

[Robert Waddell]

I agree with Paul on the possible causes of your problems. When I used an under sized (1.5hp) DC piped 4" dia. from 20 ft away, I had problems with chips except right after giving the DC a cleaning. A bigger DC solved the problem on my Delta 15" planer.
Rob

[Kevin Blunt]

Kevin, I have the Grizzly 453, similar I think. I took that foam off that is on the top of the chip breaker, that helped with chip removal to the DC. The other thing I did was set the bed rollers at .002, and I have no snipe or issues with marking on the wood.

Harley

Harley, what type of dust collector do you have? My father is using a 825cfm 1 hp unit that is directly behind the planer with about 6 feet of hose. It certainly seems that it has enough suction. Paul stated below you in the replies that the marks I am getting are from the infeed roller but that is not the case. I started feeding a board through and then shut th eplaner off in mid cut and the result explains it easily. When looking at the area of the board that had been planed you could clearly see very small outfeed roller lines about a 1/32 apart directly straight across or 90 degrees to the board edge. Next there was a nice smooth area that had been planed but just hadn't reached the outfeed roller yet and behind that area there was the section of the board that contained the infeed roller marks. So, it is very evident that the outfeed roller is the culprit. Has anyone experienced this with their planer. Keep in mind that the outfedd roller is a serrated roler as well but just much finer than the infeed. Thamnks for any help.

[Kevin Blunt]

Kevin,

IMO, the chips falling on the board is likely due to not having enough suction in your DC. Chances are if you pulled the collection hood off, the chips would fly clear and away… but in your case they are likely being trapped in the hood and falling down only to be caught by the outfeed roller.

There are two rollers, infeed and outfeed. The infeed is the one with the serrated edges… that’s the one which really grabs the board. You are seeing the serrated marks on the outfeed side because you have not taken a deep enough cut. For example, the indentations may be about a 1/64th. If you are taking less than that off, the marks will still be there. Each planer is different, but you will get the feel for the minimum depth of cut, and/or how much infeed tension you need. On my planer (Grizzly), it’s about .010 or so.

Do you understand?

Paul, th eroller marks I am receiving are without a doubt coming from the outfeed roller. the cuts i am taking are more closer 1/8" deep. plaese see the repliy I posted above. Do you think that the DC should be enough. Again it is a single port DC that gets moved from machine to machine and is only connected to one at a time. There is only one port. It is rated at 825cfm. Thanks for your help.

[Mike Cutler]

Paul, th eroller marks I am receiving are without a doubt coming from the outfeed roller. the cuts i am taking are more closer 1/8" deep. plaese see the repliy I posted above. Do you think that the DC should be enough. Again it is a single port DC that gets moved from machine to machine and is only connected to one at a time. There is only one port. It is rated at 825cfm. Thanks for your help.

Kevin. A few ???'s come to mind.
Are the blades sharp? Dull blades will cause the tables to move away from the cutter head and their original setting.
Is the cutterhead at the proper height relationship to the infeed/outfeed roller from the table?

I have a 3HP,15" Jet, and on it's best day it can't plane an 1/8" at a time. I know the owners manual says that it can, but experience tells me no way. Can your machine really plane an 1/8" at a whack? Possibly, that may be too much.

825cfm is too small. I have an 1100cfm DC hooked to my planer and it's just barely enough. In fact, sometimess it's not enough.

[Harley Lewis]

Kevin, I have a 2hp Grizzly DC, not sure of the air pull on it. It does a great job with the chips from the planer, not a thing gets away that I can see. I read on this board a good while ago that the foam restricts air flow so I took it off before I ran one board through it and I have not regreted it.

I am not home right now or I would check out some things on my planer for you. How high do you have the two rollers set on the planer table? If they are to high it will cause to much pressure on the outfeed roller. I set mine down to .002 using a dial indicator. I also will get marks on the board from the infeed roller if I don't cut enough wood with the cut.

What cutter head do you have? I have the regular 4 blade head and the end result of the planning still requires sanding, with close inspection you can see the cutter marks on the wood, and they are a bit worse at the high speed setting. I wonder if that is what you are seeing? The marks I have show up when you finish the wood with varnish etc if you don't sand or scrape with a card scraper.

Harley

[Paul Simmel]

Kevin, I think your rollers are in backwards, then. NO WAY should the outfeed roller be heavily serrated. I’ll check mine today, but I don’t think my outfeed roller has <any> serrations… but for sure my infeed roller has heavy serrations.

[Kevin Blunt]

Kevin, I think your rollers are in backwards, then. NO WAY should the outfeed roller be heavily serrated. I’ll check mine today, but I don’t think my outfeed roller has <any> serrations… but for sure my infeed roller has heavy serrations.

Paul, check the spec sheet link I provided and hav ea look at the rollers. It is on page 4 in th emanual and it states it is solid knurled steel. You are right that the infeed is much more heavily serrated but the the outfeed is also. Just much finer

http://www.woodstockint.com/images/manuals/W1742_m.pdf

[Wade Gehlhoff]

Kevin,
I have the same model planer.
His planer does indeed have a serrated/knurled outfeed roller. I just took a look at the test board I ran through last. If I were to split the board the long way one side shows what I would expect to see the fine cupped ridges left by the blades. On the other side are the very fine lines without the minute cupping caused by the cutter head.
It was only 4 inch wide board so I must have some work to do on getting my rollers parallel.
I would guess that if a chrome roller can get enough grip to feed the part then we should be able to adjust the roller pressure until the marks are less noticeable than the cutter marks and still have it work right.
I wouldn't be suppressed if a smooth roller from another manufacturer fit on the machine.

[glenn bradley]

Take this only for what it is worth. A couple years ago I was advised toward a lunch box planer primarily since it does not mark the wood via the outfeed roller (rubber). The reason this was important to me is I was not doing the type of work where hand planing or scraping would be done to remove these marks.

I notice a couple guys here mounted their lunch box planers on top of their floor planers. This is a great use of space and allows boards that will fit to be planed to a near ready finish without as much additional hand work.

[Paul Simmel]

Kevin,

My outfeed roller is a solid, smooth roller.

In any event, everything I said previously (in theme) is correct. So stick with me.

On your machine, which has less aggressive serrations on the outfeed roller… if you are getting serration marks on the finished, planed surface, then your outfeed roller may be too tensioned. (Serrated / knurled outfeed is new to me… but I am not young, either).

Here’s the theme. On my setup (serrated infeed roller/smooth outfeed roller) whenever I get serrated marks on the finished surface, it’s because the cut I took was not deeper than the serrations <initially> made my the infeed roller.

In your case the answer truly must be <either> the infeed roller is SO tight that it indents SO much into the board that when the final planed surface emerges, it hasn’t cut out the indentations, OR, the knurled outfeed roller is leaving its marks on the final surface.

Other than that, you are haunted by the 90-degree indenter.