Grizzly G0453 planer self adjusting

[Dave Cav]

I just bought and set up a Grizzly G0453 15" planer, and it seems to work fine right out of the box. However, today while planing a bunch of teak I noticed that the table height adjustment seemed to be moving down while planing on the slow speed.

I was planing about 30 bf of 5/4 6" wide x 6' long teak boards down to 3/4" for a couple of cabinets. I wasn't paying that much attention to the height adjustment during the initial stages when I was hogging off wood at the high speed. However, when I switched to low speed and was taking the final few cuts I noticed the adjustment handwheel moving in the downward direction while the planer was cutting. At first I thought it might be due to the weight of the handle, so I took it off. I also tightened the two platten locking knobs up as much as I could hand tight. The adjustment still moved unless I kept my hand on the wheel. I was taking light cuts, about 1/4 of a turn of the wheel, which is probably around 1/32". It's not a big deal, but it's annoying.

Has anyone else noticed this, and were you able to do anything about it? I suspect part of it might be because by the time I got to this stage the knives were starting to get dull, as the finish wasn't nearly as nice as when I first started; the first few cuts the finish was almost polished, but by the time I was to 3/4, it was sort of dull. Still very smooth, but not shiny.

Other than that I really like the planer; I suspect that when I upgrade to a Byrd head I'll lilke it even better.

Thanks
Dave C

[John Michaels]

I have the same planer. Never had that happen. Try tightening the two black knobs that lock the cutterhead and see if the hand wheel still moves.

[Shiraz Balolia]

Dave - that's a typical symptom of the knives getting dull.

[fRED mCnEILL]

I have the 20 in Grizzly planer and had the same problem. Posted it here, Shiraz said to call the service tech and he said "dull blades". Yup, he was right.

Fred Mc.

[Dave Cav]

Thanks for all the quick replies, especially Shiraz. I suspected that was the case as the shavings were starting to get much smaller and there was much more sawdust than shavings. I was wearing ear muffs so I couldn't really tell if it got much louder or not, another give-away that the blades are getting dull.

Considering I was planing relatively wide, long pieces of teak, I'm not surprised; I'm glad I have a spare set of knives, which I'll probably install in a day or so. As soon as the savings account permits I'll be getting a Byrd type head. I had originally planned to get the G0453Z or G1021X2, but both are back ordered for the next month or so. At the same time I picked up the planer last week in Bellingham I also got a G0593 8" jointer with the helical head, and I love it.

[Paul Gatti]

Just out of curiosity, how long have you had the planer and how man BF do you think you have run through it? I'm interested in how long it took for the blades to become dull. I realize that the type of wood planed will have a big impact on blade life.

[Mark Rakestraw]

Hi Dave,

Like everyone else says....your knives are dull. I have the 15" Grizzly and would always have to tighten the lock knobs, regardless of sharp knives or not. The difference between sharp and dull blades was that the lock knobs weren't enough to hold its position if the blade were dull. I did convert to the byrd head, what a difference. I now only lock the knobs on the final pass, and probably wouldn't have to bother with that.

Mark

[Dave Cav]

I ran about 30 board feet of 5/4 teak through the planer. I was planing the lumber from about 1 1/16" down to 3/4", and the boards were between six and seven feet long.

30 board feet might not sound like much, but teak is VERY hard on steel tooling, and I expected this to happen; in fact, I expected it to happen a little sooner than it actually did. Teak is very heavy and dense, and has a high silica content, so it wears steel tooling in a hurry. That's one reason I wanted to get a shelix style head, and will convert to one soon.

For normal lumber you should get MUCH greater knife life than I did with the teak. Teak is probably the hardest on tools of any commonly used cabinet woods.

[Dave Cav]

Thanks for confirming what I suspected. I have the Grizzly jointer with the Grizzly carbide head and it seems to work very well. I will probably put the Grizzly sheliex style head in the planer so I can use the same insert in both machines (I assume...)

[Steve Leverich]

Dave, that may be an unwarranted assumption - I recently bought the 12" jointer with shelix head AND the 15" planer (sorry, away from the shop and having "CRS" syndrome about models ) anyway, the two different heads required DIFFERENT carbide inserts. If this is a concern, you may wanna check with Griz guys before ordering... Steve

[Dave Cav]

Good point; I'll check with Grizzly's customer service and compare part numbers for the carbide inserts before I order the head; it's probably no big deal having to have two types of insert, but it would be less trouble if they were both the same.