Trips for Spiral Head Planer Setup

[James M Ireland]

I picked up a King Industrial KC-385FX Planer which is basically a Grizzly G0453 (part diagrams are identical) and have replaced the standard head with a Byrd Shelix.

Does anyone have any special tips for setting up a Shelix planer?

I have a rotator but with the curved inserts in the Shelix head I'm wondering if there is an easy way to find the right spot from which to measure. Any tips are much appreciated!

Have found a few threads with suggested settings and a good explanation of how to make adjustments, thanks to the Creekers who have posted their successful settings.

[Paul Murphy]

http://www.kingcanada.com/Files/KC-385FX_manual-eng.pdf
In your manual the adjustments are given relative to cutting circle, which is the tip of the cutter @ BDC. BDC for any cutter is @ cutter tip with "line" through axis of cutterhead & tip, "line" perp to table. Minimum distance between bed & cutter is BDC, and a dial indicator will find it with careful rotation of cutterhead. In theory, your cutterhead should have been made for the factory knife style cutterhead cutting circle, and if it was working well with the old cutterhead then it should be set for the new cutterhead. In my experience that may vary some in the import machines, even between "brands" made in the same factory. Not to worry, if it's not right it can be all be adjusted for the new cutting circle.

Here are some good generic discussions, and links to the type of gauges that help setup planers [and jointers]

FWW #70 p78
FWW #107 p72
http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/Get...rformance.ashx

http://oneway.ca/Multi-Gauge-Product?search=multi-gauge

[James M Ireland]

Thanks Paul. Great advice and links, I learned a lot.

My planer was used and it needed some TLC, it was quite a mess, leaking oil, missing hand wheel, tables out of alignment. I will be taking some time this weekend to reset all the components and see how it works on a few 2x4s.

In addition tonight I found a good guide for spiral head setup on the Grizzly webpage.

http://cdn1.grizzly.com/manuals/g1033x_m.pdf

Coupled with the settings from Glenn in the thread here http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...453-Setup-Help I'm hoping to have very minimal snipe.

Thanks again
James