Planer Won't Maintain Thickness

[Julie Moriarty]

Julie,

Sounds to me like the blades are dull and/or the rollers are slipping and need cleaning. Didn't have time to read all the posts so, sorry if you already changed the blades and/or cleaned the rollers. I know my planer just kind of stops performing when the rollers start slipping a little because there is build up of one type or another. Also, cleaning and waxing the tables (bed and infeed/outfeed) really helps as the wood moves more easily over the surface. Sharp blades, of course, is a key also, but the blades on the Dewalt are hard to keep sharp, especially if the wood you're planing is very hard. I bought the Deulen jig for planer knives, but haven't used it enough to know if it's really worth it. However even if you can get one honing out of each edge of each knife, that means you would get 4 knife cycles out of each instead of 2. That alone seems worth it.

The knives are pretty fresh. Flipped them as soon as the planer started bogging down. If the smoothness of the planed board is any indication the knives are still sharp because the boards come out silky smooth.

I'm waiting on Dewalt now. They have had it for a few days or so. Hopefully next week they will let me know something.

FWIW, I was looking at the Hammer A3-31. $5K My SO said, "We could take a European vacation for that!" Think I'll wait for that long lost rich uncle to contact me.

[Julie Moriarty]

True Brian, but did you see the length & width of those boards Julie is working with��. That is a job for 2 high energy apprentices!

You got that right, Mark! I need a small army of apprentices to hand plane this stuff.

[Brian Holcombe]

Quickly knocking the wind and bow out of a board by hand is well worth the improved results, more so the wider they get, and it’s easy work compared to truly jointing and thicknessing by hand which is something I did for a good few years.

[David Utterback]

Please let us know when and what you hear from Dewalt. Thanks