Melamine vs HDPE for planer bed? Old Powermatic Planer.

[Patrick Irish]

My old powermatic planer is kind giving me a hard time recently. I plan to check and adjust things this weekend, before or after the 49ers game of course.

CuttingBoards I make are having a hard time feeding and coming crooked. They will come out and turn right if facing the back of the planer. I'm also getting a little snipe. The blades should be sharp, I'll double check.

I know there's a lot to adjust with these planer; feed roller heights and spring pressure, the pressure bar, and chipbreaker. I keep the rollers on the bed down and wax the table with paste wax.

I thought about adding a piece of HDPE or some slick plastic to the table beds to help with keeping the surface slick. I can also add a piece of melamine or formica, probably be cheaper that way.

Here's a pic of a similar planer with a UMHV top. Be fun to make, I'd want to make sure I don't lose any of my 16" width capacity.

[Kevin Jenness]

I don't think you will gain much with an auxiliary bed. It will not cure your skewed feed problems which are probably due to unequal height or pressure of the feed rollers.

You can find the manual for that machine at OWWM. All the specs and procedure for adjusting the machine are there- assuming the parts are not excessively worn you should be able to essentially eliminate snipe after going through all the steps.

I have the same machine (green). I find I need to keep the chipbreaker and pressure bar as well as the bed waxed. In order to do that easily without winding the bed down I use a 1/4" x 1" stick with thin sponge sections glued to it as a wax applicator.

I do use an auxiliary bed for thin stock made of 1/2"melamine coated particleboard only because the bed rise is limited and thin stock can deflect/catch at the bed roller gaps.

One change I made that improves performance on figured wood was to have a 10 degree bevel ground on the face of the knives.

[Paul F Franklin]

As the others have said, other things to check before going the aux bed route, but if you do go that way, don't use melamine, it won't hold up to the pressures involved. I made a long fixed sled for my lunchbox planer when I had a bunch of thin stock to process and the melamine under the head quickly wore down and flaked away from the substrate. High Pressure laminate would probably work for a while, but I'll bet even that will wear fairly quickly. Note that I'm talking about a stationary situation; melamine or laminate on a sled that moves through the planer works ok.

[Robert Engel]

If you keep the bed clean and waxed or coated with Boeshield you shouldn't need it.

Boards coming out askew indicates outfeed roller not perfectly parallel to bed.

[John TenEyck]

For different reasons than your situation, namely a bowed planer bed, I leveled the bed with Bondo and then glued a piece of Formica to it. I ran several thousand BF through it like that over the next 5 years until I sold it, and the Formica was polished smooth but had not yet worn threw the color coat.

John

[David Kumm]

Buy a package of canners wax and check the pressure bar. lots of adjustments on planers but a PB that is low on one side will turn the stock as it exits the cutter. Those old PM planers were well built. Dave

[Gustav Gabor]

For different reasons than your situation, namely a bowed planer bed, I leveled the bed with Bondo and then glued a piece of Formica to it. I ran several thousand BF through it like that over the next 5 years until I sold it, and the Formica was polished smooth but had not yet worn threw the color coat.

John

Interesting!! I'm thinking of doing something very similar, but using some 14 gauge or thicker sheet stainless instead of Formica. At this point, I wasn't planning on gluing it down, but rather having a lip bent on the front edge to keep it in place, similar to some lunch box planers.

My well used 33 year old Griggio ps630 planer is worn about .008 - .009" in the middle, and this could potentially be an inexpensive solution to getting it accurate again. Machining the bed isn't viable, as there isn't anyone within 1700 miles that has the equipment to do that. (nor do I want to disassemble the machine to that degree....)

Not sure about the consistent thickness of stainless sheet material though....

Did you rough up the casting before you applied the Bondo?

[Mel Fulks]

We have used melamine etc. to run thick veneer or unusually thin laminating material. I doubt that it will do much
good beyond that.

[John TenEyck]

Interesting!! I'm thinking of doing something very similar, but using some 14 gauge or thicker sheet stainless instead of Formica. At this point, I wasn't planning on gluing it down, but rather having a lip bent on the front edge to keep it in place, similar to some lunch box planers.

My well used 33 year old Griggio ps630 planer is worn about .008 - .009" in the middle, and this could potentially be an inexpensive solution to getting it accurate again. Machining the bed isn't viable, as there isn't anyone within 1700 miles that has the equipment to do that. (nor do I want to disassemble the machine to that degree....)

Not sure about the consistent thickness of stainless sheet material though....

Did you rough up the casting before you applied the Bondo?

Just cleaned it well before applying the Bondo. My Inca J/P had a SS sheet on the planer bed and it worked well as long as I kept it waxed. I was just being really cheap with the Belsaw planer by using Formica, but it turned out to be surprisingly durable.

John

[Chris Fitzpatrick]

Just cleaned it well before applying the Bondo. My Inca J/P had a SS sheet on the planer bed and it worked well as long as I kept it waxed. I was just being really cheap with the Belsaw planer by using Formica, but it turned out to be surprisingly durable.

John

I'm really intrigued by this, and this may be a stupid question, but how did you level the bondo? I ask because, flat to the eye isn't enough. Sounds like a great fix.