I picked up rough poplar to make drawer interiors for a big built-in. The yard only had 4/4 stock. I wanted them down to 5/8”, so after jointing one side flat, I used a band saw (1.25” carbide-toothed blade) to remove most of the waste. I figured this would be easy because I just got the resharpened blade back from Laguna.
Well, it was slow going! It took three minutes to saw a board 4.5” wide, 20” long. The surfaces were quite smooth, but singed. There was no way I could continue with the 55 remaining sides and backs. So I turned to the planer.
The DeWalt 735 had recently undergone replacement of the cutter (LuxCut helical head). The first 16 boards went easily, with nice results. I lowered the cutter by 1/3rd of a turn after each pass (my usual). But then the internal circuit-breaker flipped. It took a long time to get the motor to run again, and when it did, the feed rollers weren’t working. I found the drive belt half melted way, and torn for the rest of its width. So the motor spins but nothing else does, till I get a new belt.
Is this a lesson that poplar is more difficult to work than I knew? Has anybody got any advice?