Hi folks,
I'm looking for advice on whether to ignore/repair/euthanize a misaligned Dewalt 735.
A couple of years ago, I bought a used Dewalt 735 from a guy who had already installed a byrd cutterhead on it. I've recently realized that it is out of parallel by ~0.013". Picture attached showing 2x4s planed on either side of the cutter. Not sure when this started, but I would like to blame a lot of my wonky joinery over the last couple of years on this problem!
I have read a fair bit on the forums and it seems like there are two ways to solve this problem. One is to open the top and adjust the sprockets on one side by rotating them one tooth. I opened it up to try that, but saw that this is a fairly coarse fix: one 'tooth' worth of movement on the sprocket is about 0.020" if my math and measurements are right. (1 turn of the crank moves each sprocket 1/4 turn for 1/16" of vertical travel, and there's 13 teeth on a sprocket).
The other way, which seems potentially more precise, is to flip the planer over, use an impact driver to loosen the bolts holding the threaded columns in place on one side, then rotate the columns ever so slightly (about 20 degrees, by my math) to realign the chassis, then tighten them back down. (BTW, I checked, none of the columns seems to be loose, which is a problem people sometimes report.)
I'm plenty handy but this feels like it's pretty exacting stuff (20 degrees?), especially since with the byrd head there's no easy way to use a dial indicator to measure the height of the cutters from the table. And I don't own a dial indicator.
So I'd like some advice.
Option 1: Drive ~2 hours to the nearest Dewalt service center and hope they can fix it. Two half days of vacation required.
Option 2: get a dial indicator and try to adjust this thing myself, though I'm still not clear how.
Option 3: ignore it?
Option 4: suspect that the prior owner abused this thing (I've had to replace the thin piece of sheet metal on the base plus the thermal switch already), post it on craigslist with a disclaimer, and go get a new planer on the theory that life is short and if I don't finish this dining table my wife is gonna buy one. Thing is, I'd just buy a new DW735 and a new head!
planer not parallel.jpg