This week on Shop Talk Live, we tackle the one problem with helical cutterheads in lunchbox planers that seems to go unnoticed. Plus, your woodworking questions answered.
STL 84: One Big Problem with Helical Cutterheads
This week on Shop Talk Live: Helical cutterheads are all the rage for jointers and planers, but is there a white elephant in the room? Plus, your questions on finishing, mortise-and-tenon joinery, and a whole lot more.
Finally, don’t miss this week’s All Time Favorite Tool of All Time segment, as we dive into the specifics of a twin-screw bench vise installation.
Every two weeks, a team of Fine Woodworking staffers answer questions from readers on Shop Talk Live, Fine Woodworking’s biweekly podcast. Send your woodworking questions to [email protected] for consideration in the regular broadcast!
Also on iTunes Click on the link at left to listen to the podcast, or catch it in iTunes. Remember, our continued existence relies upon listener support. So if you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a five-star rating and maybe even a nice comment on our iTunes page. And don’t forget to send in your woodworking questions to [email protected].
Comments
I logged in to hear about helical cutter heads...three minutes into the audio clip, & I've heard about mac n' cheese, six-pack bets, but nothing about helical cutters...
It's not an audio clip, it's a full podcast! Listen longer and you will get to the info - but honestly if you don't enjoy the humor, maybe this one isn't for you because these guys are funny!!! (awesome podcast as always guys!!!)
The very short segment on the subject of helical cutters was not very informative and all the other gibberish they blabbed was stupid. I won't be listening to them anymore.
This was like buying a book about woodworking and finding that the author has ADHD.
STICK TO THE TOPIC IN THE TITLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do as many podcasts as you want, but don't call it one thing and talk about everything under the Sun, devoting only a few seconds to the topic.
I agree with the above comments in regards to all the nonsense and no tech talk. This is the age where you can find a video in 2 seconds so starring at a blank screen hearing a couple guys practicing their comedy act isn't worth my time. I love humor but you have to stay on topic or at ;east get to the topic.
Sorry, but thumbs down.
First off, what in hell is a "podcast"? cyber gibberish for running off at the mouth?????By the time you get done converting your DeWalt to a helical cutter head, you could have bought a professional's stationary 12-14inch planer with full size in and out feed tables.......Probably without the snipes from these "lunch box" planers... I bought a DeWalt last year and paid almost 700.00 for it- after I had wore out a Ryobi 10"- that's right, wore it out after 20 years, all this without a helical cutter head. The THICKNESS planer is exactly that, a machine to reduce a boards thickness, not to produce a glass smooth ready to finish surface. All of the material I have seen run through a planer with the helical cutterhead had fine lines going the length of the board as opposed to the ultra fine lines going across the width of the board.. Why pay a heck of a lot of money for a different style of lines, a lot more work to change blades. New and different doesn't make it better- just new and different ain't worth the cost. Glad the "podcast" was free- except for the lost time....
The discussion of the planer starts around 30:10.
I run my helical head equipped lunch box planer (DW735) on a 20 amp circuit, that has a free standing lamp also attached. I've never tripped the breaker even when planing thick maple, ash, or my Douglas Fir 12 in. wide mini-bench top. Not even after running the planer for a while which would heat up the circuit. I guess I'm getting lucky.
Can anyone tell me to where I need to fast forward to get the heli head info? This is an enormous waste of time otherwise.
I have a Steel City that came with Helical cutter head. Seems to be same machine as Ryobi I had with standard cutting head.Never had a problem with tripped breakers with either unit.
Thought I had something wrong. I kept listening and listening and didn't hear anything about the helical cutter heads. Guess I didn't listen long enough. Almost a bait and switch. Don't mind the humor however give a heads up as to where the intended content begins.
Planer comments are about 2/3 of the way through, and it's short. It's part of the Q&Q feature. Rumor has it that FWW has been asked before for some type of guide or indexing system for the pod casts. Maybe something will come of that.
Whoops, I meant Q&A on my earlier May 10th post.
I bought a helical head for my DeWalt Planer. Best thing I ever did for it. Just knowing that I will never have to change the blades in my lifetime is a godsend. The first time I ran a piece of hardwood thru it, I stained the wood without sanding and could not see any millmarks. If people are getting lines down the length of the wood it is becaucse a blade has a chip in it. All you have to do is find out where the line is and turn one or two of the cutterheads that line up with the line on your board. The new cutting surface will wipe out that line. I have used mine a thousand hours without ever having to "change lades" I did have a line and fixed it by moving a couple of the cutterheads. The problem with the DeWalt planer is that it is way, way underpowered. If the regular blades get at all dull it becomes an even bigger problem. If you try to do a wide piece of wood you cannot take more than a 32nd of an inch in a pass. If you are blowing fuses it is not the helical heads fault, you are trying to take too much wood. It would blows with the regular blades too. It would blow a fuse a lot sooner with the regular blades. The other huge benefit is that the machine is much quieter with a helical head. It is expensive but I think well,well worth it.
I Listened for a while but did not hear anything about wood working so I shut it off.
I agree with the guys above. We are woodworkers. We want to see it in a video or read about it in a book or mag with illustrations. The Golden Age of "radio" is dead.
See and I was waiting to hear a skunk update from Ed. I listen to the podcast every two weeks. These guys do a great job of mixing personality, opinion, and solid woodworking experience into every show. Too bad other listeners' time is too precious for a little levity. I thought woodworking was supposed to be a fun way to spend time. Keep it up fellas.
how can one give you a five star rating when there is no visible link to do so. Sort of like trying to find the featured topic but give up in boredom listening to useless chatter. Sorry the magazine gets 5 stars, this outdated forum gets 1/2
I put a Byrd Shelix (from Holbren) helical cutterhead in my Dewalt 735 planer and the planing quality fell dramatically compared to the regular blades. I'm very surprised at the glowing comments from others who did the same and got an improvement. I rotated or replaced cutters many times in an attempt to improve the finish with no luck. The cutterhead does the job but leaves a scalloped surface with thin lines of unplaned wood even though there are no chips in the cutters and even after a complete set of fresh cutters. I've given up on it and just expect to have to scrape every inch of wood I plane to get it to a decent finish. Maybe I got a lemon. Too lazy to put the original cutterhead back in - I guess I just keep hoping it will get better on its own. Anyone have any similar experience? Any suggestions on how to remedy this will be appreciated.
Sorry but there's no way I'm listening to 20 minutes about mac & cheese and other stuff to get to the subject matter.
sorry but was there a mix up with the audio file? all what I heard was really silly juvenile talk about mac and cheese. where do I go for the audio file on the helical cutter?
All I heard was droning on about mac and cheese. Tried to find the relevant info about helical heads to no avail. You have failed.
In FWW 223 (Tools & Shops, Winter 2011-2012), Roland Johnson reviewed segmented cutterheads. He noted, "Surprisingly, the
straight knives consumed the lowest power, the 26-cutter Accu-Head was next in line, and the Shelix required considerably
more power. ... I believe that the reason for the higher power demand is that the cutters are constantly in contact with the wood. With three or four straight knives, the motor has a chance to regain a bit of lost inertia between bites. Don’t worry, the constant
power demand won’t wear out your motor any faster, but the additional amp draw could trip the breaker on an undersize circuit."
In the article, Johnson did not report any amperage numbers, but one of the participants in the podcast asserts that the draw was 23-25 amps. Are these figures credible? The test machine in the article was the DW735, which is rated at 15 amps and equipped with an on-board 18 amp circuit breaker. Is it possible that the machine would run continuously at >150% of its rated power (~140% of the protective breaker) without anything tripping?
there was a brief comment about possible changing of the breaker serving the planer with the retrofit helical cutter due to higher current. if a device is designed to operate at 16 amps or less, running it under much higher loads is a problem. increasing to 30A feed is similar to using a penny on an Edison fuse and really should never be done. just not good practice and can cause big problems, like flames.
Totally agree with everyone. Get it together and talk about the topic at hand or change the name of your radio show to FWW comedy hour
This piece leaves a couple questions unanswered. When the planer is re-fit with a helical cutting head:
1. Does the planer draw more than it's plate rated current?
2. After a lot of planing, is the motor hotter (than when it is equipped with three straight knives)?
3. If it is hotter (must be) is the motor still within its thermal ratings?
THX,
gsm
Great show informative and fun listening!
The subject has come up dealing with bug infested wood.
I think the best way is to heat the wood up as with a kiln or it could be done with steam. The heat will kill the bugs but here's the catch. Many bugs (if not all) leave in their wake eggs. If wood is treated with heat and temperature goes above 220 Fahrenheit all DNA will be destroyed, done deal.
Here in Guatemala we have dry termites. They eat wood all year long and then in May the eggs hatch and what looks like a worm with wings emerges. They come out at night from the wood fly off and within a few hours the wings have done their purpose and fall off and the worms crawl around looking for food/wood. What works to capture them is place a tray of water with a night light just above it (LED night light). The termites make a bee line for the light and more often than not drown in the water below. I have bought green wood milled from a saw mill and have found the boards already infested. While the boards are still green (wet) I brush on boric acid and the acid has an affinity for water and penetrates the boards completely. It'll stay there for ever and if eaten by a bug it will kill the bugs for the inside out. This is how I was told they deal with all wood in Australian wood mills but they dip the wood in a bath of the boric acid. Boric acid is mild, and inexpensive and closely related to borax.
Thanks
Chuck
There are not have any helical cutter. Find best cutters with low price here bellow in the site http://www.mitersawexpert.net/
I am afraid I agree with most of the other comments - either stick to the title teaser or add an indexed tag so listeners can find the subject matter - the rest is just useless blather and garbage. This podcast is definitely thumbs down and degrades FWW. Sorry, Editorial Team - start showing some editorial flair and lead your listeners appropriately....
I have helical cutters on my Grizzly 8" jointer and they do have a tendency to leave a slight serrated pattern on the wood, as I'm sure they would also on a planer. Less so if you use a slower push rate over the blades. I opted to use a set of carbide blades on my Dewalt 735 planer and haven't regretted it. They stay sharper much, much, longer and produce a nice smooth finish. I just got so frustrated with the regular steel blades dulling only after a few uses, for which the factory Dewalt blades have been notorious.
Junk BS wasted my time. Stay on subject or kill the program!
tried the helical cutter on my mac & cheese, did not go so well.
Humor is subjective. Why risk it and bore a huge chunk of your audience. Good tech-talk is always appreciated. Stick to that. Get to the point and use less filler in the dialogue.
I gave up after 5 minutes of listening to the boring banter about boxes and cheese.
You lost me - I won't waste any more time on any of the other podcasts.
You had a good idea but you botched it.
Not funny.. not very informative, I subscribe to Fine Woodworking for information and ideas NOT lame attempts at comedy, please stick to the topic and provide useful information OR pull the podcast.
I have loved FW for years, but..................this show really needs improvement. Tried listening a few times and like the few times before, again a lot of talk about anything but the main topic. Mac and cheese ! Beer drinking, I mean C'mon guys. Wow.
I've yet to make it through five minutes of this show. Why do three woodworkers insist on trying to be funny? I can watch a Seinfeld re-run if I want humor. I wanted to hear about helical cutter heads (never got there) and I have to sit through these guys talking about farting due to Mac and cheese.
This show should be created like a radio call in show - Bring up a topic, discuss it and move to the next topic.
At the very least, someone should listen to the show and give the time of when each actual topic that relates to woodworking. Most likely, the poor guy who has the job will recommend to end the banter, just like most of the commenters.
Why is only a "thumbs up" offered? If a "thumbs down" option is offered, I bet that this show would see some changes. I like all three of the guys on the show, I just don't have the time to listen for an hour if there isn't an hour's worth of information
Guess many woodworkers are curmudgeons. A podcast is a way to deliver audio broadcasts about a specific topic. It's more in line with a group of like minded professionals discussing what they do, it's not necessarily a "how to" or lecture on a specific topic. Come on guys, take it easy on these guys. Overall they have great material. Their podcast STL 72: Another Tablesaw Lawsuit is without a doubt one of the most interesting programs I've ever heard bar none. So for those of you without a sense of humor I'd suggest sticking to old school media.
Another example of not respecting the reader. Inundating us with blather is as bad as oversaturating us with Advertising. This used to be a good blog.
Disappointing! to say the very least. I spend money on fine woodworking to get educated. This is pointless aimless rambling of the worst sort. I can for information which when normally delivered by Fine Woodworking, is concise, well organized, and to the point.
This was unbearable to listen to, and I won't bother in the future. My woodworking time is precious, and limited. I cannot afford to waste it in this way.
This has certainly lowered my respect for what I have always considered to be the best resource for woodworking.
I do apologize to the folks who put this together, it is a great deal of work, but rethink your approach. Plan your teaching, stay focused, and make your point.
Tried but could not listen long enough to get to something meaningful!
What a waste of my time! Step your game up Fine Woodworking.
DON'T WASTE MY TIME.....
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