Replies

1. 
   Mutinyguy | Feb 15, 2005 05:19am | #1

   You didn't mention if you have any snipe?? I have experienced the same type of issues with my General Intly 15" planer which is similiar/same to Grizzly, jet, powermatic, bridgewood, etc, etc....I thought it might be a blade problem...bought some from Freud. No better results....

   Jim

2. 
   jpohja | Feb 15, 2005 05:39am | #2

   Re: item #1 and #2. How much thickness are you trying to take off in one pass? Almost sounds like you are trying to take too much at one time...   john

1. 
   SteveB | Feb 15, 2005 05:49am | #4

   Jim:  snipe is actually the only problem I don't seem to have :)  ,  I set the bed rollers at about .002 off the table surface and the support infeed and outfeed roller supports are on the same plane as the table. ( I had to remove all but one roller on each of the supports because the rollers were not coplaner)

   Jpohja:  I have varied the cut depth and experienced the same problem. (anywhere from  1/32" to the 1/8" max. (there is a safety stop that prevents anything thicker from being fed into the machine)

   Thanks for the replies

1. 
   highfigh | Feb 15, 2005 08:13am | #5

   Did you have the same problems with the original set when they were new or did you have them resharpened? Any chance that the bevel has changed or is different on the replacement set and may be causing the problems? I have the 12" Grizzly(that is on clearance sale) and the original set were great on cherry when they were fresh. As they dulled, they were more prone to tearouts. I think I would hone the knives and check the bevel. I seem to remember a thread concerning the angle of planer knives.
   "I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."

3. 
   wr | Feb 15, 2005 05:44am | #3

   A couple of things to look out for.
   To reduce chip out.
   Reduce the amount of wood you are taking off with each pass
   Slow down the speed in which the boards are being fed if possible
   Look at the way the grain of the wood is running, simular the way you check on a joiner. You might be able to feed the board in the opposit direction and get less chip out.
   One other tip, of the board is not to wide as compaired to the planner infeed try to feed the board at an angle and you can reduce chip out.

   On the board not feeding well, wax the infeed and out feed table before use. I use normal paste wax and this very well may solve your infeed problem.

   On your chips being pressed into the board, most likly the chips are falling thru the connection between the vacume hose and the planner where your board runs over them. Use the aluminum "duct tape" to tape up any vacume leaks, this should reduce the chips. Check inside the vacume connection to the planner. Many times the transition between planner and hose is not smooth and chips tend to bog up there and inturn may fall out or reduce air flow. Bend over the metal or tape it down to make this area smooth, and this may help.

   Good luck.

4. 
   frenchy | Feb 15, 2005 07:48pm | #6

   I have the 20 inch grizzley and at first I experianced some of the same problems that you are, here's what I found.;  

      check the boards the first time you run them thru. I was surprised at how much the sawmill varied from board to board.; and from end to end.  It wasn't uncommon for more than an 1/8th of an inch differance occasionally even more! 

     Feed the thickest end in first or it will wedge itself.  take a light pass your first time, that will allow thicker boards to go thru without jamming to a stop. examine the board prior to starting it, My sawmill can sometimes leave a slightly wider  saw kerf that will make the board not able to enter the machine.; I've also occasionally had difficulties  with curved boards catching prior to entry, seemed flat enugh untill I looked at it from end to end and then I noticed the curve or hook it had..

     I don't have much chip impression problems with mine, rare occasion but that stuff just happens.;  If it happens too often I just slow down the feed speed. Tearout I've found a dramatic differance in the direction I feed boards, if on my first light pas I notice tearout I run the board thru the other way and then almost never get tearout.;

     I do notice that when I sharpen my blades they  tend to tearout more than when I have them sharpened by  a shop that specializes in planer blades  Actually they do mostly printer blades for the printing industry, I've never been able to watch them do the actual sharening so I can't say what they do that is differant..

     I do know that on some knots and burls It's almost impossible to avoid tearout and then if the board is narrow enough I'll run it thru my bench top for iit's final pass.;  The bench tops much higher blade  speed seems to make the differance..

    

5. 
   jackhall | Feb 15, 2005 09:58pm | #7

   I have a new Grizzley 15" planer Model G0550.  Right from the beginning I have had a very similar problem with wood not feeding through.  The infeed roller either doesn't catch the wood or if it does, the wood will get blocked by the chip breaker or even the outfeed roller.  I have adjusted and re-adjusted the tension, clearance, etc four or five times with no improvement.  I have had three telecons with the Grizzley service techs but nothing they suggested has worked.  I am getting desparate.  I think I have only gotten three pieces of wood to go through the planer after dozens of attempts.  Sure would like to find someone to stop by and look at it. 

1. 
   HWG | Feb 16, 2005 12:05am | #9

   JackHall and Steve,

   While my planer is not the Grizzly 0550 (mine is ENCO), it appears to be almost identical.  I have had it for ten years, and I love it.  I have experienced a problem a few times where the stock did not feed until I lifted the outward end a bit, helping it slide under the infeed roller.  It then grabbed and fed on through, but with a bit of snipe.  This was telling me that I needed to adjust the roller hight the extension rollers (they were too high).  You might recheck their alignment if you have not already done so. 

   I hope you get everything adjusted and are as pleased with it as I have been with mine.  It is a real workhorse.

   Woody 

6. 
   forestgirl | Feb 15, 2005 10:47pm | #8

   "Jamming of board at infeed roller on occasion" and "Obviously the chips are sticking to the outfeed roller"  Did anyone mention cleaning the rollers?  Do metal rollers get dirty??

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
   Another proud member of the  "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>) 

7. 
   mike4244 | Feb 16, 2005 12:37am | #10

   Steve, read frenchy's post , he's nailed it for you. If you are feeding rough lumber many times the board is thicker in some spots. That's why the board sometimes doesn't feed and jams.Take lighter cuts and eyeball the board before feeding.

   Chipout might be feeding the board in the wrong direction, reverse the grain and see if that helps. Some species chipout easier than others. Curly grain chips out easily.With these boards take the lightest of cuts.

   Your dust collector is not pulling the chips, it is clogging. Set up a separator and the chips will fall into it. Use a metal trashcan with the separator. You could make a separator if you want. You have plenty of horse power but the intake is plugging up with large chips. When using the separator you will not have any more dings.

   mike

    

1. 
   SteveB | Feb 16, 2005 04:06am | #11

   First off, thanks for all the suggestions, much appreciated.

   Wes: I'll play around a little more with the grain and feed direction, however, based on my experience so far, I see chipping in both directions, whereas I can face joint the same board on my Grizzly 8" jointer (which I love by the way) and get excellent results.  I will try your suggestion to tape up any potential vacuum leaks.

   Highfigh: I am using the original blades, and yes I have had chip-out since the beginning.  Maybe I'll check the bevel angle and get them sharpened, though they seem to be plenty sharp.

   Frenchy:  I do have thickness variation in the rough boards (after jointing one face), I always start the thickest end first.  Have you tried different bevel angles on your planer blades? Nice to hear you are having some success with your Griz.

   Jackhall: I was hoping I would be the only one with these problems and someone with a G0550 would jump in here and clear things up for me....ah well.   Looks like this post will be of great interest to you.

   Forestgirl: I did clean the rollers (and lube the bearings), but it's worth another look. The infeed roller is serrated so it would not slip.

   Woody: Thanks for the suggestion, currently I have the extension support rollers set almost perfectly coplaner with the table.

   Mikek4244: The boards actual jam before they even get to the cutter head, the board thickness variation could in fact cause a jam if it were fed into the machine starting with the small end, then tapering to the large end. In this case the boards do vary, however, they don't taper left to right as viewed from the end of the board. I'll experiment with the dust collector some more and see what happens.

   I think this will be a decent machine once I get the bugs worked out.  Thanks again!

    

1. 
   frenchy | Feb 16, 2005 09:05am | #12

   Steve,

      I've run about 30,000 bdft through my planer so far.   The learning curve was steep at first and mostly a matter of me learning how to effectively  use the equipment rather than any misadjustment from the factory...

     I did find that if I use rollers to feed in and out  (I bought two pieces of 10 foot rollers)  they help tremendously.   

     I don't run boards over the jointer, first some of my boards are 20 inches wide  and my jointer is only 8 inches wide.;

    Second I've found that if I take real light passes with the rollers acting as infeed and outfeed tables I can achieve much the same effect.  (long set of roolers act much like a sled.)   

1. 
   kelvinpot | Feb 18, 2005 04:46am | #13

   I've had tear out with my old 15" grizzly on cherry. THe biggest thing is the relationship of the bevel on the knives and the wood. The knives are ground on an average for people doing average things. Very hard wood like oak would require a bevel that would make a scraping action, and pine would want a very bevel that would be more of a shear angle. These numbers are available, but an easy thing to do is take a diamond sharpener or stone and make a micro bevel on the blades. THis is a easy way to touch up blades with out removing them from the machine. This might actually be the wrong direction on the bevel, i think you might take it off the face oppisite the bevel, the flat part. When you have knives sharpened the shop should ask for a detailed discription of what bevel you want. This planer with the motor on top is a pain to work on the knives.
   Grizzly knives are not the greatest steel, good ones aren't much more $ and stay sharp longer.
   One other thing is overly dry lumber chips. use a moisture meter to see, but if its fine on the jointer, its gotta be blade bevel angle. No doubt about it.
   As far as the board jamming, rough lumber requires the bed feed rollers to be quite high. Have you tried this? Feed rollers too low? Wax the bed very well.
   Good luck
   Kelvin

2. 
   MBL | Feb 18, 2005 06:07am | #14

   Dear Steve,Wax the bed, as suggested.That will probably fix the problem.If that does not do it, then check the grooves in which the bed rollers are recessed. There might be SHARP edges there that catch the wood. File them at a little bevel to where the hand does not feel sharp, specially those that are against the feed direction.Good luck.-mbl-

1. 
   SteveB | Feb 20, 2005 12:08am | #15

   I really appreciate all the help guys (and gals).

   Good news! I believe I have (knock on wood) fixed the jamming problem.  After much tweaking and re-tweaking, including most of the suggestions above, I was still having problems.  I stopped into the local tool shop to check out their planers today. They had a 20" Jet, which has a very similar mechanical layout to my Grizzly. It also happened to have the manual laying on top of the machine.  I reviewed the cutter, feed rolls, chip breaker recommended height settings in the Jet manual.  The manual stated to set the infeed roller and the chip breaker .004 below the cutter, whereas the Grizzly manual states to set the infeed roller .020-.040 below the cutter and the chip breaker .040 below the cutter.  This made perfect sense, I had been reluctant to adjust the infeed roller up until this point because I knew I had set at .030 below the cutter.  

   I set the infeed and chip breaker about .005 below the cutter and fed board after board through the planer without even the slightest problem.  I know I need to do some more planing before I can say for certain that I have fixed the issue, but at this point it's looking good.  Based on my results I believe that Grizzly has some bad information in their manual.

   What do others set their feed rollers and chip breakers at (height-wise) relative to the cutter?

   Now I can move onto the chipping and indentations.......

   Frenchy/Kelvin/mbl: Once again- thanks.  I'll be doing more experimenting and will try your suggestions. Kelvin, had I read your message prior to now, I might have saved a little aggravation, you nailed it with the feed roller suggestion.  I'll be sure to wax the bejeezus out of the bed. 

   On another note: Frenchy, why is it that you do not joint your boards before you plane? Seems like you would achieve parallelism but not flatness and parallelism....just curious.

   Steve

1. 
   MBL | Feb 20, 2005 03:00am | #16

   Dear Steve,Probably more influential than the difference in settings of the rollers by a few thousands might be the spring tension which pushes on those rollers, as the rollers are not meant to be in a fixed position. They are meant to move up and down with the variation of the thickness of the incoming wood.If springs are fully compressed, or highly compressed, by the tension-adjusting bolts, then there'd be no play for the rollers, possibly leading to a problem as you had, and yes, wood would tend to get stuck.Perhps when you changed the setting you also might have provided needed resilience there?On adjusting and correcting plane problems at times we may mis-diagnose, even though we fix the problem.A suggestion applied here and found helpful is to go a lot by observation, kind of leaving the manual behind, other than as a reference.Anyhow, it's great you are planing nicely again.-mbl-