20″ planer dust collection problem
mapleman
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
Hey Guys,
Recently got my Grizzly 20″ (G0454) planer up and running, it’s connected to a penn state 1500 cfm dust collector. I have plenty of suction at the business end – however, I’m still getting these dents in the finished wood surface (I’m guessing from the outfeed roller)
Grizz manual says to set chip deflector 1/16″ from the cutterhead blades when using a dust collector (1/4″ from cutterhead when not using dust collection). I checked this setting and it looks good. (presently 1/16″)
I seem to remember someone posting about removing the foam strip from the cutterhead cover to improve dust collection. Anyone here done that?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Lee
Replies
Mapleman,
I have a different planer but your problem sounds familiar. In the photo, the dent circled in blue is from a chip on the outfeed roller. The other holes are caused by 'chip recycle' where the chip stays on the cutterhead, rides around and is slammed into the machined surface on the outfeed side. Does either of these depressions match what you are seeing?
Ed
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the photo. The majority of what I am getting is not like what is circled in blue (so I'm guessing it's what you call the "chip recycling"). Any tips on how to fix?
Thanks,
Lee
Lee,
I've attached a close-up of the phenomenon.
Lengthy thread on the problem here:
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=7530.1
To briefly sumarize, insufficient vacuum from the dust collector can cause this problem. However, there are folks using planers with NO dust collection and they report no problems. Taking too large a bite is another cause, in other words, too much waste. But there are many users who report no problems with large (say 1/16") bites.
I believe there is another cause. I haven't found it.
In the thread you can follow my adventure looking into many possible causes. I got the most improvement by increasing my vacuum from 700+ cfm to 1100 cfm. Both values are way beyond the recommended vacuum (400 cfm) for my planer.
Hope you will keep us posted as you work through the problem.
Ed
That last photo looks like simple tearout to me, the kind you'd get from taking too heavy a cut, planing curly grain, etc. I can imagine how those kinds of divots could be caused by chips stuck to the knives, but they'd have to be really stuck, not just clinging. Are you sure your blades are razor sharp, free of pitch, all that good stuff?
-Steve
Hi Steve,
It's not tearout. The dents can be steamed out which is not possible if the wood is missing :)
Knives (four different sets were tried) are sharp. Browse through the old thread for an exhaustive series of experiments which yielded naught.
Ed
Ed,
That is a phenomenal amount of info on that thread! Hat's off to you for a comprehensive report.
I'll be damned if I'm going to remove the dust hood, but I did use the planer before I got the dust collection and didn't notice the dents (but I was planing maple, not cherry) maybe they were there, and I missed them.
I'm going to try two things:
1) 6" line straight from the DC to the 5" inlet on the planer. Presently have 4" line going to the 5" inlet.
2) Byrd shelix head. My original plan was to get this head anyway and install myself. Has anyone with a byrd head weighed in with observations?
Lee
Lee,
I'm not aware of any threads discussing helical heads relative to chip recycling.
More air should help. Lighter cuts, say a 1/32" finishing cut, will help. If you figure out the cause, do let me know!
Ed
Hi Ed,
I have already added a little boost to the air and it has helped. There were 2 square holes on the sides of the top panel (hood?) that I plugged with a sponge. I also taped the connection between the 5" to 4" reducer and the 5" inlet on the planer. Took one of the wife's cigarettes with the DC running to find out where it was sucking air and those were the big spots.
Also, slowing down the feed speed seemed to have helped. I wish I could slow it down more.
I did notice something strange - A week or so ago I just planed a bunch of soft maple PDC (pre- dust collection) and I have a spot in the back of my property where I dump shavings and sawdust. The maple shavings are beautiful 2-3" long curls and the cherry is coming out in tiny chipped up curls. My knives are sharp - I haven't really even used the right side of the planer since it arrived so I tried planing on both sides in the event the left side was dull from the maple.
The byrd head is something I want to do anyhow - so eventually I will know if that completely eliminates the problem.
Thanks for your help,
Lee
Lee,
I've never seen 2 to 3 inch long shavings from any planer. Short curls better describes what I've seen.
Reducing speed will have the same effect as a smaller depth-of-cut. Glad it's providing some relief.
I see someone else has posted about the foam thing. Maybe that's the answer to your problem?
Ed
Also, slowing down the feed speed seemed to have helped. I wish I could slow it down more.
Check with Powermatic. I've seen they offer to sell a gear for their almost identical gearbox that slows the infeed even slower.
The byrd head is something I want to do anyhow
Check with Sunhill Machinery . They offer the head with 10 extra inserts, a new set of bearings pressed on and with a new gearbox installed. The cost is $1,150... which is nearly what you paid for the whole planer... The combination of new bearings, the BYRD head and the gearbox will prevent you from taking apart the whole gear box to install just the BYRD head and cut down time by 3/4's.
Grizzly sells the BYRD head for less, but it's just the cutterhead and only 5 extra carbide cutters....
I understand the Helical head's finish is wonderful and it "cuts" the old loud planer noise by half or more.
I have a spot in the back of my property where I dump shavings and sawdust. The maple shavings are beautiful 2-3" long curls and the cherry is coming out in tiny chipped up curls.
I'd say that something has come unadjusted on the chip breaker. Best check on that. There was a post on another forum when a 20" Grizzly owner had a weld fail around the chip breaker zone and caused a Catostrophic failure after the cutter head grabbed it. I believe Grizzly stepped up to the plate and helped the owner for no cost.
Bill
Edited 12/2/2007 6:20 pm ET by BilljustBill
Edited 12/2/2007 6:25 pm ET by BilljustBill
Edited 12/2/2007 6:56 pm ET by BilljustBill
Hi Bill,
Actually the powermatic gears will increase the speed to 24-31 fpm from the 16-20 fpm gears that come with the machine.
As for the Byrd head, I will definitely get it with the gearbox from Sunhill - I ordered my byrd jointer head from them with the bearings and bearing blocks installed and the installation was straightforward and quick.
Cheers,
Lee
Edited 12/2/2007 9:03 pm ET by BilljustBill
Hello Lee,
Here's the link for the Powermatic gearbox change. Apparently, they now include the slower gear with the purchase. The way their data is presented, the faster gear ratios are standard and the 16' fpm slower gear is installed the the owner.
Check it out and see if that's what you get. Bill
http://www.powermatic.com/Products.aspx?nav=ByPart&ClassID=332116&Part=1791296
Hi Bill,
Yes, I was mistaken. The 24 &31 fpm gears come stock on the Powermatic, and the owner can change over to the 16 & 20 fpm gears. Slowing down from 20 to 16 fpm helped the problem, so I will leave it on the 16 fpm setting for the final pass.
If I ever have a need to plane a lot of lumber, I will check into those powermatic gears - the 31 fpm would come in handy some times.
Thanks for the link,
Lee
You might check the dollars and cents cost between upgrading the vacuum system or checking with Woodworkers Supply. Their "Woodtek" 20 inch planer as a rubber coated outfeed roller and the two might be interchangeable.
Even calling their Tech/Parts dept. might give you another opinion of how to adjust the chipbreaker.
Bill
Wow! Thanks for that picture. I've been getting little 'dings' like that when planing cypress. Thought there was something wrong with the planer (ancient 12-9/16 Ryobi - no DC) and had to finish the boards by hand.
I don't have any problems with oak, maple, or walnut. I thought maybe it was a characteristic of the wood - - I guess it is, cypress is soft :-)
Edited 12/2/2007 2:06 pm ET by Ray
Glad to help, Ray :)
On my planer / dentmaker the harder woods (soft maple, cherry) have more dents and a softer wood (mahogany) have fewer. It does seem to be affected by wood species.
Ed
20" planer dust collection problem..
Sure wish I had this problem!
MAPLEMAN,
had the same problem with my 15" griz planer.
unbolt top collection cover and with a razor, trim the foam down 1/4 to 1/2.
problem solved. i called grizzley and they gave me the soulution.
merry christmas joep
Joepez,
I seem to remember hearing of that on another thread. let me make sure I understand you completely before I go chopping the foam.
Are you talking about the 1" X 1" or so foam strip attached (glued) to the top of the collection cover? And if I am reading correctly you trim 1/4" to 1/2" away from this but still leave some of it?
I didn't call Grizzly because it was the weekend and figured I would get some good advice here (as usual)
Thanks,
Lee
mapleman, sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
yes, that is exactly what they told me to do, i did it, and it worked like a charm.
joe p in ri
Lee, Without seeing you set-up, it is hard to say. I did google the planer, but they didn't show the back side, nor the dust hood.
I had this problem with my old Crescent when I set it up at this location. The problem that I found was that there was not a sufficient "area", or square inches to match the blow-pipe size. Lets say that you have a 6" pipe connected to the hood. This is 28.27 square inches. But when you have a wide board feeding under the in and outfeed rollers, this may be choking the air intake potential around the openings, which reduces the flow of air into your vacuum system.
I fixed mine by taking a hole-saw and drilling 3 - 2.5" diameter holes in the front of my dust hood to ease the flow of air into the pipe. I know that this is hard to swallow the thought of cutting or altering your new tool, so I understand if you are reluctant to even consider it, so I will also suggest that you see if there is another way to maybe prop the hood open to one side or something to try getting more air intake. You would think that engineering would have found and fixed this problem before you got yours wouldn't you?
If the problem is worse when running wide boards than narrow, this will tell you something. If you just slide a board in under the rollers without the machine running, you can find and measure all of the openings and calculate the area, just to compare it to the potential of your DC. Hope this helps.
Hi Keith,
I understand what you mean about the wide boards blocking air flow. So far, I have just been planing narrow stuff (6-7" wide).
I am seeing a direct correlation between increased vacuum and a reduction in the problem. I'm thinking that it's just a design issue where you have to throw way more vacuum at the machine than you would normally. I presently have a 4" hose going to a 5" to 4"reducer which connects to the planer. My next step is to hook a 6" hose straight from the DC to a 6" to 5" reducer and into the dust hood. If I find at that point I do not have enough cross flow I will prop up the hood to increase air - but I'm going to see what happens with the bigger hose first.
As I said it may just be a temporary problem because I am planning to get the Byrd head at some point soon.
Oh, and for anyone else following the thread, I did trim the foam as Joepez suggested and it seemed to have no effect on the problem.
Thanks to everyone who has chimed in!
Lee
Lee, that sounds like a good next step. Also, If I recall correctly that this is a new tool, I would suggest that you rake the edge of a finger-nail along the cutter edge. If the grind is too coarse, there will be a lot of drag. This serration will contribute to this problem more than a fine finished edge. If you are good at sharpening free-hand, you might try honing the knives if they feel like they need it. I do this numerous times between blade removal on both my 12" 4 knife jointer, and 4 knife 24" planer. I do it with a couple of 2 x 6" fine and super fine diamond hones which I have bonded to wooden handles with the handle offset to protect the knuckles.
Kieth,
That's a good suggestion about honing the knives. The grind looks ok, but not highly polished or extremely smooth.
Lee
Lee, I've got the 20" York-craft which is the "same" jointer as the Griz you have. I don't and have never had the problem you mentioned and I just got through running an 18" panel through. It has seen oak, maple, pecan, cherry and hickory.
But... I did clean the rollers before I first used it. They didn't appear to have anything sticky on them that a chip would adhere too..but I did anyway as I am somewhat meticulous about preparation. And chips can ride the roller if the suction is not sufficient. I have seen some machines that it didn't even without ample suction and some that did. Mystery of life I suppose.
And... I do have my machine connected "direct" to a 6" flow pipe from a 2 1/2 HP cyclone about 4' from where I use it. There is a 12' foot 6" pipe coming off the clone that I use to "direct"" connect to the TS.. BS.. planer and jointer. So.. I do basically have un-restricted air flow through a very short run with a 5" step down connector on the planer end. I increased the port size to 6" on the TS.. jointer and BS and was going to do it on the planer.
But.. the collection was sufficient without the modification as there is literally no chips or dust that is thrown forward, rides the top surface of the stock coming out or is ejected from the rear. At most a fine and intermittent dust on the table surface.
So... from what has already been said from others similar experiences, I would put my money on not having enough suction as is.. for whatever reason you will hopefully stumble across!
Good luck...
Sarge..
Edited 12/2/2007 10:40 pm ET by SARGEgrinder47
SARGE,
what up? Haven't seen you in ages around here. Hope all is well.
Sounds like you have plenty of suction and a short run to boot. I'll know if the 6" hose makes a difference soon. I'm thinking it should help.
If you don't mind my asking, how exactly did you enlarge the TS dust opening to 6"? I have a '66 and it has a steel ring welded on the outside of the cabinet to connect the DC hose, but it's mounted so low cutting the cabinet to enlarge really doesn't seem feasable (the bottom of the hole is flush with the bottom inside of the cabinet). I was thinking of adding another 4" hole on top of the existing one - my thinking is this would be a larger area than a 6" hole and if I sold the saw the extra 4" hole would be easy to plug if the next guy didn't care to use it. I would run a 6" line to the back of the saw with a 6" X 4" X 4" wye, the two 4" lines running to the saw. Any thoughts on this?
Lee
Actually the 6" is larger than two @ 4". the area of 4" is 12.56", and for 6" is 28.27".
Kieth,
How did you come up with those #'s?
I multiplied 4 X pi (3.14) = 12.56 on the 4" pipe
6 X pi (3.14) = 18.84 on the 6" pipe
It's been a long time since high school geometry!
Lee
"Kieth,How did you come up with those #'s?I multiplied 4 X pi (3.14) = 12.56 on the 4" pipe6 X pi (3.14) = 18.84 on the 6" pipeIt's been a long time since high school geometry!Lee"The formula you are using is for the circumference of a circle.The one for area is pi x r squared. 4" dia pipe would be... 2 x 2 x pi = 12.57 6" dia pipe would be 3 x 3 x pi = 28.27Now go to the blackboard and write the formula 100 times!;-)
QC,
Got it! Like I said, it's been a long time.
Thanks,
Lee
Lee, I have Uni-saw and it also has the hole come down flush to the bottom. But... there is no steel re-enforcement ring to speak of so... I simply enlarged the area above the existing opening. The plastic dust chute has 4 holes for sheet metal screws to attach it with. I just drilled 2 new one's higher up to correspond to the larger plastic dust port I replaced the old one with.
I have 6" going directly in the rear port. My above the table 2 1/2" hose that connects to the over-head shield comes directly from a 6 HP Shop Vac that sits dedicatedly under the right extension table. It runs up the swivel pole and across the over-head arm (made with old 1/2" pipe clamps and a few connectors) for the home-made dust shield I attached to the home-made "crown" guard I made. ha.. ha...
I did the same basic thing with direct to the jointer. An exception is the BS. The Steel City 18" has as good of dust collection as it gets for a BS. But.. with 6" available 6' away from cyclone to saw... I ran the 6" to it and attached a 3 prong connector ( 6" in.. and 4" straight ahead with 1 2 1/2" connector on each side of the piece of PVC. The 6" comes in straight through a 4" line to the old 4" dust port. The 2nd 2 1/2" line pipes off under the table to the back of the BS.. up and back to the front over the table for an over-head pick-up.
The 3rd 2 1/2" goes off and under the table to just below the insert opening keeping saw-dust free of the bottom bearing. Works for me.
Sarge..
Sarge,
That's one hell of a dust collection set up on that steel city saw!
How's old girl holding up now that she's been in service for a year?
Lee
Morning Lee...
How's the SC Bandsaw holding up......?
Getting' er done with the aggression of a "tiger but still purring like a "kitten". After looking at all the competitors from the Pacific and now a years use, IMO and as I suspected at that time... probably the best band-saw coming from the Pacific Rim. As I have always said, you only have to compare side by side and what your eye's tell you is evidence enough as the BS's will speak for themselves.
Sarge..
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