Nope, nothing to do with Britney, Lindsey, Paris or London.  It’s about my 12″ Griz planer.

Over time, the performance of many power tools slowly degrades, but we don’t notice it because the machine “seems to be working as well as it was yesterday.”  Such was the case with my planer, where over about 20 years it became noisier and rougher without me really noticing it.  Of course, over 20 years of running a planer, one’s hearing gets worse, too, so it’s a nother reason you don’t see the drop in performance.

I noticed it only when something really bad happened, namely, the cutterhead bogging down to the point of nearly stopping.

In this situation, the urge to go buy a new tool is strong (I had my eye on the DW735), but I chose a different route: take the planaer completely apart and scope out the problem.

At least two benefits came from this approach.  First, there is no way to get to know your machine tools like there is by taking them apart.  Pretty soon you understand what every set screw and lock nut does, and you can gain an understanding of how to better tune the beast. 

The second benefit is broken things are easier to find.  By isolating all the parts, it was easy to see that the bearings on the cutterhead had fizzled and need to be replaced.  It was a bear to remove the bearings, but replacements from McMasterCarr were installed and I put the planer back together, perhaps better than ever.

Ran the planer this weekend on some cherry, and not only was the finish great, but according to DW, the noise was less than the teenagers next door.

Moral of the story is don’t be afraid to rip into the guts of your major power tools, as you’re likely to learn how to keep it in top shape (and to do so).

$19 for the bearings vs $500 or so for a new planer….