hi gents, my new hammer a3-41 is doing less-than-stellar surface planing, see pics below. one prob is faint planer marks across the entire surface (pic one) and the other is board stalls part way through, requiring manually pushing board to complete planing, and leaving behind marks seen in pic 2.
what am i doing wrong?? shown boards are 1/2 in thick walnut, and planer has factory segmented cutter head.
Replies
Those look like marks from your feed roller. There is such a thing as too light of a cut. That would explain the stalling as well.
Thanks mj, that is an interesting idea/theory, what would you think would be too light of a cut? 1/32, 1/16th?
The marks do not look like a segmented cutter head. They look like straight knives.
You'll get a feel for it. Take a look at your infeed roller, the marks will probably look familiar. If the board was not jointed flat before you put it in the planer the feed grip could be intermittant.
I agree with MJ they look like the roller. On the hammer it has a metal feed roller. I have the A31 hammer and I did the same thing because I lowered the height and forgot to turn to raise to take out the slack. Also if you run through the planner without raising you will get the marks. I find a 1/8 turn increments keeps the roller marks from showing up.
Try waxing your planer beds. I have the A 31 Hammer and when I first started using the machine the wood resisted sliding smoothly and required frequent waxing. This has improved with time and use. I still wax or apply "slip it" periodically or when it shows a need. I live on the Pacific West coast very near the ocean so frequent applications of protective coatings on my shop equipment is actually a benefit.
thanks gents, good suggestion on waxing beds and taking heavier cut - did some quick tests today and found that after waxing bed, if i take a cut of at least 20 thou (0.5mm) i get no snipe, no stall and no infeed roller marks. 20 thou on my machine is 1/4 turn of wheel. if i take less, like 1/8 turn (10 thou) as kp2 can on his machine, i get the roller marks. 20 thou is plenty fine for a finish pass for me, so no prob.
a further question, what is the thinnest material you can plane on you machines? i wonder if the 1/2 inch walnut in pictures was too thin? wouldnt think so.
thanks again for all the helpful info..
Mine, a helical but not a Hammer gets to about an eighth inch on the iron bed. With a melamine filler ìt will go a bit further before it starts getting hungry. I bought a drum sander for when I need to get really skinny.
I've used wax with good results. I've also used this solution from Felder, which works quite well for me:
https://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/Workshop/Cleaning-and-maintenance/FELDER-Super-Glide.html
The machine won't go past 1/8" and even at that depth, you can get torn up pieces. About 3/16" is as thin as I go these days.
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