I have a Park’s 12 in. planer that I bought new in the early 1980’s. The company is now out of business. For those not familiar, it is a 400 lb cast iron work horse. A couple of years ago I updated it with a Shelix cutter head and am even happier with it than I was before. Both before and after I updated it I have had problems with the outfeed roller. It is steel with parallel grooves. The stock goes into the infeed roller and cutter head with no problem but then gets jammed in the outfeed roller. I have reset the height of the outfeed roller several times with a dial indicator trying to get it to the correct height relative to the cutter head but still have not found the sweet spot . The problem is particularly bad when the stock is rough. Once I plane away the rough finish (side opposite the jointed side) the stock goes through with little problem. But those first couple of passes when I am trying to plane away the rough face the stock binds and jams, sometimes so hard I have to have a tug of war to get it in the infeed side and out the outfeed side. Anyone have any ideas of the problem here? Thanks
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Replies
A friend of mine had a Parks 12" planer long ago. Does it have bed rollers directly under the feed rollers? If so, have you checked their adjustment? They should be 0.004" above the table for fine work. If you are jointing one face first, that height will work well. And do you keep the bed waxed? And the pressure bar?It should be adjusted exactly even with the cutting circle of the cutter head. I'm suspecting that something else is hanging up the wood, and the outfeed roller is not getting enough purchase on the rough lumber to overcome the resistance. I do have an old owner's manual for it so may find some time to check it for clues.
Thanks. I do have the owner's manual. I'll double check those adjustments.
You wrote - "...I have had problems with the outfeed roller. It is steel with parallel grooves. "
The outfeed roller on a Parks is smooth. The infeed roller is serrated. Did you
mistype ?
Well, do I feel stupid I have had that planer for 40 years and thought that the infeed and outfeed were the same even though I have spent a lot of time adjusting it over the years but I guess I did not pay attention. I spend all of my time on the infeed side and didn't really focus on the fact that the outfeed was not the same. I have a dust collection food that I made so seeing the outfeed roller is even more difficult than it would be without the hood. So now that we've shown that for 40 years I haven't been paying attention, do you have any thoughts about the cause of my problem? I've actually thought about running both sides of a board through the jointer first to smooth both sides then take it to the planer to make them parallel but I shouldn't need to do that as the planer should handle the rough surfaced wood.
Anyway, the outfeed roller only sees planed wood of even thickness. Even if adjusted correctly, which would be slightly lower than the cutterhead, is the pressure adjusted ?
Raise the pressure bar and the chipbreaker/shaving hood above their recommended settings (.002" and .020" above cutting circle, respectively). See if your issue is resolved. If so, bring them back into spec.one at a time.
I second checking the table rollers being just slightly above the table. I had a similar situation on my power matic planer, spent a lot of time fussing with the outfeed rollers and chip breaker, but fixed it by raising the table rollers just a bit.