Hey guys… thanks for the input on my powermatic planer woes.
Here’s another one… Just how much perfection should I expect from a 20″ planer?
Should a 20″ planer be able to get a perfectly smooth surface? I know my 8″ PM jointer does a beautiful job – perfect to the point of “no sanding needed.” No knife marks, no waves – nuthin!
I remember that my portable Dewalt 12″ did a great job of creating a near perfect surface. Perhaps the bigger planers weren’t meant to create a near-final finish?
Thanks again guys (and girls), like I said in another post… this forum netted better results (and quicker) than tech support from Tennessee!
Replies
Petmonkey,
In general, the small bench top planers leave a close to perfect surface that most big machines can't quite achieve, but there are two possible problems that may be reducing the quality of the cut on your machine.
Possibility #1: The knives aren't all at the same height so that one of them is taking a deeper cut as it comes around. Dull knives will generally create more of a ripple also.
#2: The machine is feeding at too high a rate for the best finish, this can be caused by the power feed control mechanism sticking and not allowing the feed to go as slow as designed.
Another possibility, along the same line as #2, especially if the planer was purchased used, is that the machine was geared for high feed rates for use in a mill where production was more important than quality of cut. In the second case you could slow the machine down, and improve the cut, by changing out the gears or pulleys in the feed drive.
Hope this helps, John W.
Edited 11/26/2003 4:13:07 PM ET by JohnW
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