Dear All,
OK, after WAY too much research into different machines, ranging from “old iron” to the Taiwanese machines and from the European combos to benchtop planers, I am now left with the question of “Why larger?”. My benchtop Makita has far exceeded my expectations in that it has planed hundreds if not thousands of linear feet of material including poplar, maple, oak, Ipe, cedar, mahogony, along with the occasional ply or MDF. (try that some time!) Except for the wider capacity, I’m not real sure what the larger machines offer. I use my little machine to mill rough stock all of the time and it does a beautiful job. If my blades are sharp, most stock does not require sanding, if my blades are dull, it is about a 15 min. swap. No guages or fooling around, swap em out and keep going. At this point, even if my machine melted, for $400.00 I would probably just get a new one, rather than upgrade. So help me out. I am REALY trying to rationalize an upgrade, but at this point, I can’t. What do you folks think?
Thanks!
John
Replies
John,
I have the first generation Delta surface planer, and like your Makita it is a great machine ( although I could not getaway without sanding, or in my case hand planing). Still, I'd like to have a 20" stationary machine, because I often work with mahogany boards whose width are far beyond the capacity of my Delta. Having the wider planer would save a lot of hand planing, but I don't have the space for one.
J M
No matter how wide you get one, eventually the law of averages will present you with a piece of stock wider. The larger horse has to work less in a commercial setting also.
If you are like most of us, the smaller BT will get the job done and you will always figure a way to get the wider pieces prepped. The advantage of longer in-feed and out-feed tables can be over-come. In other words, I agree that most of us don't need the added expense or capacity.
Commercial.... Don't leave home without the larger machine if you want to stay efficient and profitable in the long run!
Regards...
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Dear Sarge,
Dusty brings up a point that I have wondered about as well as your point about commercial. If it is true that the "commercial" mdels with the steel rollers leave a finish that needs sanding, then where is the savings? Buying a $1500.00 machine that can quickly produce material that the $400.00 would have to clean up seems counter productive. Along with the fact that the blades on a commericial planer are pricey and take a long time to replace. The only larger machine that I'm aware of that has rubber rollers is the Woodmaster, pretty much everything else is steel.
John
John
And for the majority of us, you have a very valid point IMO. Most of us don't have to work the 12' to 16' feet lenghts that are often more economical an associated with the enviroment of a commercial setting. Even when I work wider glued up panels they have gone through the planer under 13" and are then glued. I always finish with a hand plane, scraper plane or a hand held scraper. It's just the way I prefer my surface to be prepped for finish. I'm in no hurry.
Keep in mind I am certainly no authority on commercial WW. But I'm guessing that several things make a larger planer a better bet for them. I have a feeling that most commercial accounts also have a drum sander. They are allowed to "write-off" wear of machine to help off-set the differences in price.
The larger planer has much more HP and runs more efficiently off 220v. This allows them to run continuosly if needed. The larger planer is usually chain driven and the components are heavier for industrial strenght. The rollers are in-corporated with the machine and adding extra length would not tax it as much. Most of us don't have the space for lenghty extentions even though they can be added to a BT also.
Maybe some commercial's could add or detract from my thinking, but if I were to go to commercial high speed production I don't think I would even consider a 15" planer. You have only added 2" to 3" even thought it does have more horse and heavier. I just think I would pay the extra and go up to at least 20" or above.
I guess my thinking is, I will buy a Chevy S10 compact if it will get my job done. It's economical. But if I really need to hual the "big load" I would skip the full size truck and go up to the C2500 dually. That way I got it covered without having to take another step up.
sarge..jt
P.S. I'm sticking with the BT planer. :>)Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
JMartinsky ,
As you stated the smaller machines produce a beautiful finish . A wider planer would be great but anything wider than 15" and even some of those now come with steel infeed and outfeed rollers. These rollers do not produce the smooth finish like the rubber rollers . IMHO the finish they produce is more like what you find on framing lumber.So the question is do you need or want the extra capacity.I try and run the wider glue ups through a wide belt sander , this costs money but the results are super .
good luck dusty
John,
When I'm running heavy, thick, stock through a thickness planer I really like the mass and stability of the large models, e.g., a 36" Oliver
The other three reasons that come immediately to mind are noise, noise, and noise.
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
JM,
If you get another machine, don't think of it so much as upgrading; instead think of it as "accessorizing" your current shop capabilities. You may need a wider planer, so keep the Makita and get a 15-20" planer.
I might also suggest a drum sander to give a better finish on certain wood (bird's eye and burl).
I imagine if you are at all like me, the research put into finding another machine will pay off in the end.
good luck
gk
I think you have answered your own question.
The benchtop machines, for relatively little money, do a superb job, limited only by the width of the machine and the limited amount of stock they can remove in one pass. Until you need to take deeper cuts in wider stock you don't need a bigger machine. In addition, unless they are very carefully tuned, most bigger machines don't leave as clean a finish as a benchtop machine.
John W.
IMO, a 12" lunchbox thicknesser works pretty well. Bigger machines do some things better, but the value per dollar is higher on the lunchboxes.
The part that I don't understand is how people can be so happy with jointers that are only 4" or 6" wide. There are lots of wonderful boards which are wider than 6". Debating about whether to get a big thicknesser is a little silly unless you have the capacity to facejoint the lumber before you run it into the thicknesser.
Me, I finally bought a 12" jointer that happens to have a 12" thicknesser too -- one of those combo machines. The thicknesser is better than my old lunchbox, but the real gain is in the jointer.
My suggestion for you to rationalize an upgrade is to look at your jointer. The better thicknesser comes practically for free.
What type of combo did you go with?
John
Mine is a Hammer 12" combo jointer-thicknesser. In a compact shop, where everything has to justify its floor space, I find it a good choice. Others you might check out are Robland, Felder, Rojek, and I think SCMI.
MiniMax - My combo has a 12" J/P and I have jointed many 9-12" boards. I also have a stock feeder for the jointer since I want to stay away from those blades as best as possible.
The planer has steel in/out feed rollers and they do not leave mill marks that have to be sanded. I seldom have to sand the stock after running it through the planer..
I've looked at the MM and have a deposit on a 16" bandsaw and belong to thier forum. I like the machines quite a bit, in particular, the Tersa system. I was thinking about a power feeder, where do you mount it? Do you have a pic?
Thanks,
John
John
I have a CU 300 Smart and mount the stock feeder (Delta 36-850) on the saw top portion of the combo. It is out of the way for most of the saw cutting I do, but convenient to the shaper and the jointer. I don't have it mounted right now so I can't take a picture.
If you are "only" buying a MM J/P then use the same location that the mortiser would attach to. Have or make an angle bracket to hold the feeder.
If you get a MM Combo or J/P will also REALLY like the Tersa system. Change cutters and have them perfectly aligned and ready to go in less than 5 minutes .
You will REALLY like the MM 16 BS!! Got one them also.
You are KILLING my wallet, but thank you!
John
Industrial surface planers are meant for thicknessing rough stock. Most of the good ones will take off over 1/4" per pass at 80 to 100 ft/minute feed rate. They are not meant to give a beautiful finish, only to plane lots of wood to a uniform thickness fast. They are on the order of 20 to 50 times faster in removing wood than a lunchbox planer - roughly ten times the feed speed and 4 times the amount of cut. Many planers will have ribbed steel rollers on the infeed, and smooth steel rollers on the outfeed. They stay clean a lot longer, and are needed to feed wood at high speeds.
Molders are used a lot for finish machining on all four sides of straight pieces after they are rough dimensioned. Modern molders give a VERY smooth finish right off the machine, again at feed rates around 100 FPM. Hudraulic centering of cutterheads, with the knives milled right in the head allow every knife to cut equally, resulting in a smooth finish even though cutterhead speeds are only around 6000 rpm at those high feed rates.
Double end tenoners do the job of trimming to precise length, profiling the ends with cope and tenon cutters, and sanding the end profiles. They can also do stopped dadoes and other cross grain cuts as the wood feeds through.
Multi-head wide belt sanders and molding sanders do a good job of sanding out any mill marks and providing a uniform texture for finishing.
Industrial woodworking is kind of a different world altogether..........
Michael R.
Thanks Wiz! I picked up a few tid-bits on that post also.
Regards...
sarge..jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
You must be referring to the real big industrial units. I was asking about light commercial units that are 3 to 7.5 HP and do not have feed rates anywhere near that fast. My Makita benchtop has a feed rate of 21 ft per minute. The 15 - 20" Taiwanese planers feed at 15- 32 ft per minute and the Woodmaster tops out at 26'. So, for the purpose of this discussion, I was more concerned about planers in the under 10 HP and under 7K. But thanks for your input!
John
John, Until I closed my business in the US and moved home to the UK to teach furniture subjects at a college there is absolutely no way that I could have been in business without a light industrial thicknesser of some type. In my case I owned a Rockwell 18" model. Nearly all the other machinery was heavy three phase stuff too, e.g., a Wadkin CP 16 sliding table saw, Powermatic table saw, Felder spindle moulder, SCM surface planer (jointer) etc..
With the size and volume of wood I was putting through-- sometimes hundreds of board feet for one project, I'd have turned our little lunchbox planer into a dead smoking wreck in half a morning. It just couldn't handle pieces of maple 8 or ten feet long, X 6"or 8" wide that needed 1/2" or so taken off quickly.
The only use I found for the little machine was thicknessing light and thin stock, such as reinforcing keys for runs of fifty or so picture frames, or lining material for a run of boxes, jobs it did very well. Slainte.RJFurniture
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled