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Joseph Gwinn Joseph Gwinn is offline
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Default Rockwell planer, any comments on this beast 13x6

In article ,
Ignoramus540 wrote:

On 2009-10-09, James Waldby wrote:
Since you put it together, and apparently recently, it seems like
you should know better than anyone what you have to take apart
to change the table.


Other parts were disassembled, not the part holding the
table. Electrical etc

Do you have you a manual? There's a pdf copy at
http://www.owwm.com/MfgIndex/pubdetail.aspx?id=2438
and although the scan is too light it is possible to make
out some of the details of the exploded-parts diagram.
Possibly printing the diagram would help with readability.


This is awesome. Good or bad, it is so much better to have a manual.
The manual also seems to be written by real people, not by Chinese,
and is a delight to read.

Re startup, you could take the blades out before first spinning it
up. (On the other hand, if the blades are sharp, tight, and are
all set at exactly the same height, you might want to just leave
them in place.) Anyway, before you run it with the blades installed,
verify that the bolts shown in fig. 28 of above pdf are properly
tight. Note, all the knives should have the same weight, all the
chocks, etc., since the rotor spins pretty fast (4500 rpm).


OK, will do

If the blades aren't sharp, you can buy a spare set at Amazon.com,
maybe $62 for Rockwell Delta, although the Freud C573 at $40 might
work ok - check the measurements. (The C573 would limit width of
cut to 12.5" instead of 13.125".) You might be able to find a local
resharpening operation with a lower cost than a new set of blades.


I did not even realize that blades were so inexpensive.


Check woodworking fora to see what blade makes are best.

But run without blades, bladeholders, and screws the first time, powered
by a variac if possible, just to be sure that there isn't a hidden
issue. (Don't run under load from a variac, as induction motors will
overheat if loaded while being fed too little voltage.)

As for the broken table, if the machine doesn't have visible signs of a
severe misadventure, the machine or table may have been dropped. The
marks made by a sufficient misadventure won't be subtle.

Joe Gwinn