"Nonny" wrote in message
...

"Leon" wrote in message
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Yes the finish will return with new knives and or resharpened knives.
This is not unique to your planer however all planers have this problem.
Keep in mind that planers are not finishers, they are thicknessers. To
worry about the out put quality is a waste of time. Any thing can and
will nick the knives however that does not take away from what the
machine was designed to do. As with any material it needs to be scraped
or sanded prior to applying a finish. Those ridges will disappear during
that process.

I don't know how others tell when it's time to sharpen planer blades, but
my technique was to gently pass my hand over a planed board. If it felt
smooth, the blades were OK. If it felt rough or had cross-grain ruts,
then it was time for sharp blades.

You need to sharpen the knives when you start to get excess tear out and or
the shavings start to have dust mixed in.





I never worried much about nicks in the blades, since shifting the knives
a tad would wipe them out and I always made a second pass when I'd reached
the final thickness, anyway.

Still a waste of time IMHO, finish sanding solves the problem. Unless
you are skipping the final sanding... OMG!




To understand the ruts, just think about how the planer knives come down,
plunge into the wood, go with the grain and then lift out the chip as the
head rotates. If the knives are not sharp, they bounce against the wood
or bludgeon their way into it.

If you are talking about the ridges that run across the board a slower feed
rate normally takes care of that. When I am running faster feed rates I get
the "ruts" but that is going to happen even with brand new blades. Slowing
down to 16 fpm makes the surface good enough for finish sanding.