John Grossbohlin wrote:



My radar goes off when I hear things like this... "total rebuild of
the feed train." I'd try cleaning, lubing and adjusting, and maybe
looking at the process, before going down that path. Just today I had
one of those "need to replace it" things with the dishwasher...
Instead I "fixed" it with a little cleaning and liquid silicone to
lube and restore the rubber washer and rod on the float switch...

Mine does as well. I'm still researching this but at least I know what the
worst case cost is.


A couple questions.

Firstly, are the feed rollers turning when it's running? If not, you
may have a broken/jumped drive chain or there may be a sheared key in
the sprocket on the roller.

Yes - they do turn.


If the rollers are in fact turning, as others have suggested it could
be the roller height relative to the cutters that is the problem...
I'd also check to see that the rollers move up and down under spring
tension. If they seem to be fixed in place it could indicate that the
spring loaded bearing blocks are stuck in place from crud or rust.
Stuck rollers would impact how it feeds the wood.

Something I am trying to see, even now. Having looked at the IPB to put
together a parts list, I noticed that the rollers appear to be spring loaded
by small coil springs. Still working on how to get at them in the least
invasive manner.


You mentioned that the board is not flat... Was one side face jointed
first and then placed jointed side down in the thickness planer? If
not, a sled with wedges to hold the board securely while it's feeding
might be needed as the board could be flexing and not maintaining
good contact with the feed rollers.

It has the very slightest of a cup to it.

If it's rough cut wood you are
feeding that sometimes that causes problems if the surface is very
rough as there is not a lot of contact surface. Also, sometimes the
wood's thickness varies from edge to edge to the point where little
wood is in contact with the rollers. I've had rough cut that was so
rough that the ridges from the saw marks would catch on the frame and
or edge of the bed of the planer and prevent the wood from feeding. If you
don't have a jointer a hand plane could be used to
flatten/smooth the wood enough to get it to feed.

Thanks.


--

-Mike-