Thread: Planer Advice
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dpb dpb is offline
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Default Planer Advice

On 1/30/2013 10:52 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
....

As I had said to Leon, when I looked in there last night, I sure did
think that the cutters looked like they were lower than the rollers.
Didn't seem to me that it should be that way.


Make a gauge block and check...cut a piece of hardwood roughly 3" or so
length and square the ends...cut out the middle on the bottom to make
some smaller "legs" and so it will clear a lower bed roller (if there
are any) and set flat on table. Whack 45's on the top edges to leave a
relatively small test surface.

To use, lower the table to insert, then raise and manually rotate cutter
head until just touch knife tips...you can also check are parallel to
table w/ this setup.

At that point w/o moving the table, move the block to under the
infeed/outfeed rollers and check their elevation relative to the
cutterhead cut height.

Don't have spec's on the one at hand, but should probably be roughly
1/8-3/16" below, depending on just how strong a spring set this puppy uses.


It might be seated correctly, but the depth may be off. When knives
are sharpened, they lose some width.


Which will raise them relative to the feed roller, not lower...

Check the documentation relative to the machine with a view towards
finding the adjustment screws and how to set them.


Roger...w/ the above measurement of knowing where they're set currently...

Well, I made some progress on the monster and did manage to get it planing
better. The thing still will not feed, and the local Ridgid warranty shop
says that's common. It's a total rebuild of the feed train...


What was their reason for that? Is it a product defect w/ a new design
replacing those for whom they get complaints, maybe????

I looked at the owner's manual at the Ridgid site but it's not detailed
enough to tell--is there a rear pressure bar/chip breaker behind the
cutter head (not the rear roller but a fixed piece) by any chance?

I've never had one of the lunchbox planers to mess with having only the
full-size industrial-grade/strength Rockwell/Delta/PM at hand. W/ them
there is a chipbreaker and it has to also be adjusted to be just above
the cutter circle when knives are sharpened/adjusted. If it is too low,
the workpiece will rub after being planed making feeding very hard where
power feed likely won't be enough.

If there's a fixed but non-adjustable one and the knives have been
sharpened it's possible they've been ground down to the point where the
same thing has happened. You can find this out from the parts manual
I'd hope and, of course, the test gauge above will also find any
constraint in the outfeed path.

Oh, I guess one other possibility could be the outfeed table high
compared to the in--how are they fixed on this little thing???

Gauge block idea--
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