Hello everyone,

The previous upgrade I did to my planer was to install a Byrd cutterhead in
it.

The latest upgrade was to install a Wixey digital height gauge onto my
Canadian made General model 130 14" planer.

Here is a shot of the guage fresh out of the box,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey1.jpg

It didn't come with much, just a random bag of screws and things that didn't
look too helpful to me.

I checked the Wixey web site to see if anyone had posted pics of an install
on a 130. No one had, so it looked like I was on my own.

I held the gauge in various places on the planer until I found the place I
wanted to mount it,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey2.jpg

Once I figured out where to place the gauge, I took it apart and made
cardboard templates of the brackets I would have to make,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey3.jpg

I bought some 2" wide by 1/8" thick aluminum stock to make the brackets out
of. I traced my cardboard patterns onto the aluminum and cut the parts out
on a 14" bandsaw. A little work with both a round and a flat file and things
looked pretty good. I also had to drill some holes in the brackets for where
the screws would attach the Wixey to the bracket, and the brackets to the
planer,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey4.jpg

I then marked for those hole on my planer before drilling and tapping the
cast iron to accept the pan head machine screws that would hold the brackets
in place,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey5.jpg

Next I mounted the Wixey to the main bracket,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey6.jpg

I put the Wixey back together and installed in on my planer,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey7.jpg

You can see the screws that are holding on the brackets I made.

Now that the Wixey is installed, it is time to calibrate it.

Here is a gratuitous shot of me planing a board,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey8.jpg

I now take this board and use the onboard calibration function of the Wixey
to set zero,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey9.jpg

I lift up the spring loaded scale of the Wixey and place the board on the
reference tab and press "Calibrate" for 3 seconds. This sets the gauge to
zero.

I raise the head up to 0.435" or 7/16" (trust me, that is what it says, bad
photo)

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey10.jpg

and run a board through.

I then measure the board with my trusty dial caliper,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey11.jpg

Looks like I am off 0.003" or less than 1/300". Pretty good.

Lets raise the cutterhead to 0.405" or 13/32",

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey12.jpg

Make a cut and measure the result,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wixey13.jpg

Looks like I am out almost 1/1000". grin

I am very happy with the upgrade, but I do not suggest it for the
mechanically challenged. For some planers, you are going to have to figure
out the entire install yourself.

I didn't install this so I can mill my boards to exactly 0.750", but rather
for repeatability. When I mill boards, I often go for "maximum thickness"
that I can get from a board, be it, 13/16", 7/8" or 27/32". I don't work
from set plans and I usually make everything up as I go along, so my only
real goal was repeatability, and I now think I have that.

For those of you with bench top planers, you might not know this, but cast
iron planers have a minimum thickness they must remove per pass. Because of
the highly sprung serrated infeed roller is set lower than the cutterhead,
you must take off around 1/64" minimum per pass, or the infeed roller leaves
marks on the board. On a bench top planer, you can pass the same board
through twice without adjusting the cutterhead and not have a problem due to
the rubber infeed and outfeed rollers.

I used to have difficulty sneaking up specific thicknesses, but this gauge
should allow me to just set cutterhead and get the job done.

Thanks for looking,

David.

Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:53:08 -0800, "David F. Eisan"
wrote:

I used to have difficulty sneaking up specific thicknesses, but this gauge
should allow me to just set cutterhead and get the job done.

I installed one on a DeltaTP300, not happy over the long haul. I need
to make the mounting of it more solid the sticky foam tape did not
hold up well over time. A solid mechanical mount would be best. Have
not got around to it though, round tuits I have though.

Mark
(sixoneeight) = 618

nice
i would say it was easy and would endorse it to anyone not familiar with
decimal of the inch
btw, 7/16" = .4375", which rounded is either .438" or .437"
and 13/32=.406".

Either your indicators discrimination is .005", or you're in in the habit of
rounding off to .005". In reality that ain't gonna be a problem, but I
would never persoanlly alow it. Everything I do I do to within a tolerance
of about that much. If I introduced that amount into the "system"
intentionally at the beginning I could never live with myself.

The dial caliper you show is good to show any 001" anywhere between any and
at all points to its end, and also is good for all of those .0005", so
you're actually out by .4375"-.432", or 5.5 thou. Unless you can't, you
have to zero set that. I understand it may not be repeatable, but if you
get consistent results.... You only get a few of those, and after that, you
can start reading them off on a tape measure. I never use a tape measure.
Its impossible. For the same reason I would never use a fractional caliper.

I know the /16ths of by heart, and always line up quarters between thous on
the dial gage, accurately I must add.



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I'm just gonna point out the logic. I took a $20 caliper ($30 befor sale)
to the gage blocks and measured at a bunch of random points. They were all
right. I've never been proven wrong. The whole spinning dial thing rides
(literally) on the tiny threaded rack set into the inside of the shaft of
the caliper, which has the writing. If all of the .001"s are right. All of
them. From this one to that one, from the begiining to that one. From the
second from the last to third from the first, then they are all right. Any
point in between these accurate .001" points is a linear ride on that
thread. With the exception of slop, its a ride on the linear. You can
actually logically measure .0001" with a dial caliper. In practise it is
left up to a micrometer. And some people actual buy micrometers that are
good only to .001", go figure.



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OTOH, if your discrimination of your indicator is 5 thou, and you can gt to
within 1 thou on your m/c, then all the more power to ya.



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bent wrote:
And some people actual buy micrometers that are
good only to .001", go figure.

Somehow, I manage to get by with these when measuring wood thickness:

http://www.garrettwade.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=106171&itemType=PRODUCT&iMai nCat=12395&iSubCat=12407&iProductID=106171

Boy, am I imprecise! G

B A R R Y wrote:
bent wrote:
And some people actual buy micrometers that are
good only to .001", go figure.

Somehow, I manage to get by with these when measuring wood thickness:

http://www.garrettwade.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=106171&itemType=PRODUCT&iMai nCat=12395&iSubCat=12407&iProductID=106171

Boy, am I imprecise! G

Those are great! Mine are a little longer, good to 1/128 th.
I, on impulse, bought a digital caliper once, but one time grabbed my
old one, without thinking, to check to see if the digital was
right...sooooo.. in the drawer it went... now still needing a battery.
I mean, if you use a familiar caliper over a new-fangled one, you have
a caliper you trust.
I have well over a dozen tape measures. They all measure the same. I
only 'really' trust one.
Most of this crap is in one's head.

r--- who likes them little brass jobbies.

thats a comparator, not a measuring instrument



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digital bdh, unless using SPC, statistical process control, under cnc where
there are many variables that need to be taken into consideration possibly
within the program itself. ATC is an example, automatic tool change.
Lights and humans are optional.

with a dial you can rock and roll



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the wheel, now theres an invention



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besides precision is a matter of relativity. You're just inaccurate.



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hey, I know nothing about a planer, or how its supposed to function, other
than it planes wood flat to a thickness. How repeatable are you getting,
and if u got (a sec), what does a planer, or yours do this?



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