Planer Help

Ravenerabnorm

Hi,
I am relatively new to the milling of hardwoods and have purchased a thicknesser planer combo.

I practiced a bit on a small piece of wood where I managed to successfully flatten a face and then an edge at 90 degrees. I then tried a bigger board, which I cut in half for convenience.

Any way I tried planing the face and after a few passes of shallow cuts I removed the board and checked for flatness. To my surprise there appeared to be a section of the board not in the same plane as the rest (which wasn't snipe). Curiosity got the better of me so I increased the depth of cut and took a good few passes. I had managed to put a taper into the board that didn't span the entire length of the board. See image.


I tried to joint an edge and got the same problem. The point at which the taper ends is at a different point than where the face taper ends.




I checked the machine and it appears to be set up properly - knife height, co planer tables etc. I'm quite positive it's my technique. Could anyone shed some light on how I may sort this problem out?

tabby aspreme

Check the outfeed table height .

the_pen_turner

what kind of planer.
what length beds

I think it is your technique. when you feed should be pushing towards the fence more than the bed as you start. as soon as you get some of the timber safely past the cutter you should be pushing towards the fence and towards the bed. 74if you put pressure on the infeed side you will not straighten the boards

recipio

Adjust the infeed table back to zero and check both tables for flatness with a straight edge. They should be absolutely parallel with each other. Otherwise your blades might be set too high. Reset them to just 'kiss' the wood on the outfeed table as you rotate the block.

kadman

Are both tables adjustable, sometimes the outfeed table is static, and not adjustable.

Ravenerabnorm

Thanks for your replies guys. Sorry I was unable get at my machine till now as I had been busy. Its a clarkes 10" Planer thicknesser and the total length of the planer beds are 920mm - so roughly 460mm for each bed.


I have checked the beds are straight with two different straight edges and parallel using an inclinometer. With both beds aligned the knives touch the straight edge at the 12 o clock position and move it ever so slightly for one blade and just tip it with the other.


Took some photos of a ruler moving when being touched by the knives


is that small horizontal movement enough to cause a serious taper over a board?

tabby aspreme

The knives being out of parallel slightly shouldn't give you that much taper when planing, but you should have them parallel for thicknessing, when you are starting to plane a face or edge always start with the straightest or flattest side or whichever side is has a concave curve never the convex side, use a straight piece of hardwood about 25/25 /300 mm long with a pencil mark for checking the blades for parallel not the steel ruler

Ravenerabnorm

Thanks for the help guys. I used a dial indicator to make sure the blades were parallel and equal in level to the planer outfeed table. After repeated cuts on some scrap timber, the planer was planing flat surfaces with no taper.
Unfortunately I think I may not have tightened one of the gib screws enough and when the planer hit a knot in the wood, the wood managed to get in between the knife and the wedge that keeps the knife in place. Warped it a little and now there is a bit of a gap between the blade and the wedge. 
I'm afraid to run it in its current condition in case the wood enters the gap again. I hope to hammer the wedge back into shape at the weekend.