Care and Feeding the DeWalt DW735 Thickness Planer

hi and thanks for checking out next-level carpentry I want to title this video the care and feeding of a dual DW 735 thickness planer I'm filming for another video that you'll see where I'll put a wide custom Cove on these panels for some boxed Newell's on a stairway but because these panels are so wide I want them to come out nice and flat and smooth to minimize sanding first I'm going to change the knives in the DW 735 thickness planer so I'll shoot a little video of that that you'll probably see uploaded before two or three videos showing building these box newel posts and these videos are an effort to kind of streamline the video production process so I get more content uploaded without stressing about all the finer points of doing videos which always slows me down so it's kind of an experiment let me know in the comments what you think and we'll go from there let's get to work [Music] well here goes let's call this the care and feeding of a Dewalt DW 735 thickness cleaner I've got this beast mounted on a steel stand that I made makes it portable in the shop I've got this dust gathering attachment that you used to be able to buy with the planer and they quit selling some years back it's a great feature but I guess you can't even get them anymore the last one I got I got on ebay but whenever I'm maintaining power tools I like to use compressed air and it really speeds things up and you can get all this stuff done without compressed air it just makes it faster otherwise you might have to use a brush just move the camera in close like that to get a shot of the action the DW 735 comes with its own Torx wrench for all these screws but because there's so many I like to just take a torch tip my little impact driver because I really speed things up of course the machine is unplugged just slip this cover off and Dewalt has installed this little safety here this is the lock this little switch is what locks the machine in the off position there's a little there's this tab underneath here that slips down in there and the power switch won't work even if it's plugged in when this tab is pushed down in that hole to hold that metal tab down and give this a puff of air to dust out this hopefully that doesn't all end up on the lens of the camera you can see I've got a special plastic tag in here and I use that to log when I switched the blades made that little tab and I just screw it right inside the machine the last time I did these was August 9th of 2017 and today it is January 13th of 2018 so it's about time for a change of blades the three long red bolts if you want to call them that are what holds the cover over the cutter head a nice design feature by Dewalt once those three are taken out and lift this cutter head or lift this dust shroud up and pull it off and that exposes the business end of the machine this isn't too crusty using running wood through like pine that has a lot of pitching it'll stick on to these parts in here you probably already know what but on this planer the knives are two-sided and on my log here I keep track of the sides and what's in here is the second side on the third set of knives that I've had in this planer so rather than flipping the knives edge for edge on this change out I'll be installing a new set of blades on there first side and getting a 2-pack of these is a great value it's just crazy cheap I think it ends up twenty-two dollars for one side and the amount of work that this planer saves pays for that 22 bucks in no time so this the knives in here are razor sharp they're a little less than razor sharp right now because that's why I'm changing them but there's a détente in here this little plate is what keeps the cutter head from spinning when this is opened up and I want to make sure one of the three cutter head sides is facing up on below these blow those screw heads out just to make sure there's nothing in them and I switched the Torx driver bit to this long extension so that I can pull these screws out real easily make sure that that Torx bit is square in those screw heads because if you strip one of those out there a bugger to get out of there just a quick zip of the gun to get these out not a force of habit I start on the outside end and go towards the middle and I don't think that's really essential for this particular tool I do use the blade wrench for this it's got two strong magnets in there and I can lift this blade keeper off of there set it aside and in this case I'm replacing the blade so I'll just get rid of this and you can see how there's a blue line on one edge and the red line on the other edge that's how I mark the knives to make sure that I'm always putting the sharp edge out and a dull edge in one flipping em in the middle on the cutter head one edge of this cutter head that's under the knife it's called the chip breaker this little rounded slot and that edge of the chip breaker is almost as sharp as a knife so don't cut your finger on that either didn't wear the best eye those screws it's really fine powder but it's really important to make sure that tortes tip is down and square and those screws because they strip out real easy ones who wants to escape that container bar even though these knives are too dull to leave the finish I want on those wide Bert's boards there's still plenty sharp enough to lacerate you so be careful push this retainer down to rotate the cutter head to do a planer in this one we had a regular hex head for these and the screw heads were pretty soft if you have an older model planer that doesn't have the torch tip but has those hex heads you got to be extra careful to not strip them out it's a good idea to have a few spares around so if you strip them getting them out you can replace it with a new one going back in so once I've got the knives out blowing the loose dust out of there and on these interior surfaces is the throat where the cutter head is that'll build up with pitch so I'll use a laminate sample chip straight down in there if it's real gummy I'll use that CMT blade and bit cleaner to loosen up that crud because I want those chips to flow smoothly out of the throat here and off into the dust bag in this case it's actually pretty clean use a rag or a paper towel to kind of clean things up and it's important that the cutter head itself is clean don't want any goo or chips on the surface of this cutter head to deflect the knife and make for a imperfect cut and then this little channel here right under the chip breaker that needs to be clean too it's got gum and pitch in there scrape it out I use the rounded corner of a laminate chip in another video I show how to cut a sharp angle on one end of these but that rounded corner is good for cleaning out that little groove sometimes I'll use a little bit of lacquer thinner to wash this off all depends on what I've been planing and how long it's been in between same thing goes for the knife retainer plates make sure they're clean free of gum and pitch these pieces have crisp edges but not to the point where they're going to send you to O R or a hour as it were once I've got that all cleaned up I'd like to give the whole thing a nice bath a sill phone spray because it helps so much for cleanup next time this liquid wrench can boy it really comes out of there some of them come out it's more of a mist like spray paint I really like how much of that comes out and these chipbreaker retainer pieces I'll give them a spritz of silicone to wipe them off with that rag and be careful here too a lot of sharp edges in there a lot of things and slice your fingers so be careful there's a chain that runs around in here and that coordinates the lift mechanism on all four of those posts so I like to run it once around and blow with compressed air to get the dust and crust out of it and then I take a mountain bike bicycle chain lube with this long drip dribble or nozzle on it and take a lap around with that to silicone I'd be good here but not three in one oil just wants something that's pretty lightweight so they're lubes the chain without being so sticky that it comes up with every molecule of dust that blows by and I'm raising this cutter head up on purpose in the process so they can wax the bed later and that puts that in pretty fine shape if dust collector shroud is a mess I'll take one of those sharpened Formica chips and try to clean the junk off of this this is pretty soft plastic the cleaner it is the smoother the exit path of the chips are is whatever I must have been running some really pitchy pine through there to make that such a mess and despite the silicone I sprayed on this last time that stuff stuck I'm gonna have to take it up a notch for cleaning that off first thing I'm gonna try is a little bit of lacquer thinner on a paper towel Micra thinner is a little harsh but it's not melting the plastic so I'm gonna get the rest of that off of there that is actually nothing the plastic a little bit so I'm not gonna use that anymore note to self use something like blade and bit cleaner next time it might be a little slower but it's sustainable for keeping the plastic clean once the piece is cleaned up I'll give it a spritz of silicone spray this piece does have little Phillips screws in it if it got really gummy inside I open up the two halves and clean it out good inside but that's going to be plenty good and I get a little bit excessive with this next step pay heed to the caution edges are sharp don't cut your pinkies and I don't want to rub the edges against each other either I can stick the old blades in the container for proper disposal for the price of new ones I don't think you can sharpen the old ones I will use lacquer thinner on the blades to remove all the oil from them this is the top side with the cutting edges down and a little bit of oil on them from the manufacturer so they don't rust in the package which is a good idea I'll carefully flip them over and even more carefully wait the oil off the backside if you do get caught on these the doctor will appreciate that it's a nice clean cut you're real easy to stitch together for you use a dry paper towel to finish cleaning these and there's a little diamond in the middle of the blade all the diamonds are pointing that way so I'm going to color one edge of this green just an arbitrary color and make the other side red it's like I got the blades for Christmas this just helps me keep track of the blades and the sides the last edges were three and four so this will be five and six and I suppose a younger person wouldn't have to go to such lengths to remember which edge is which so back over here at the thickness planer and just right on this side shift and I'll just go this direction because so that when I install the blade and I'm putting the red edge which is number five towards the chip breaker you can see that these blades have a short slot in them and a small peg so there's a slot in the blade and the peg on the cutter head so when the knife has dropped in there I want to shift all three knives this direction that way in the future if I'm I get a bad chip in one of the knives I can open this up and shift one of the knives that way and then the chip gets offset out of the planing path so I want to start them all on this side and then I can shift them later to clean up Nicks keep it shifted that direction and drop a blade keeper down on there and then with a magnetic tip out of the drill I can start all these screws by hand so they don't get cross started I don't want to start them off with the impact drill in case they're crooked last thing you need is a cross threaded screw and that cutter head down in this machine it takes long enough to change the blades as it is I can reach down in and make sure that knife is still slid through the one direction the knife is slid that way the cover bar is just where it is and the knife is indexed this way on those pecs I don't have to worry about it shifting and I just run the screws in till the impact clicks once starting at the center's going towards the edges probably doesn't matter as much in fact as it doesn't have it and then I'll go back through and make sure they've all got the same torque on them and push this down to rotate the cutter head now being extra extra careful because there's a brand new knife blade in there waiting to slice my finger repeat the process with those other two blades that all three blades replaced with an edge number five in the being used position and all the blades are shifted that direction for eliminating chips later on all that cleaned up and bolt the down double-check as necessary everything sprayed with silicone and cleaned up and put the dust collector shroud back on and I updated my maintenance log the fourth set installed January 13th 2018 and install the strings back in their places and like to make sure I get all three of them started before I tighten any one of them down because that cover likes to shift around a little bit and it can be hard to get the screw started sometimes the roller chain has exposed a little bit more on this side from the camera over here this is actually a better place for dusting and oiling the chain because it's easier to see one final dust out all the screws are gone that means they're all in the cutter head everything's tightened up and ready to go and slide the cover back into place start the screws my hand tighten with the drill the other thing I like to do at this point is to wax the platen with some paste wax really like this Johnson's paste wax it's good and thick it's got heavy body to it it seems to last quite a while and if you've seen my video about cleaning cast-iron tabletops I use the same process of taking a rag and using a Formica chip or a spoon take a glob of wax out of the can drop it into the middle of the rag and then push the wax into a ball where it'll seep through the cloth and you can apply a nice heavy coat quite easily I tried to get a good angle on the camera if your planar platen has any pitch on it or gummy build up its another time I'll take a Formica chip and scrape it clean this one's clean right now just because of what I've been running through there but that's the first step for this and then just take that waxy rag give it a nice heavy swirling coat of wax make sure that the cutter had is plenty high up because those blades are up here and if you do the wrong thing the wrong way at the wrong time you're gonna lacerate your knuckles without hardly knowing you did it and I think everybody uses the infeed and outfeed tables on this planer if you don't you don't recognize these I highly recommend them and just take my wax rag stick it back in the can for next time I buff that wax down and if you pass this as it dries another thing I'll point out is that if you've done everything you can to minimize snipe on your planer but just get some make sure your planer flatten this clean smooth and waxed the harder the feed rollers have to work to push the piece through the more snipe you'll get the slicker this is the lesson type you'll have products like dry coat and stuff are good for this also I've kind of gravitated towards paste wax over the years seems to have a little more body to it lasts a little bit longer but that might be nostalgic taking over reality bottom line is get something on there that slicks it up nice so your work feed smoother through the planer when that's done your eggs are glide right through another maintenance item to take care of at this time when the planer heads in all the way up position just to make sure the infeed and the outfeed roller are clean the camera died when I did this a minute ago there was a bunch of chips stuck to this outfeed roller so I just took a cloth and wiped it off and then plug the planer in and blip the switch to get the roller to come around to the other dirty side unplug the Machine and then wipe it off depending on what stuck to the roller might need to use the Formica chip to clean it off and sometimes I'll use something harsh like lacquer thinner or goof off to clean that roller and get all the pitch and stuff out of it but sometimes the chips in those rollers can actually put an impression in the wood but at the least that decreases the traction for pulling pieces through the planer and they just work better when they're clean and that pretty well covers the blade changing process and some routine maintenance that I do on this thickness planer it's a great machine and with a little bit of TLC this eliminates so much work and so much sanding and I don't know how I ever lived without one and because I don't have an official dust collector in the shop this dust collection bag that hooks up to the chip ejection port just does a fantastic job of putting the bulk of those shavings right into a garbage can that really cranks down smooth the nice lubricated chain everything's all cleaned out for a wide board like this I'll switch to the slow planer speed and I don't know if you've ever experienced it before when that set of knives is brand new and you're true on the slope ass you hit this with sandpaper and actually makes it rougher just an unbelievable finish the kid will show in the camera you can see that reflection of the lights in that surface it is absolutely flawless of course until the first speck of dust or sand goes through and puts a microbe Nick in my blades and as a side note they make a helical cutter head for this machine I've never used one but I know that the finish from a helical cutter head isn't the same as one made with a straight sharp knife and while I like the helical cutter head in my jointer because the cutters are carbide and that thing can remove an incredible amount of material in no time I don't want a helical cutter head on the final pass because with a smaller diameter cutter head in this machine the cutters make more of little scallops instead of a nice wide slice and that's kind of a technical thing and I think the carbide cutter head in a DW 735 would be great for removing a lot of material maybe in a tough woods like Hickory but then for a finish pass I'd always want to do it with the straight knifes to minimize sanding in the end that's just my two cents worth so I guess that's a wrap for the care and feeding of a Dewalt VW 735 thickness planer I hope you found some information in there helpful the video is going to be a little rough because I'm gonna try to just package it up and get it uploaded to get the content out there without worrying about a bunch of fancy editing stuff so I hope you found that helpful maybe came up with a pointer or two that will help you get better performance out of your planer and better results in your work this is the sort of content that I want to share a next-level carpentry so I hope you find it helpful enough that you'll subscribe to keep it out for new stuff that comes along when I can get to it it's probably play nerdist I mean it's probably plain to see that video production isn't my strong suit but I hope some of the pointers from actually using this machine make it worth your while for watching the video now that the planer is all sharpened up I'm gonna run these wide boards through and put the cove on them for the Box newel posts that I'm making and when all the videos are done I'll have links at the end going back and forth between the two and in the meantime thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Next Level Carpentry

Views: 257,963

Keywords: dewalt, de walt, planer, thickness, planner, plainer, knives, knifes, blades, cutters, dw7352-2, sharp, dull, nick, nicked, snipe, wax, glide cote, cmt 2050, silicone, shop, boards, smooth, cuts per inch, infeed, outfeed, flatten, next level carpentry, protradecraft, tools of the trade, tott.net, matt jackson, fine homebuilding, fine woodworking, jlc, carpenter, millwork, newel, newell, post, balluster

Id: r_yEwlsYGbU

Length: 23min 26sec (1406 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2018