Planer Knife Setting with Bob Vaughan

hi I'm Bob Vaughn contributing editor to fine woodworking magazine this is a companion video to my article in issue 107 on setting planer knives we're in my shop now in Roanoke Virginia and I'm going to show how to set up a planer using inexpensive shop-made dial indicator bases the bases use an ordinary dial indicator I'll be making these gauge bases fairly quickly I'll then be focusing on how to use them so you can set the knives and make the adjustments in your own cleaner each gauge as of which you may want to rewind this and play this first part back a few times to until you get all the details let's go over to the planer which I've unplugged and made ready for this video take the planer we're going to be tuning is a 1948 Parkes 12-inch model which has everything you're likely to encounter in a planer your machine may have some differences but the principles I'll be showing are still the same to help diagnose the planers performance it's sometimes helpful to look at a plane board that has some surface imperfections these defects can be a result of operator error or more likely because the machine has problems we can see that there's a nick in the knives we can see that we've got some problems here from all this wash board going down to here there's a bit of a chip out through here more chip out down through here and we've got a good bit of slight pier on the end when I'm tuning thickness planers in the field I use professional grade instruments such as this one it's made of metal and for over 75 years I have found however that a wooden gage base such as this one is perfectly serviceable for the small of the home shop let's have a quick anatomy lesson on the planer before I show how to make these little wooden gage bases I've got some magic markers here and I'm going to use them to mark out the seven critical components of the planer first there's the cutter head that holds the knife switch I'm marking in red over here I have a full-scale sketch showing a cross-section of the machine and here again is the cutter head second is the planer bid which I'm marking in dark green and here's where the bit is on the sketch third we have the infeed roller which I'm marking in purple and on the sketch fourth is the chip breaker which are marking in yellow the chip breaker pivots down in position like so here's where the chip breaker is on the sketch I've gone around the outfeed side of the planer here to mark the fifth major component to pressure bar the pressure bar is located here on the sketch six to the outfeed roller which I'm using light green for here again is the outfeed roller on the sketch seventh and final we have the bed rollers which are marking in pink one on the outfeed side and the other on the infeed bed the pair bed rollers are here on our drawing now that we know where most everything is let's determine what size dial indicator to use so we can build our little gauge basis for setting planer knives I use a dial indicator with a one and three-quarter inch diameter face it fits easily into the planer for internal adjustments and above it fits just fine over the cutter head to set the knives we need to make a cutter head base to support the indicator in line over the planer knife this sketch shows where the base needs to be in relation to the knife the stem of the indicator will go through the middle its axis will extend to the center of the cutter head this shape should do the trick there are two holes for the bolts to hold the stem in place and to allow adjustments now stick this pattern onto a block of wood after a bit of work at the drill press and then at the bandsaw including a quick cut down the middle we're ready to assemble the cutter head gage these are number 1024 bolts and wing nuts one gage down and one to go the second gage supports the indicator on the planer bed it needs to straddle the bed rollers I'm using this paper to determine proper size it'll hold the indicator both right side up and upside down to set all the components a hole is drilled through the base to allow the indicators plunger to function over here on the machine you can see how the gauge will work the base is actually going to be of a tripod shape one foot in front and two in the rear you can see that the pencil marks show where the feet will span across the bed gaps now I'm tracing the template onto the piece of hardwood here's what the indicator load goes then like before you need to do a little work on the bandsaw and on the drill press here I've chucked to steel down into my drill press so I can push the threaded inserts into place in the wooden base these are where the screw feet will go and voila we've got a bed gauge base and if you can't tune your planer with it you can always use it like a Ouija board the bottoms of these screws right here you may want to round over and polish because on some of the imported machines with the softer metal it'll scratch the beds now let's get the rest of the tools that I need for this job first thing I need is a chair good high stool next thing I need to felt-tip marker for marking the cutter head I need some Allen wrenches got an L wrench and one on the end of the screwdriver here to tighten the set screws plastic hammer and the wooden block which you may remember from the joiner article to knock the planer knives down with and lastly two devices to raise the planer knife one pry bar and one ice pick first night one spin it two three done here's a newly sharpened knife I'm going to put this one in now now look over my shoulder while I do this first thing I do is put the lock shim in and you replace one knife at a time you remove and replace one knife at a time otherwise you can get some real distortions on the cutter head and you slide the knife down in here make sure everything in the bottom of the slot is nice and clean first thing I'm going to do is set the gage I've got number one knife in here and I haven't said it it's just sitting in there loose I'm going to go back to an existing knife and since we've got plenty of room if you'll notice right back here at the back I've got just enough room showing here and on the top side of the lock shim we've got plenty of room to make a good cut in there this knife is set real well so I'll adjust my gauge to touch on this first knife and I'll rock it back and forth and it's not touching I can see that the plunger isn't touching so I'll loosen the two set screws and a wiggling gauge down just enough so it cut touches a little bit I want the dial pushing too much so I'll lock it down at that position and then though that's about where I want my knives at that height now we're going to go back to the original knife and I put in let me give you a couple of quick pointers about how to use this with the thumb and the forefinger it's a good idea to hold the pressure equally consistent all the way around and hold that make sure both edges of this piece right here these two edges stay flat on the cutter head if they start locking up or back it will distort your readings and be consistent with your down pressure on here just rock it back and forth like that real easy first thing I do is set this back reveal about even with the rest of the knives that I see on here then I put the cutter head on the left side and then just push it up and down with my fingers till I get it about 0 then I go behind there and I tighten that knife i snug just very lightly snug that night but I want to show you how this is knives are held into this thing there you in by socket headset screws that go through the cutter head and into the bottom of the lock shim but this is not the only way nor is it the most popular weight knives are held in two round cutter heads now we're looking at the back end of my Delta 18 inch planer now if you'll notice look in here in the cutter head you'll see a couple of different details that use that's different from the parks we have the options here and the locks um screws are here in the slot and you have to approach these things with a wrench such as this this is much like the joiners that we saw in the jointer video also differently are these the way the knives are raised and lowered here this has a jack screw now put this bolt tip driver in here and if you can see as I loosen my jack screw it would push the blade outwards and that's quite helpful also a little tip when I change knives I'll put the date right here somewhere with them be on a piece of masking tape or it doesn't get torn up with chips and everything so I can remember when I changed my knives they're just lightly snug it up so it's not going to move then I'll go over to the right hand side and that's where I started my real knife setting and as you can see probably about 5,000 slow I'm going to insert my toothpick my ice pick in here and I will raise that thing up just a little bit I like to leave it down about a thousandth because when you tighten these things they usually raise a little bit just because that slot is an expansion you're expanding that slot rather than tightening much down on it and so it actually raises the knife so I'm snugging this down not not much just a little pressure there to see how she's doing I'll double check it around see what happened when I raised that in there aha right on the money okay that first set screw is good so I'm going to remove my gauge again go back over to the left side and loosen that one up I first tightened up because this is the actual set for me since I'm right-handed this left hand side is the easiest to maneuver and I'll maneuver that blade up and down and up and down it with the ice pick or the block so I move now my neck indicator over to the next set screw hole and I'm about five thousand slow so insert the ice pick and move it up a little bit can you see the gauge movement see it's got some spring to it now there I am about thousands low actually thousands high and so I'm going to tighten that next one put that in there snug that up lock it over there there we are right on the money next OOP that seems a little high so we adjust that accordingly bonk bonk there it is about a thousand slow just like that one we're gonna go back in a few minutes and tighten all these down whoo that's real high look at that just to finish things up we go back through each one snug it up real good and tight now but not so tight that you're going to hurt things sin here we go it's nice to do all your pounding away from the cutter head because those knives are sharp that's good now I'll go too - umber - and knife number three and get them all set parallel to the gutter head and before I go to the next knife pull it out I'm going to double-check my settings here there we go that's good that's the lie that's good and the money good well there that's good okay we finish the knives now we're ready to do the bed check the bed I've got the two Allen wrenches that I might need the dial indicator put it in the little base we made screw through their baleen it on now we're ready to zero things I'm going to now check to see if the bed is parallel to the car here and do this I've put the dial indicator gauge under there see where the one's your tip is on the bed up until I can get a reading off the bed there we go we touched and move it back and forth under the bed and lower the bed and roll the bed up till it hits the zero okay remove the cutterhead gauge to the other side of the cutter head move it back and forth and I'm sitting on 0 there too so this bed is parallel to the cutter head every cutter head and bed adjustment is different on about every planar I've ever seen so you're going to have to refer to your own manufacturers instructions to figure out how your suggests when I show you what we're going to do next everything that we work on these four components that we're going to work on up here is set in relation to the arc of these knives the tip of that knife makes an arc down there the bottom dead center that night that's the important point first thing we're going to work on are the two the infeed roller and the chip breaker on the infeed side of the planer now the distance they should be below the arc of the knife I'm going to exaggerate and draw this in there there they should be 1/32 back to the Machine again I'm going to put the gauge under the cutter head and zero the gauge to the bottom dead center of the arc of the ninth I will have to be head up a little bit take you little kiss off of the cutter head to find bottom dead center okay there's bottom dead center then I'll roll the bed down rock the knife right over top of the top of the plunger so you know that the knife and the top of the plunger on both the bottom dead center and you raise the bed up until the knife is just barely touching the plunger and drop it down raise things up until your gauge reaches zero so we know that zero is bottom dead center of the arc of the knife now I'm going to move the gauge up and span the bed roller slot and go underneath the infeed roller and we see that this side is about ten thousand slower than what we want it to be I move it to the other side to the left side to see what it's going to be and move it back and forth and it's well it's way low we want that thing to come up to about thirty to thirty five thousand so I need to do some adjustments here loosen the locknut and then with this bottom wrench which on this machine executes the raise and lower I start turning it while I watch the dial indicator and that ways down this way is up I turn the nut raises it I turn the nut some more it raises it some more and turn the nut some more and there we are at 35 I like about 35 thousandths is good now if we go over to the right side we noticed originally earlier it was lower go over to the right side you look quick here that it's probably going to be up close to where we want it yeah it's up at about thirty you notice the bright side is raised too so that's routine both sides raise when you raise one side now I'm going to loosen the right side loosen and turn it slightly so there we do we've got five as you tighten these things as you tighten these wrenches up you got to watch your gauge there next I'm going to chip the chip breaker I'm going to drop the chip breaker down or if you'll notice too on this chip breaker here's my adjustments the lock screw and this thing and it drops down and in this machine it rests right here and so I'm going to put the gauge under there and I'll twist the gates to the side because this is a triangular base I'll twist the gauge to the side a little bit and check my chip breaker and it's about where I want it 25 thousandths 32 is often good this one works real good at 25 because I've checked it before we're about to get into the most critical component on any of the planners that I've ever worked on the pressure bar which is right here on this particular machine and on most machines what I like to do is take the bottom of the arc bottom dead center of the cutter head knife arc and make it below this chip breaker draw this line in here now this distance here should be about point zero zero three all the way across three thousandths above bottom dead center of the arc of the knife that way when the board goes under the thing it doesn't bump on your pressure bar the outfeed roller is going to be the same dimension as the infeed roller about 1/32 below that so this is going to line up so over everything it's just beef as you can see the 30 seconds below the arc of the ninth I've just zeroed the gauge to the bottom of the knife arc I'll bring it forward to check the pressure bar right into the pressure bar and if you'll see this is one thousandth lower than the arc of the knife so we need to do some adjustment but I've got to stand up put my wrenches on so everybody should have this little fancy gadget in their kit and that's a mirror on an angle block of wood that you can set on the table and you can stand up look down at the mirror and make your adjustments and watch the dial indicator move to where you want it and here I go I'm turning and there we go 3000 see that just locks right and there's Teddy's I'm pleased I can stand up and look at that I don't have to break my back down up down up and under that there we go we're locked in at about three now I'm going to check the left side yeah there we go there's about three thousands not my wrenches now it's time to check the last and final part is the bed rollers upside down to do this out up spray through there the set screw with a wing nut tighten it down now we've got bed rollers here and here the height of the bed rollers if you're going to face joint your lumber first should be and I'll draw this over here above the bed about five thousands if you're going to be using it's a rough lumber first and you're just going to be making some molding or whatever anyway you're going to be going into rough lumber this distance right here should increase - OH - oh this should be higher if you're going to be rough face down when you first feed your lumber and I'm going to show you a little trick on how to make that adjustment okay the plunger tip is rolling across the top of the bed roller I can't see it good so to see this I'm going to put my little light back in there can you see that there we go that looks good you can see where it rolls across there just roll it back and forth - check it out and it's about 7,000 hi want to lower that a little bit or that bed roller we're going to have to go underneath the bed take a look at see how this whole rig works underneath there see the to the block of steel down there that's a varying block that the bed roller rests in I've got some feeler gauges some sheet metal that I've been up and I put on a little string here in my hand and what I do is I slip these between the top of the screw and the bottom of the little bearing block and that raises the bed roller so you can just have an instant adjustment here if you see for the lights on it up in through there and I slide this push the bearing block up is going to be tough to get there we go now I'm going to use the other do the other side of that lower put the light up there so I can see and slide this up underneath there you know like maybe - push it there okay now that we've got this finished I've got two more pieces of sheet metal then I'm going to go put on the front bed roller yep it goes in the shim goes down it comes and there we are there I've added those shims so that we can raise those bed rollers and run rough lumber for the first pass real easily please know that these dimensions that I've shown here are basically conventions that I use in the field often I'll have to adjust these things depending on the machine the wear and so forth like that for instance the chip breaker which I've suggested be 1/32 below the arc of the knife may have to be raised up slightly because it might have a flat spot down here or it might be built like this adjust these accordingly use these dimensions first if you have no others if you have none from the factory or so forth like that also you'll notice that all of these were adjustable on your machine if your infeed and outfeed rollers are not adjustable or your pressure bar is not adjustable or any of these are not adjustable then you're going to have to adjust the height of the knife to adjust the arc to where it should be you're going to have to raise this knife up or down and when you do that you need to bot watch the back end of the knife and don't get it up here too far out you know above the centreline of the pressure that the screw is putting it on putting on there because if you get the knife above that she's going to come out and when it does that's no fun let me show you what I mean by that right here looking at the end of this cutter head this knife is really too short see how far down into the groove it goes and there's a lock shim now if I set this thing out far enough so it's going to cut out about here you can see how much there is behind the thing that's not a good point this knife can come out easily if you set it out about here you can see where the center is right at the center point of pressure and this knife is likely to come out and that's exactly what happened to this cutter head right here and I'll roll it over here and you can kind of take a look and see what happened when the knife came out of this cutter head see how this stuff was bent on back mashed-up torn up right here this cutter head was virtually ruined because there's no back in there to hold the knife anymore of his all mashed up ok we're back at our sketch pad board again some of you may have a cutter or head that has only two knives that's not really a big problem you've got to redesign your base simply draw a line from the center out like that and here's one that I have made this suggested way Kandor leavers the dial indicator overtop the cutter head like so some other details I want to discuss is the bed it needs to be flat the best way to check a bed is see if it's flat is to put a good straight edge on it usually in the middle and a strong light from the backside and see if you can see any light from under there if you do see light from under there chances are that bed is going to be requiring a Rhema Sheen job another thing that can give you problems on a planer is if it is loose on the ways that it rides up and down for instance if you got a bed that you can walk up and down like that you're definitely going to get a snipe when you begin in a snipe when you finish it needs to be snug this one is smoked up by these by the lock shim right here and the set screws and the lock nuts another point to look at is the infeed roller or any of the rollers in here for that matter make sure that the point they aren't so old and worn that they're a different diameter here than they are here kind of like an old rolling pin if they are like that it's time to take your rollers to a machine shop and have them re-- machined now you might notice - these serrations here are going all the way across some machines have sectional feed rollers that go all the way across and also sectional chip breakers and they are spring-loaded and go up and down when you're setting those up you just pretty much have to average it out and that usually works out pretty good also another point the on these serrated in feed rollers the point that should be sharp is this point right here now I'm going to make a large drawing of that each one of these pieces look kind of like this and it's this edge right here that needs to be sharp on an old machine often this gets rounded over like that and it really creates feed problems also you'll find that these on some machines these rollers right here both this in feed roller and this out feed roller or rubber that's just fine but they can also wear and give you that rolling pin effect and they can also be Rhema Sheen if they re machine make sure that they're both the same diameter if they're not the same diameter when they come off those lathes and one will be turning a little faster than the other this chip breaker raises and lowers has to have a hinge point if you look back here on the hinge point these screws right here is where this chipbreaker hinges from there's a couple of set screws on either side right down in these holes that hold these screws in tight these are of course tight on rare occasion after many years of use these set screws can loosen up these screws come out and this chip breaker dropped down into a spinning cutter head that's no fun also on a machine like this and on a lot of machines that you don't have a dust collector immediately hooked up to what you can do is put a piece of wood over top of it to deflect the chips and you can use it as a table to put things on a surface to pass wood back and forth - now I'm preparing to plane that first board I've just sprayed the top of Sandero top coat got the lubricant good and dry I'm going to take a block of wax and I'm going to roll this wax on the chip breaker and also go back up underneath here and roll the wax on the pressure bar lubricating both of these things is real important here's the board we're going to test this out with this is a piece of poplar it's crooked twisted warp it's rough on both sides and if it can do this thing it'll do about anything now here's the board smooth silky smooth clean and nice but here's the tell-tale sign look at these long chips that came off the machine see how long that is each one of these chips looks like matchsticks that's what tells you your planer is really tuned right

Channel: Joe Wells

Views: 116,119

Rating: 4.7911229 out of 5

Keywords: googlevideo

Id: uSM7Jrg34a8

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Tue May 08 2012