Rockwell Invicta 12" Planer

[John Bailey]

Has anyone had experience with this planer, or one like it. I would like a smaller planer, but would like to have a heavy duty one instead of a lunchbox. Are there advantages (besides the portability), or am I being anal.

John

[Lamar Horton]

I just ugraded from the 2 speed lunch box to one like the invicta. It has a much more powerful motor, three knives and weighs about 400 thousand pounds. It took three people to load it and two people to unload (should of had three ) I haven't been able to use it yet but the guy ran a piece of ash through it when I bought it and it came out smoother than my two speed planer, no snipe and it was quieter. I think I made a good swap.

Lamar

[John Bailey]

Thanks for the reply Lamar. Was it one of the older 12" models or one of the newer 15" models?

John

[Charlie Plesums]

I don't have a Rockwell, but I do have a commercial grade 16 inch. The good news is that the pressure from the metal feed roller eliminates the concept of snipe, as long as the first side is absolutely flat before it goes into the planer. This is a big improvement over the soft rubber feed rollers on the lunchbox planers.

The only bad news is that the last pass has to take off at least about .02 inches (1/64 inch) to remove the marks left by the metal feed roller. I have a digital read-out, so leaving .02 for the last pass is no issue.

Incidentally, I checked the DRO today... set the planer at 0.80 inches, and my digital caliper vibrated between .799 and .801. Never had results like that with my lunchbox.

[Lamar Horton]

It's an older 12in. But new enough to have the Delta label.

Lamar

[John Bailey]

Thanks Charlie and Lamar,

As always, great information from Creekers.

John

[Dev Emch]

You may also wish to sniff about for a Parks Planer or a Powermatic 100 planer. Both are vintage. The parks planer is a good planer and I believe that David Marks is using one on Wood Works. You may wish to look for used, older craftsman machines. Both Parks and Atlas made woodworking machines under OEM contracts for Sears years ago prior to Emmerson and later, the overseas contracts.

[Mike Wilkins]

Looking for a good, heavy cast iron planer. There is a Parks 12" planer for sale at the ReTool store in Greenville, NC (252)215-0862. Not sure of the age, but it has a Marathon 2 horse single phase motor and is in great shape.
I would be interested but I already have a 12" combo jointer/planer.
I hear that these Parks machines are real workhorses.
Good luck and watch those fingers. I still have 10.