Eliminating the rollers on a planer?

[Cary Falk]

And they are all the way down, but all that way down is flush with the table as they should be, but they still pick up chips and leave marks. My question was...........

This statement caught my eye. How are you getting chips stuck to the bed rollers? Do you not have dust collection? I have never had a problem with chips on the bed, wood or bed rollers.

[J.R. Rutter]

DC was my first thought. The only chip dents I get on my Rockwell / Invicta (~SCMI 630) are on the top face on heavy cuts.

When I had a 4 post 20" I had a 1/4" mdf filler with laminate top held in with a front cleat. I just recalibrated the height and it worked great.

[Larry Edgerton]

It might be dust collection, but I doubt it. I have a 5hp fan blowing outside/no filter on a short 6" run to the planer. It is more cfm than needed according to SCM

I do know it happens when I am running at 72 fpm Took me a long time to figure it out, but the chips hit the outfeed side of the second roller opening and kind of fold over there and stay. Doesn't happen at finish speeds and has to happen between the time the wood hits the head and when it passes the roller opening. If I take the time to blow it out after the high speed rough, OK. I use mostly rough stock so run at 72FPM fairly often.

[Joe Calhoon]

Larry,
our SCM planer had bed rollers and always had chips stuck in the rollers. Seemed like it was worse with softwoods leaving the gouges in the wood. Bed rollers have never made sense to me on a finish planer. When they get chips they don't roll anyway. The shop we set up in Bhutan had a new Griggio Tersa head planer with one bed roller at outfeed. We were getting a perfect finish on softwood scantlings until the chips started collecting. Adequate D.C. In all cases.
no Idea how to fix. Probably too big for JB weld.

[Larry Edgerton]

Larry,
our SCM planer had bed rollers and always had chips stuck in the rollers. Seemed like it was worse with softwoods leaving the gouges in the wood. Bed rollers have never made sense to me on a finish planer. When they get chips they don't roll anyway. The shop we set up in Bhutan had a new Griggio Tersa head planer with one bed roller at outfeed. We were getting a perfect finish on softwood scantlings until the chips started collecting. Adequate D.C. In all cases.
no Idea how to fix. Probably too big for JB weld.

I think I need to find a shop with an oven to heat it up before welding, but I am chicken. The Parts Pronto site does not list the bed in the parts section, so before I commit to that I need to find out what a new one costs, and how hard they are to get. You know, just in case it warps. The salesman told me that the bed is cast steel, not sure if that is true or not, but that would be better to work with.

Same here, soft woods are bad. The marks are on woods like maple but a swipe with a sander and they are gone, but in soft woods from Poplar on back they are more pronounced. If I clean it with air and keep my speed down to 16FPM I have no problems. Its not really the end of the world, but it is an annoyance, I told my wife to win the lottery so I can buy a Martin, hell, so I can buy all the Martins!

Send me one of each please......

[David Kumm]

If you can redo the dro, how about a piece of anodized AL with a couple of cleats? You could remove when finish planing and just set on when rough. At 72fpm I don't doubt the DC can't keep up. If the port is 120mm it is too small for that speed. I run a high pressure blower on my DC to compensate for small ports. Dave

[J.R. Rutter]

There should be enough adjustment in the DRO to compensate for a thin plate. Aluminum has highish friction once the anodizing wears off, so I would just get some sheet steel cut and bent to fit.

[Jeff Duncan]

I have a SCM 520 as well and would have to second, (or third?) the recommendation to double check your dust collection. I run mine at max speed most of the time and have never encountered any chip problems with the rollers. Then I'd double check your roller height as it seems to me that mine will adjust slightly below the table surface. Maybe there's some debris causing them to get caught up? After that I'd probably try something less drastic than reworking the table like maybe installing a cleaning brush to the underside of the table to brush off any chips that are clung on to it?

good luck,
JeffD