Planer feed marks in boards

[Yonak Hawkins]

I have a planer that has a grooved, segmented feed roller. Sometimes my boards come out with serrated roller marks on the edges that extend in from the edge about 1/8" ~ 3/16". Does anyone know what causes this and how to fix it ?

[Darcy Warner]

Take a deeper cut or back off the infeed roller pressure.

[Dave Zellers]

Yes- deeper cut or adjust the roller. But deeper means a 64th of an inch.

This is the beauty of the small lunchbox planers. The infeed roller is polyurethane so they can take a miniscule cut without leaving marks. When I bought my used Delta 15" planer there was no way I was going to let go of my lunchbox 12". They are almost like two different tools as far as I'm concerned.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Darcy and Dave, thanks for your responses. I'm already taking off nearly 1/16" (1/32" on the final passes) and the impressions are fairly deep. It doesn't happen on all boards, just on the edges of some. I suspect it has to do with how close the edge of a board is to some segment edges of the roller.

I have a Powermatic 180 planer. I wonder if anyone who's familiar with such segmented rollers knows if the segments are individually adjustable or if, perhaps, the springs are worn out (I have got to believe, however, if the springs are worn out the tension would be less rather than greater).

[Wayne Lomman]

The effect will be worse on edges and soft species. It helps to put 2 boards through at once when doing edges. Cheers

[Bill Orbine]

These boards cupped or twisted to start with????

[Bradley Gray]

I would raise both sides of the infeed rollers 1/4 turn and try it. You can always put them back.

[Robert Engel]

Generally speaking infeed roller marks are more apt appear if 1) the roller is set too low relative to the blades, 2) very soft wood, 3) improperly jointed wood. If you are only seeing marks on the edges, then it is more likely a slightly cupped board and I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think its fairly common for roller marks to appear with the softest wood when taking very light passes.

I think it would pay to double check your planer adjustments. Rollers should be set a relative to the blades. In theory if you set a blade height relative to head, once set it should stay set, but I recommend checking it anyway. Each time I change blades I check and adjust the roller height as needed.

Another thing to check is roller spring tension. The manual for my machine is pretty sketchy (so many turns of the screw) but I adjust them according to performance. If the roller springs are adjusted too tight they the tend to mark soft wood, but if too slack, they won't feed.

Hope this helps. Check your manual.

[glenn bradley]

My planer has segmented rollers. Mine are backed way off from the factory settings and still have a grip like an alligator. I only get marks on very soft woods now and even those are quite light. the fact that you are not getting them evenly across the material tells me the feed roller could use some adjustment relative to the tables. Once nice an parallel, you can back off the pressure. My marks cleared up before I ever lost feed strength so I'm not sure how much farther I could go until the feed rollers lost grip. On my design I would run out of adjustment screw at some point and the srpings would be exposed.

[Darcy Warner]

If the springs are broken inside the roll sections, they will flop around.

I don't care if I use one of my buss planers or my scmi a light pass (1/64" or so) will leave marks.

I generally don't mess around planing and take one big pass each side and one finish up pass of 1/16" or so. I hate sending stuff through multiple times for no reason.

[Jim Becker]

Yonak, I have this issue with my J/P if I take too fine of a cut to "sneak up" on a thickness, but it's not just on the edges. If you only see this on the edges, your feed roller may not be "level" with the table/knives or the table may also not be level with the knives. So if a light cut isn't the case, it's most likely some form of alignment issue.

[Rod Sheridan]

I have a planer that has a grooved, segmented feed roller. Sometimes my boards come out with serrated roller marks on the edges that extend in from the edge about 1/8" ~ 3/16". Does anyone know what causes this and how to fix it ?

Hi, if you're getting it on both edges, I suspect you haven't jointed your wood before planning and it's cupped.

If you have marks on one edge only, and always the same edge, the feed roller isn't parallel to the table, or pressure isn't equal on each side.....Rod.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Thanks, Rod. Only one edge of some boards get marks .. and I'm beginning to think it's only in a certain place on the roller. One of the segments may be problematic somehow but I don't think they are individually adjustable. It may be getting stuck out of position sometimes or the spring is damaged somehow.