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Originally Posted by Roger Marty
My 734 has never overheated . I have not run red oak, but I have run white oak. I have never run more than ten or twelve boards and they were less than eight feet long.
It may be that you are working yours harder than I do. When you say several passes, do you mean 10 -20 or 20-30? I am just curious. Also, I typically take very light cuts, normally 1/32",
Last edited by lowell holmes; 05-09-2017 at 5:41 PM.
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I usually take 1/32" cuts. If I've made several passes and then take a 1/16" cut, thermal overload will trip on a 6" wide board :-/ Sometimes it will trip on a 1/32" pass after doing a lot of work.
I think I have a bum machine. I'm not confident in paying the $$$ to ship it to some service center, and having the service center actually diagnose/fix the problem. I could see them turning on the machine, running some boards through the machine, saying "this machine works fine" and shipping it back to me.
Either that, or the blades last way way shorter than I expect. Since the blade change, I've probably run 50-70 bd. feet through the machine (but several passes each....so perhaps 400 bd. feet total).
Last edited by Roger Marty; 05-09-2017 at 5:56 PM.
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I usually take 1/8"+ passes. Only a couple passes and I am done.
I find that all my big planers leave a much better finish taking big cuts.
In a perfect world I have a large finish planer and leave it set at whatever I want my final thickness to be. I have had 3 planers set up before.
My Buss 4L's take care of hogging and finish planing all in one machine.
Member
Roger,
I think you may be working your machine harder than I do.
Does this overheating occur in the first 1/2 hour, or later? The lunchbox planers are not meant to be production machines. I don't think I have ever run mine for more than 10-15 minutes.
I would not hesitate to run 10 or 12 8 foot boards, but in no way have I ever run mine for more than 15 -20 minutes.
I know it is a pain. I hope you get it worked out soon. If you can't run it for more that 15-20 minutes, I'd say you do have a bad motor.
Contributor
You might consider a clamp-on ammeter, most also do AC & DC volts (battery checker). Check the amperage under normal load. It's not unheard of for a thermal overload device to trip at less than rated amperage.
Member
I've never owned or used a stationary planer. I have the Dewalt 735 and can tell you that everything you've ever heard about the knives not lasting is absolutely true. Every knife in mine has developed nicks within a board or two - usually pine. A brand new set got nicks on the first piece of wood I put through it - a 2' piece of pine.
When I bought mine I got it on special with the infeed/outfeed tables and an extra set of blades. I also bought the stand and got $50 off on the whole deal.
I really like the planer though. I made the mistake of not hooking up dust collection one time and fed a couple boards through. I wasn't watching where the chips were going and it it literally covered my entire car. That happened in the morning when my car was covered in dew.
Gotta tell you that wet wood chips don't just flow off the car using a water hose. Took me about an hour to get it all off.
Anyway, all my boards are coming out with multiple lines on them where there are chips in the blades.
So I plan to look into upgraded blades from a third party or helical head.
Contributor
Paul, I've helped a friend run stuff through one of those things. I think the main problem is the extremely slow feed makes the knives get too hot. Don't know what steels are available for those but M2 or T1 would hold up better. Pretty sure that the stock ones are those "same hardness as M2" things . NOT real M2. Good luck!
Contributor
I a put a Byrd head in my 735. Best upgrade of a machine I've ever made. I'm not a production wood worker, but I do run quite a bit of rough sawn hardwood through my shop, and the original surfaces of the Byrd carbide cutters cut every bit as well two years after I installed the head as the day I put them in. The original straight, replaceable blades never made it through 50 bf before they were either chipped or noticeably dull.
Moderator
The trade-off is that a combination of slow feed and faster cutter head speed that isn't atypical for the portables can make for a better finish because the "scallops" are smaller...
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
The usual answer; it depends. Take a look at the trim carpentry in a moderately priced new home. You will see surfaces right off the planer, miters right off the CMS, wax filled nail holes and so forth. This is the norm in this situation, sometimes hidden under a nice thick coat of paint or varnish.
I don't think many of us doing period work, replicas or even our own "fine" woodworking designs ever get from machine to finish without passing near a hand plane or at least a well sanded surface diligently worked through the grits.
I think the point is to reduce that effort as much as possible. We use machines because they are faster. They help us get through mundane tasks at the preliminary steps of making parts. The closer they get to "done" the less we have to do but, there is always something to be done . . . at least in my shop.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
Member
To those who quickly get nicks in their knives on the DW735, the index holes in the knives have enough side to side "play" to allow you to slide the knives so the nicks don't line up from knife to knife. This is a quick fix that will eliminate lines, at least until you hit the next knot or other nick-making object. Of course, this only works if you get a nick in the knives that leaves a line on the board that is proud of the surface; if you have a bump on a knife that causes an indentation line in your board, you are out of luck.
Member
Out of curiosity, can anyone explain whether it's better to have a larger diameter cutterhead, or a smaller, and why? I have noticed that most stationary units have larger and more solid cutterheads whereas lunchbox types have pretty small / minimal heads.
My Baileigh 16" J/P hybrid has a nice solid byrd-style cutterhead. The specs say 3.5" diameter.
Contributor
Good point,Jon ,on the knife shifting. The striations,unlike chips, can show up quite soon even when running perfectly clean material. The good quality real high speed steels don't do that. With them the planed surface often has a sheen with no striations. And less tear out than with the standard low quality knives
Weight would be one issue, trying to keep a lunchbox planer "portable" becomes an exercise in weight reduction. And weight means more steel in the cutterhead which equates to cost. The other item would be cutter speed. To maintain speed at the blade edge requires less rpms as the cutter becomes larger. Then you get into cuts per inch which is a function of number of the number of knives on the cutter head, the rpms and the feed rate. So to keep up the feed rate on the bigger machines that run at lower rpms, you get less cuts per inch.
NOW you tell me...
Member
The larger the radius, the more flat the arc is as it cuts the wood. In theory, that would produce a less scalloped pattern for a given RPM. In practice, the lunchbox planers rotate at such a high RPM that it doesn't matter.
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