I'm in the process of milling some Yellow Birch for some interior doors and I'm getting a lot of tearout while planing each board on my PM209 planer. I've slowed down the speed to 24 FPM and I'm only taking down 1/64" per pass. I can change out the gearing and bring the speed down to 16 FPM if anyone believes that will help. I've also tried skewing the board, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. The grain on this Birch changes quite a bit across its length and even its width. I guess you could almost call this figured Birch. No matter which direction I feed it, I get areas of tear out. The planer and the knives are brand new. I ran some Cherry and Mahogany through the planer to compare, and they came out with a mirror-like finish with zero tearout. The Birch looks like my dog got a hold of it.
I believe Brian Hale had this same problem a while back and picked up a Performax drum sander to deal with this tear out (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=13593). Not that I want to spend any more money, but if one had to choose between a Byrd Head or a drum sander, which would you consider to be a better investment? The nice part about the Byrd head is that it won't take up anymore space than I have, whereas the drum sander will. However, the drum sander would eliminate any tearout problems I might encounter down the road.
I'd be grateful for any opinions or advice on dealing with this tearout or recommendations on another capital investment.