Woodmaster W-718 Planer - should I buy?

[Neal Clayton]

i bought mine specifically to make molding. since i don't use the planer knives i run the molding knives in the planer head. they have an accessory head that fits on the same thinner shaft that the saw blades go on, but i think chatter would be worse with that due to the thinner shaft having more propensity to flex.

i have a slight bit of chatter with it, only abnormally hard boards tend to chip/tear, i would say about 80% comes out flawless after a pass through a mop sander with a 220 wheel on it. i've been tinkering with the other 20% but haven't completely solved it yet.

my whole homebrew molding operation is done with a woodmaster and a skilsaw actually. i plane with the 718, square one edge with a skilsaw and a 16 foot length of angle iron, put the blades on the 718 and use it to cut the blanks to width, and then cut the molding on it.

they recommend running 2 or 3 knives in lieu of other modifications to get smoother results, but i haven't tried that yet.

[Brandon Shew]

I wold have to say no ~ I am not a big fan of 1 machine does all.
that's my opinion
Brian

He said that he needed a thickness planer. with that in mind, the drum sander attachment is just a bonus.

I have an older Woodmaster 612 and it is a real workhorse. I don't have any issues w/ chatter and the 5HP motor is no joke. I do get a lot of vibration from the motor, but my belts are probably 20 years old and brittle. (some day I'll get around to putting on v-link belts.) I wish I had the capability for adjustable speed and a drum attachment.

[Jeremy Williams]

Just a minor update to my mill marks issue ...

I contact Woodmaster Tools via email and it started with decent response, however it didn't take long and I got the rather abrupt "cold shoulder" because their recommendations didn't work yet.

This week I added an auxilary bed to the machine with a full sheet of SlickSaw (such a cool product) to make it "extra" slick. It's now smoother than ever ... unforunately though, still showing mill marks.

Back to blade alignment ... I'm going to take those blades off again and use the jig I purchased to align it once again. I'll keep you all posted.

[James Suzda]

I see by the postings you are still having problems with your WoodMaster. I have a question/statement to make.
Do you have full length infeed and outfeed tables for your Woodmaster? I'm not talking the small ones that come with the machine, but 8 or 10 foot long ones? Each of my tables are 8 foot long and they are still too short in my opinion for when I plane 10 to 16 foot stock.
I'm pointing this out because any 'bounce' or vibration at all of an unsupported board will transfer the vibration to the planer head and make a chatter mark. BTW, rollers will not do the trick because the board will still bounce where it isn't supported.
Just some thoughts!

[Neal Clayton]

by the way since someone bumped this, i've given up on trying to eliminate chatter with their plastic bed cover. i just tossed it.

i take the plastic bed cover off for any molding profile that doesn't need to dig into the table (i still have to use it for baseboard shoes (aka quarter round) but otherwise it's off). without the plastic bed, i'm getting about 90% usable stain grade molding from it. any rough spots are due to wood irregularity, not the machine. and these are not your average mass produced moldings, i have deep and large cuts like 5 1/4" door/window casings with a 3.5" groove in the center, and 2"x1" baseboard caps with a 30 degree 1.5" wide slope, door/window crowns with a 2"x2" molded top that's a 45 degree 2" cut, etc.

so rather than tinkering with or replacing the bed cover with something else, just try without it if you don't need the knife to reach the table, it helps. i tried replacing the plastic with laminate countertop material, and that was actually worse. i think the vibration absorption of cast iron is what it needs, not necessarily perfect flatness.

[Jeremy Williams]

I see by the postings you are still having problems with your WoodMaster. I have a question/statement to make.
Do you have full length infeed and outfeed tables for your Woodmaster? I'm not talking the small ones that come with the machine, but 8 or 10 foot long ones? Each of my tables are 8 foot long and they are still too short in my opinion for when I plane 10 to 16 foot stock.
I'm pointing this out because any 'bounce' or vibration at all of an unsupported board will transfer the vibration to the planer head and make a chatter mark. BTW, rollers will not do the trick because the board will still bounce where it isn't supported.
Just some thoughts!

This is good feedback, however I'm getting the mill marks (I don't think it's "chatter", but rather marks from another alignment issue, or something). I have the standard infeed/outfeed wings and am getting the marks on a 16" board which is fully supported.

The bed is smooth as a baby's behind and the wood doesn't visually appear to vibrate in the least. I'm back to thinking the knives are misaligned ... but I've yet to have a moment to remove and align them again.

Sure wish I had the mula for the Shelix!

[Jeremy Williams]

I've been updating this thread as I go along ... so why stop now?

Today I purchased (yet another) blade alignment jig ... just in case the first attempts where a faulty jig. The new jig should have gotten the alignment within a millihair (in other words, precise) ... but still the same mill marks.

Maybe I'm expecting too much ... I want a smooth surface right off the planer, but it's just not happening.

Wish I could splurge and get the Shelix for this ... but just can't happen for a while until I actually have money again!

[Bob Wingard]

What kind of fancy micro-adjust doo-dad blade checker did ya' get ?? ?? ??

Mine is home-made and is simply a steel copy of the one they supply, but instead of that silly plunger they supply, I have modded the base to accept a dial indicator. It's the best setup jig I've used, and was almost free.

[Jeremy Williams]

What kind of fancy micro-adjust doo-dad blade checker did ya' get ?? ?? ??

Mine is home-made and is simply a steel copy of the one they supply, but instead of that silly plunger they supply, I have modded the base to accept a dial indicator. It's the best setup jig I've used, and was almost free.

I've tried a magnetic dial indicator first, then purchased the Planer Pal, and finally ended up with a Planer Pal clone with a few extra features from Pinnacle (Woodcrafts generic brand).

[Neal Clayton]

jeremy, i think it's vibration, not the blades (you're using the new blades i sent right? those were never used).

i tried an auxiliary bed like you did for my molding, and it made mine worse. imo, any barrier between the wood and the iron bed will cause a vibration problem.

i'm assuming you've tried maxing out the roller tension.

[Jeremy Williams]

jeremy, i think it's vibration, not the blades (you're using the new blades i sent right? those were never used).

i tried an auxiliary bed like you did for my molding, and it made mine worse. imo, any barrier between the wood and the iron bed will cause a vibration problem.

i'm assuming you've tried maxing out the roller tension.

Yep, the new blades. I'm getting the same ripples with and without the auxiliary bed and have the tension of the rollers set within the range outlined in the manual (but nothing more and haven't tried). The tension seems a bit strong (even at the recommended amount), but I could try to tighten that down a bit more I guess.

[Matthew Bookamer]

Jeremy,

I hope that you have assumed that I have not seen this thread in a while and not that I was ignoring your question....No, I have not installed a steel plate as you have. Might I say, WOW! - that looks plenty heavy and substantial. I kind of made peace with the marks that my planer makes. I have seen a few pictures of other guys shops where they actually have a portable planer attached to the return rollers on the top of their big planers to make the final pass. I have followed suit and got a delta portable for this purpose. Still not as good at the practically finish ready boards I got from my dewalt 735, but that's water under the bridge.

Most of my stuff gets a good going over with a ROS and then a hand sand or scraping before finishing anyway and most of my chatter marks have not been so bad that they have been a problem.

Neal - Have you seen the mods on woodweb that the guy made to turn his woodmaster into a straight line gang rip saw? I made a accessory table for my 718 AFTER I had to make a housefull of oak trim. Of course I also bought my 718 IMMEDIATELY after that job. Man, the time and money I could have saved!

My accessory table basically works like a jointer bed. I made a parallelogram fence that I adjust as necessary to take off as much material as I need to straighten the board. On the outfeed side of the machine, I have a piece of angle iron set to act like a splitter or more accurately a combination of a splitter and the outfeed table on a jointer. Board buddies keep the board pressed up against the infeed and outfeed fences. With some tweaking at initial setup of the gang saw, you get straightline gang ripped boards without having to mess with the circular saw setup. I have only used it a handfull of times, but having the stack of moulding that I made for the house to compare to, it saves TONS of time and energy. When I finally move to a bigger shop, I plan on leaving this woodmaster set up as a dedicated SLGR saw with a permanent 16' long infeed fence. Of couse that means that I need to get a new 20" spiral carbide head planer and one of those neat 38" drum sanders! Anybody want to donate to my new tool fund?!

[Ben Abate]

I owned a similar machine, an RBI and I sold it because of the turn around time and what I would call not satisfied with the results of the planer..... Don't believe it when it is stated that it only takes minutes to change over to another process. It take time and a lot of effort. The sanding part of the system is poor at best. It's a drum sander, I think we all know how well they work. Sorry if I'm offending someone with one of these machines but I did not care for it at all. I took a huge loss on it just to get it out of my shop. Really the sander is the worst part of it, the planer is the second bad part and the molder did work well, but it took an hour to set it up.

Buy a lunch box planer and a Shop Fox molder for the thousand your going to spend and you'll be happier. Really, some of the lunch boxes give wonderful results. The Shop Fox is also a great molding machine. All told, you'll have a bit over a grand and have BRAND NEW TOOLS.

my $00.02

[Neal Clayton]

Neal - Have you seen the mods on woodweb that the guy made to turn his woodmaster into a straight line gang rip saw? I made a accessory table for my 718 AFTER I had to make a housefull of oak trim. Of course I also bought my 718 IMMEDIATELY after that job. Man, the time and money I could have saved!

My accessory table basically works like a jointer bed. I made a parallelogram fence that I adjust as necessary to take off as much material as I need to straighten the board. On the outfeed side of the machine, I have a piece of angle iron set to act like a splitter or more accurately a combination of a splitter and the outfeed table on a jointer. Board buddies keep the board pressed up against the infeed and outfeed fences. With some tweaking at initial setup of the gang saw, you get straightline gang ripped boards without having to mess with the circular saw setup. I have only used it a handfull of times, but having the stack of moulding that I made for the house to compare to, it saves TONS of time and energy. When I finally move to a bigger shop, I plan on leaving this woodmaster set up as a dedicated SLGR saw with a permanent 16' long infeed fence. Of couse that means that I need to get a new 20" spiral carbide head planer and one of those neat 38" drum sanders! Anybody want to donate to my new tool fund?!

no i haven't seen that, searching for it now...

that's actually my only major complaint about the woodmaster, i wish i could get larger gang rip blades in there. i could save alot of lumber by cutting flat sawn 2x6s full width and cutting the profile on the edge grain, but the max depth on the woodmaster gang rip blades is only about 1 3/8" if i remember correctly.

i'm doing the same thing, that's why i got one. reproducing 100 year old trim in a house with old growth heart pine. unfortunately i have very little shop room to add such things, so i have to make due to with rollers. i'm already running boards out the door , my shop is only about ~25 feet deep.

[Jeremy Williams]

What I'm still curious about now is what "magic" the Byrd-style carbide tooth planer head would do in this machine. Earlier in the thread this was HIGHLY recommended ... but is the job done by one of those in THIS MACHINE perfect (no sanding required)? If so ... might be worth it at this point.