Getting closer to buying a real planer

[Brad_bb]

I'm looking at this one:
209HH 20" 230V 1 PH 5HP.  Byrd Shelix head


 
I'd like to keep all the same cutters if I can for convenience, Hence the Byrd Shelix head.  I only have single phase in my new shop so I figured I'd stick with that.  

Anyone have any opinions or experience with this one?  Will it run continuous and have enough power?  We'd always like more,  but...  is 5 enough?  If I'm making some flooring stock, I want it to keep up.  

[btulloh]

That's the 24", right?

5 hp will be ok, just can't take a big bite. 

I've got that same planer only 15" with 3hp. It does ok, but if I was doing production work I'd need more hp. Those byrd heads eat up some power.  

It's been a great planer all in all. 

[Tin Horse]

Just bought that same planer a few months ago. I had sold a 3hp General International 15" carbide. It produced a great finish but couldn't sustain long periods of work. Also found out they are out of business.
I spent a long time researching and pricing. There are other 20" units out there cheaper with little or no dealer support.
The Powermatic has support and warranty. I even was able to speak with tech support in the US. with questions. Since getting it I've done only 12" white pine and some red oak. It has run up to 4 hours steady. Night and day difference between the General. Great finish on knotty pine and no belt or motor heating. The quality is better than the few other options available in my area.
Like everything else these days they are built off shore but the US quality and support is still there. 

[doc henderson]

that looks almost identical to a grizzly;  I have a 5hp 20 inch, straight knives.  works well;  I think straight knives are better at taking bigger bites and the spiral cutter heads are better for shallow cuts, but a great finish.  some planers have an easy adjustment for the lower table roller.  for thick irregular wood you need the rollers set higher than for a final planning,  idealy a knifed planer with the rollers set high for stuff off the mill, and a spiral cutter for the thin final cuts.  mine is hard to set, so set low, but with wavy boards sometimes the wave hits on the table.  new the planer at grizzly is about 1600 buck last I checked, but some stuff when up after the tariffs.  mine runs at 16 or 20 feet per minute.  I have had it for 25 years.

[busenitzcww]

I had the G1033X planer which is basically the same planer I abelieve just a different color. Was a great planer for figured/burly grain. I kept on overheating and tripping it. If it was 5hp just for the head it might work better but it runs the feed too. I got fed up with it as I was just running too much lumber through it and ended up going with an Oliver 299. 
Good planer but I wouldn't consider it a heavy duty workhorse.

[btulloh]

Right, 20" not 24".

Sometimes I think I'm losing it. Other times, I'm sure of it.

[doc henderson]

the spiral head version is $2,750.  my old planer I paid 1600 years ago, and it remained the same until the tariffs.  now $1,900.  tried to post a pic but copy and paste did not work, so go to grizzly and see it for yourself.  I have had good support from Grizzly.  poss. all made in the same factory, or at least same design.

[doc henderson]

a more expensive version has a lever that allows adjustment of the table rollers for different uses.  i.e. right off the mill vs fine finish planning. the older version requires a dial indicator, and allen wrench for the set screw and a cam that raises and lowers the roller x 4.  a 20 minute procedure.  I have heard good things about Powermatic, but look for yourself to see if it is better than the grizzly version, or just a different color.  good luck.

[Brad_bb]

My reason for the Powermatic over Grizzly is that PM uses Byrd Shelix cutters.  I already have one small planer that uses those cutters.  When I get a jointer I want to use those cutters, if I switch my beam planer over to those cutters....

For thicker stuff and wider stuff, I have my Woodmizer MP100 beam planer.  I'm also going to be using that as my platform to build my slab flattening mill.  It will be able to plane 5-6ft. wide. 

This planer is for boards.  8/4, 5/4,4/4 etc.  

My thinking is that I'll have a jointer to joint boards first. then run them through the planer.  Some boards, like flooring boards, that are not wavy, might be able to just go through the planer without jointing? I have at least half a dozen stickered pallets of walnut, and at least as much if not more ash.  They are all air dried to 12% now, but of course I'll kiln dry them down to 6-8 before any machine work.

Am I thinking the right way?  

[doc henderson]

yes I think you always think correct.  used to be they offered the byrd and I considered changing/converting to a spiral on my 20 inch.  planer.  I think it was offered by grizzly.  I am not sure in the difference in brands so please keep us informed as you become informed more.

[Southside]

Take a look at the Woodmasters, I have been very, very, happy with the two I have.  Went that route when Grizzly kept delaying me then raised the price, should have gone that way in the beginning.  

[YellowHammer]

I've had a Grizzly four post and a have a Powermatic semi commercial.  
The Grizzly was a good machine, not great, but good, and I planed a LOT of wood through it.  The Grizzly suffered from a few issues, including a continuously loosening main drive pulley, average snipe, and being slightly underpowered.  The quality of the Grizzly was OK, the bed was kind of flat, the outfeed had to be shimmed to match and it didn't have adjustable bed rollers, which is one reason it sniped. Bed rollers are used in roughing wood, but not for finish cuts, they should be dropped so the board rides on the cast iron tables which gives a flatter board.  It also didn't have a good pressure bar, which is another reason it sniped, as the pressure bar is the most important part of the planer, and causes 90% of planing problems.  The grizzly uses their brand of spiral inserts, and they do not last as long as the true Byrd inserts used in Powermatics.

The Powermatic, in the other hand, is assembled and built in Tennessee, has an five year exceptional warranty, and has been taken to the next level of fit and finish.  

Most all the machines are basically copies, but the Powermatics get more TLC when assembled.  So the fit and finish is better.

I sold the Grizzly after I ran enough wood to start grooving the bed, and it sold quick and at a good price.  

Both brands will plane a lot of wood, both will do the job, but the Powermatic is one step up from Grizzly, with a better fit and finish, better assembly, stronger motor for the same advertised hp rating, slightly better Byrd carbides and 5X the warranty.  

[stanmillnc]

I purchased a Northstate 24" spiral cutterhead planer from Leneave Supply. Very happy with this machine - it's my fourth planer (I keep needing wider and upgrading) and by far this one has performed the best. I've had Grizzly before and it was okay, but the Northstate unit is heavier duty and superior quality. Had to special order this machine to be single phase, as I don't have access to three phase power. Cost ~ $6500, built in Taiwan. The guys at Leneave Supply are located in Charlotte, NC but they regularly ship woodworking equipment all over.

[Brad_bb]

@doc henderson @YellowHammer 
Based on your comments I'm reviewing the manual.  The bed rollers can be adjusted between .003 and .006 above the bed.  So that tells me that they are always above the bed.  The adjustment is with a set screw and wrench to rotate the eccentric shaft they are on with gauge or indicator on top to see the height.  


 
Do I need one that is easier to adjust this?  I have no experience with bed rollers.  Will I ever need to adjust this?  How will this affect my two situations: 1)planing a board that has been jointed on one side already, and Planing a rough sawn KD board that looks pretty straight without waves?

Additionally, what does a pressure bar do?  and a chip breaker?


 

Lastly, the manual states that the max depth of cut is 1/8", which is fine, but if I'm running Walnut, Ash or Oak through, can this 5HP 1ph 230V actually chew that much continuously without a problem?  Don't laugh, but my only planer now is a Dewalt 735 and the built in circuit breaker nuisance trips and get shorter between trips until you have to replace it.  I've replaced it once or twice already and I just bought another one to replace today.  Bad design in my opinion.  I know it wasn't meant to be a continuous duty planer, but the amount it will plane before nuisance tripping is way too low in my opinion.

[YellowHammer]

Bed rollers are almost necessary for planing rough sawn wood.  If they are not up, then the unplaned rough downward face will catch the smooth bed and hang, or cause undue parasitic drag and rob hp when you need it most, on a high spot on rough sawn lumber.  So when raised, they make planing rough sawn wood much easier and allow deeper cuts.  

However, bed rollers should be dropped into the bed when finish planing so that the smooth face of the board will be fully supported by the cast iron and smooth bed.  Why pay for a nice flat cast iron planer bed if the board never actually touches it because its always riding on the bed rollers?  A fixed position bed roller planer is a compromise, but can't be quickly optimized to do either.

The better planers have a lever that adjusts the bed rollers easily, on the fly, to account for such issues.  So skip planing is done with the bed rollers up, finish planing his done with the bed rollers down.  

As an example, at couple years back I was a guys place where an inexperienced operator was doing a demo on a very nice SCMI commercial planer.  He had been feeding in rough sawn stock and had the bed rollers up, as they should have been for rough sawn wood, but when he fed some already planed finished stock into it, there was some pretty good entry and exit snipe.  Onlookers were less than impressed.  So I went over, while the machine was feeding, grabbed the bed roller lever and and dropped the bed rollers into the bed and the following boards came out mirror flat.    Entry snipe is generally a sign of too high an infeed bed roller.

Exit snipe, on the other hand, can be caused by bed rollers, but is generally caused by an incorrect pressure bar adjustment.  So looking at your diagram, as the board feeds out of the planer, the tail end of the board will exit the infeed down pressure roller.  At that point, if the pressure bar didn't exist, or is adjusted too high, the tail end of the board would only be supported by the bed and the exit pressure roller and would would tip upward into the cutter head, causing exit snipe.  With a properly adjusted pressure bar, the tail end of the board is supported by the bottom edge of the pressure bar until the board exits the planer.  So for almost the full travel of the board through the planer, the board never touches the pressure bar, only when the board exits the infeed down pressure roller will it lever up and be supported by the pressure bar.  So it follows that if the pressure bar is adjusted 1/16" higher than the board face when it is fully supported front and back, as soon the tail end of the board leaves the support of the front down pressure roller, it will rise into the cutterhead 1/16" until the pressure bar catches it and supports it down.  The jacking up of the board will cause 1/16" exit snipe.  So the pressure bar should be adjusted as close to the surface of the fully supported board as possible, but not touch it to cause parasitic hp loss.  We are talking adjustments to the thickness of a coat of paint, because that's typically when it first needs to be adjusted, assuming it was adjusted correctly at the factory, because after a few boards the paint will rub off on the bottom flange of the pressure bar and the extra clearance will cause snipe.  

If you have to support a board exiting the planer with your hands, i.e. lift up on the board to control or eliminate snipe, it means the pressure bar isn't doing its job, or the pressure bar springs are set too soft.  Or the planer doesn't even have one.

All this assumes the outfeed roller is metal, so if it is rubber or poly, like a lot of the smaller planers, when the board exits the planer, the roller will flex, and the board will become unsupported and cause snipe.

The chip breaker does just that, but it also serves as a pressure bar when a board is being fed into a planer.  It keeps a board from being jammed right into the cutter head.

In my experience, Byrd and carbide insert cutters can only take 3/16" cut per pass due to the way they are mounted to the head and how much clearance they have.  So they can take 1/8" per pass, no problem, as long as there is enough horsepower.  Most planers don't have the hp to cut max advertised depth and width at the same time.  Yes a Shelix will take 1/8" per pass no problem.  Thats generally where I set my planer.  Yes, a 20 inch planer will feed a 20 inch board.  But...no, a 5 hp planer will not take off 1/8" of white oak on a 20" wide board.  It may take 1/8" on a piece if basswood or cedar 20 inches wide, or it may 1/16" on a 20 inch red oak board, but as in all things, HP is king.

So that is also where having a planer with a variable feed rate is important, you can slow the feed rate down and easily plane wide boards, or speed up and take wide finish cuts faster.

Another thing to look for are what's called segmented infeed systems.  These are designed to take boards of slightly different thicknesses and feed them all in at the same time, because the infeed roller isn't just a solid bar that will only grab the highest board, it is segmented into sections, generally about 2 inches wide, each section being spring loaded, and will grab all the boards, much like the suspension in a 4WD vehicle.  It will enable the routine feeding of multiple boards at once, basically multiplying the planer's throughput.  Say the you had a bunch or 4 inch wide rough sawn boards, all maybe maybe 1/16" or even 1/8" different thickness because the sawmill was cutting some slight waves.  A solid infeed planer could only feed one board at a time, so there is 16" of wasted capacity in a 20" planer, sequentially feeding 4 inch boards, head to tail.  If the planer has a segmented cutterhead, multiple boards could the fed at the same time, up the capacity of the throat and horsepower, and could, for example, easily feed 4 boards at once, for 4 times the production.  

A 5 hp planer will take 1/8" off an 8 inch wide walnut or red oak board until you get tired of feeding them or the cutters get dull. Year after year.  

About 7.5 hp is about the biggest 220/240 volt motor that is still single phase.

Never stack the ends of wood to be planed on concrete, or any other surface, for that matter.  The corners and edges of the boards will pick up dirt, grit and crud from the floor and will dull the carbide inserts much quicker that if the boards are stacked on carts or dollies.  We increased the service live of our carbides maybe 25% by doing that simple thing.    

Here is an example of us planing rough sawn cedar, a couple boards at a time a few years ago.  We could never do this on a non segmented cutter head.  Notice how we use the carts.  

hoibby hardwood planing cedar - Yahoo Search Results Video Search Results

[Brad_bb]

Thank you YH! 
So the 201HH appears to have all the features you note - segmented infeed, bed rollers adjustable with lever, 7.5 HP.


 

$7830 on Amazon right now.

[tule peak timber]

Thank you YH!
So the 201HH appears to have all the features you note - segmented infeed, bed rollers adjustable with lever, 7.5 HP.


 

$7830 on Amazon right now.

Brad, we have used this planer and a Northfield for 13 years . Not a bad unit.Pretty well built.

[alan gage]

Tough call. It's always hard to balance what's the best, what best fits your needs, and what best fits your budget.

I can see where in a production environment many of the features mentioned by Yellowhammer would be essential. If you've got more time on your hands or aren't using it hard on a regular basis you can probably get by with a little less. Always hard to say.

I was in a similar situation and wasn't sure which way to jump when, amazingly, a Woodmaster 718 came up on a local auction. I got it for a good price and upgraded it to the spiral head. It's not perfect and probably not what I would have chosen if I had my choice of new planers but the price was right and now that I have it I find I'm able to work around it's limitations and also take advantage of some of its features not offered by other planers, like the ability to turn it into a multi-rip saw which came in very handy when cutting out random width flooring. I had three blades set at different widths and as I was feeding the wider stock through could choose on the fly which blade(s) to run it through to maximize material. I could run two boards through at once and I can't imagine how much time this saved over using the table saw.

I've run in continuously for a few hours straight and motor does get hot. I don't know if it's too hot or not but it's never shut down. I know when ordering new they do offer different grades of motors. It snipes pretty bad unless I lift the end of the board on the way in and out. Because it has the ability to add saw blades there's more distance between the feed rollers and planer head and I don't believe they use a chip breaker or pressure bar for the same reason (blade clearance). Again, not ideal but you work around it.  I make it a point not to cut stock to length until after it's been run through the planer. If I was selling lumber this would not be acceptable. But since I'm generally the end user I can make it work. When the new shop is done and it has a permanent home I'll try rigging up extended in/out feed tables to hopefully help with this.

I'd like to have a wider planer with a faster feed rate, and maybe I will someday, but for now the Woodmaster is meeting my needs.

Not necessarily suggesting you get a Woodmaster and I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know; just commiserating a bit.

Alan

[doc henderson]

@Brad_bb I think it is a tough call unless you have unlimited money to spend.  i bought my grizzly in 1994 and thought i was a big dog.  Unknown numbers of board feet run through, and it has served me well.  ideal might be a HSS 4 knife planer set up for off the mill and a spiral one for finish planing.  i leave my bed roller set the same.  I think 0.002 inches.  i occasionally have a wave the hits the bed.  i can plane fairly irregular boards ok.  If things are straight or jointed on one side so they have a flat surface, it should be fine.  i think the range specified is recommended but I can set mine lower than the table.  Mine are just like the diagram.  i have replaced them once when I had trouble maintaining the specified height.  A few years back, grizzly sold the byrd cutter head to upgrade the planer I have, and for about the price difference had I bought a new one, compared to the old price.  I would get the best planer that makes sense for what you are trying to do.  Most of us do not have the funding or the room for 2 separate planers.  the adjustable bed roller would be nice for double duty, but cost more.  i can finish plane most things, but have trouble with very thin wood for my engraving hobby, and that would be better for sure, flat on the bed.  your walnut may be better to plane with a little moisture instead of very dry so it is smoother. @GeneWengert-WoodDoc . the spiral head will be better for not chipping out and giving a smooth surface out of the planer.  I never considered a different planer, until i started pumping wood from the mill through it.  i have a sharpener for the HSS knives.  i have only pulled the motor down once, and it was a piece that got thicker as it went in.

[Don P]

I smoked the ~3hp motor on my 15" this summer, very hot day, very dull knives, we were planning wood I had air dried in a windy hay barn and it was very dirty, we were changing knives 2x per day but working them too long. I put a 5 on it and it made quite a bit of difference. If you cannot keep your hand on a motor it is too hot.

 I've found if the billy rolls aren't easily adjustable I don't adjust them. Mine are set moderately low and I make do. I'm not making furniture so that works ok but I've used better machines and miss that. This evening I changed knives, I had just run a few thousand feet of white pine and didn't clean the crap off the rollers, ran a few pieces of construction sheathing through and although the cut was good the lumpy rollers made a wavy cut. If the rolls could have been quickly dropped below the bed I would have done that. Good enough for what it was but I do like the rolls on a handle.

Most of my wood is for construction, I use 4 roller tables, in, out and 2 along the far side for stack and return, I plane solo most of the time so that lets me stuff, tail and bring the stack back around. With 2 men on a slab a couple of carts works better.

My pet peeve with this and many machines nowadays is the metric jack screw threads. On a US machine the thread count works with the way we measure, when they are metric it makes height adjustment harder, just requires calipers and learning some points on the machine but a nuisance none the less.

[Brad_bb]

So, why would you plane air dried lumber?  If it's for furniture or anything inside, it will then shrink more and could move?

If the wood were going to be used outside or in outside humidity, it would be fine.  But in most modern homes and any conditioned space, it would shrink.

I could see skip planing air dried lumber so the customer could see it.  But is it typical to sell air dried lumber or do most customers want kiln dried down to 6-8%?  I would think the latter.

Along the next 12 months, I'll be outfitting and finally moving into my new shop.  Hopefully it will be my shop til I die.  Since I got into woodworking in 2006, I've never owned a drill press, a jointer, a bandsaw, a drum or belt sander, and the only planer I've owned is  a Dewalt 735 since about 2013.  I've held back on equipment because I knew I'd be moving shops and I wanted to wait so I didn't have to move equipment and could plan the layout and research machines etc.  I just bought a drill press two months ago and it's in the new shop.  I will be getting a sawstop later in 2020.  Now I want to identify the planer and next the jointer.  Bandsaw later.  That's going to be a hard one- to figure out what size to get and make sure it has the table and fences I want etc.

[123maxbars]

I went with the Grizzly spiral 20in this year. Got the extreme duty model with single 5hp motor, works great for my use in the shop. I only plane the wood I work with, I don't offer milling for my customers.
I looked at Powermatic also but in my research I found they are no longer made/assembled in TN. They are also produced over seas now in a factory close to the Grizzly plant.  The old powermatic like @YellowHammer has are built like tanks, the new ones are about the same as Grizzly, minus the cutter heads just painted a different color.

In closing, love mine, would buy it again, no issues, 

[tule peak timber]

Respectfully, tanks are not always better ! The equipment today coming out of Tawain is very good. Keep asking questions.....

 

[123maxbars]

Respectfully, tanks are not always better ! The equipment today coming out of Tawain is very good. Keep asking questions.....

Totally agree, I was not saying the old ones are better, just what I hear from other users, My only experience is with the new ones like mine, no complaints, 
On a side note that planer you are leaning on probably weighs as much as my tractor, 

[Don P]

So, why would you plane air dried lumber?

Oak board and batten siding. We dried it then flattened it to uniform thickness, ripping battens out of any that didn't make it. It makes for a much nicer job.
Over the past few weeks when there's been a free hour or two I've planed framing lumber that has been air dried for a year, it is actually drier than building supply KD19. We then straightlined to nominal width. Even in rough construction I use very little green or sawmill finish lumber, it is generally at least air dried and then planed.