I had a 79 year old customer stop in today.
He is renovating a historic house in Vt.
I have sold him some quarter sawn clear pine for moulding work.
He needs some wide pine planed one side for some flooring and the moulding run.
Some odds ends lumber not much.
If I plane the lumber and run the mouldings. He will give me the 25 inch planer,moulded ,sanded and gang rip.
Never been run brand new when I'm done.
He says It cost a little over $6000,00 new.
He's on his 4th cancer and needs the help.
Your thoughts Bruno
Does the planer have the spiral cutter head or knives?
Depending on how much wood is involved it might be a very good deal.
Gerald
It's not to bad an amount of lumber
How fast once set up do mouldings take to make on a machine like this?
I would have to do it at his place near Wells River Vt no far from the truck stop.
I'm on a diet and can't eat rolls☹
He has a hydro dam and springs 12 miles away that used to feed the town with fresh water.
Jim I think I would hire someone to do the work and take the equipment in trade.
The reason I say that is it would take some time to get the proper molding knive(s) for the machine,
put everything together and make the molding.
As to how long it would take - that would depend on whether this machine has the variable speed
system with it and at what setting you run it at.
At full speed my 718 (or 18" wide) Woodmaster planer is either 12 or 16' per minute.
When doing molding I'm told that you need to slow it down to get a good product.
Gerald
GAB
He has the moulding knifes already for the profiles he wants
I have a 725, they are a great machine. Mostly I use mine as a pre sizer to make sure everything is where I want it before it hits the moulder.
Last year I had an order for some siding that I could not make in my moulder so I ordered a custom knife for my 725 and ran it there. This was 9.5" wide, KD yellow pine and it had to hog off a lot of material to make the profile. I ran it around 15 FPM, the finish was exceptional at that speed.
The 725 has an infinite variable speed which is really handy. The key to making good moulding in a timely manner is to have your material at the right moisture content and at very consistent pre sized measurements. Too dry and it cuts hard, too green and the results are horrible. If you try to hog a bunch off belts will slip, you will get tear out, and you will dull knives quickly.
I will say that edging on the sawmill has never been accurate enough for me to produce moulding in a timely manner, just too many little dips and rises, it needs a circle blade to work. Also you may find that pre planning the material before a final pass is actually faster with less headaches depending on the profile you need to make.
There was a learning curve, but I am very happy with my 725 and 4000. It's like any other piece of quality equipment, most of the issues are operator related.
When I do molding on my 718 I either edge the boards on the jointer and rip to width with the table saw first or, run them through the 718 with the gang saw ripping attachment.