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Getting closer to buying a real planer

Started by Brad_bb, December 09, 2019, 07:32:06 PM

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tule peak timber

I own a few pieces of "old "iron and would not go that direction again. SCMI, Martin, and Felder cost a fortune for a reason. Taiwan has improved their equipment offerings a great deal in the last ten or so years and it is very good quality with a number of different paint colors and vendors. I would not hesitate to buy from Taiwan.
  My shop is mostly SCMI and we ate a lot of beans and spaghetti while I made payments :D
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

YellowHammer

I've got an SCMI 20 inch jointer, and it is next level.  On the other hand, Oliver, a vey well known brand, also sells their versions of the Powermatic style planer.  

 



Grizzly also sells this planer, which I found out is a copy of a planer Baker used to make several years ago, but don't anymore.  Its a copy of a true old school workhorse planer.


   
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

doc henderson

I have tried to plane very dry wood and the knots tend to fly apart.  Doc Wengert had made reference as well that planed wood has less checking as it dries.  @GeneWengert-WoodDoc  .  I would still dry it more after, if it will be part of a complex glue up or joinery, and poss. even follow with a final planing.  walnut and maple tend to chip out more, esp. with straight knives.  I think the spiral head will do a better job of not chipping as well.
Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

Dan_Shade

I have the 20" version of the grizzly model in YellowHammer's post.  I have the spiral cutter head. 

I've had it for a about 10 years now, I've been very happy with it. 
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

Dan_Shade

And yeah, I agree with Don P, on my planer, one turn is about 0.05", or 1/19
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

WDH

Quote from: YellowHammer on December 10, 2019, 09:50:54 PM



  
This is the GO544.  It is the one that I have.  It has two motors.  A 5 hp for the cutterhead and a 2 hp feed motor.  This keeps the full 5hp on the cutterhead.  It is a real workhorse.  That lower handle on the right adjusts the bed rollers. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

alan gage

Quote from: doc henderson on December 10, 2019, 06:11:45 PMMost of us do not have the funding or the room for 2 separate planers.


A couple months before I got my Woodmaster 718 I found an old Foley Belsaw 12" with 5hp motor for a few hundred dollars about 100 miles away. I briefly thought of selling it after picking up the 718 but decided having two planers would be nice. By changing out a pulley on the Foley I can increase the feed rate so I'll have a faster planer if I need to run a bunch of material and if I want I can set them up side by side, facing different directions, so that the outfeed side of one planer is the infeed side of the other. This would save me from carrying the boards back around to the front of the planer for the second run.

This all sounds good in theory. We'll see how it actually works when the shop is done (this winter). Like Brad I've been researching and accumulating tools in anticipation. That reminds me, time to write another check for one more month of storage unit rent, hopefully the last.

Alan
Timberking B-16, a few chainsaws from small to large, and a Bobcat 873 Skidloader.

Brad_bb

That G0544 is worth considering.  It checks the feature boxes of 1) adjustable bed rollers 2) segmented infeed roller.  3) it has a segmented chip breaker and 4)and a pressure bar.  Appears to be a viable option. 

Are there pro's and cons to the separate motors?  Seems like it might be enough power for my needs...
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

farmfromkansas

If you call Grizzly and ask which planer they recommend for commercial use, the one WDH has is the one they recommend.  The cheaper planers are for home use.  I have the 15" with the spiral head, and can not tell any difference from the Byrd head, which I have on my jointer.  Same finish cut, both pull a lot of power.   When I try to plane a lot of boards, my motor overheats and the overload pops and I have to wait to plane any more.  Took off the covers and put a fan on the planer which might help a bit, but it is no commercial planer. The number on mine is a 453px.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

WDH

I believe that the GO544 is considered a light Industrial planer.  I also have the 3 hp GO453Z 15", and there is no comparison to the GO544 for continuous planing.  There are no cons to the two motors that I have experienced.  I have planed a bit over 100,000 bf through the GO544.  I am on my second set of inserts.  I can get about 20,000 bf before I have to turn the carbide inserts.  This planer is also variable speed, although I usually just run one medium speed as I plane all alone so that I have to work both ends of the planer :).  No Ghost employees for me except for myself.  Sometimes I have to give myself a good talking to...
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

nativewolf

I can only say that I encourage the purchase of a helical head.
Liking Walnut

Brad_bb

@WDH I assume you're talking about the feed rate being variable?  Cutter speed would be constant I assume?
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

YellowHammer

Cutterhead would be constant RPM, just the speed of the board would change.

WDH brings up a good point, and that's duty cycle.  There is no comparison to a true continous duty planer.  There is no rattling, coughing, whatever, they just eat wood, all day long, week after week, year after year.  



YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Brad_bb

@YellowHammer , Which WDH is saying the G0544 is continuous duty, correct?
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

YellowHammer

Yes, that particular planer is a Grizz copy of an older style but very effective Baker Sawmill commercial duty continuous planer.  Its sole purpose is to grind wood into chips, for years.  

Having two independent motors is useful so if a board is dragging or otherwise fighting the feed, it isn't robbing power from the cutterhead. 

These types of machines have very beefy parts, and you'll notice, the heavier duty the planer, generally the shorter the infeed and outfeed tables. So it means the pressure bar as well as the frame of the machine itself can hold a big board out like a diving board and eat it.  No auxiliary or roller tables needed, except for the operator to stage boards.

I've not used @WDH  planer, but I saw it when I visited him, and it's a beast.  

A side note, it is possible to stall any planer, I myself have stalled a 50 hp cutterhead on a too deep, too wide board.  That was pretty sporty.  So all planers must still be set judiciously, and you'll know where to set them in their sweet spot.  With these types of machines, if you ever want to upgrade to a larger cutter motor, just put one in.  

A machine like that will probably eat 300 to 400 bdft per hour, both sides (I'm guessing) or 800 bdft per hour single pass, 1/8" deep on oak 8" to 10" wide, and be expected to do it every day, 365 days of the year with a couple people.  Thats a lot of wood.  WDH May have better numbers. 

We used to plane all our wood, maybe 150,000 bdft per year, for several, many, years until we began to outsource most of it.  The planer didn't give in, we did. We still use it "light duty" at about 1 MBF per week.  
 
Don't scrimp on a dust collector.  These things put out a snowblower load of chips, and it takes a decent sized dust collector to keep them clear.  I use a 5 hp Timberking, into a dump hopper.   





YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

WDH

 An important aspect you will quickly learn as you plane a big batch of lumber is how consistently the lumber was rough sawn.  I have planed some for others and much of this wood has been poorly sawn, thick and thin, variable thickness, humps and waves etc.  This poorly sawn inconsistent lumber makes the first pass through a challenge as this is when you overload the cutterhead and bog down the planer.  

My lumber is consistent, and Customsawer's lumber is beautifully consistent.  Makes a huge difference in planing efficiency and wear and tear on the machine.  I will rarely plane other people's lumber anymore. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Dan_Shade

I think I was as excited to buy a planer as I was to buy a Sawmill. 

It's a significant purchase to buy one that can handle large volumes of lumber. 

The comment about a dust collector is true too, planers make lots of shavings. 

Buy once, cry once.... 
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

petefrom bearswamp

Interesting thread.
Robert I like your comment about raising then lowering the bed rollers.
I have left mine very low continually.
Mine is a 20" bridgewood spiral head (no longer made but very Taiwanese )which was very wimpy when it came with the 5hp cutterhead motor.
I upgraded to a 10hp 3 phase, but still stalls in a thick wide cut.
Maybe raising my bed rollers a litter higher on the initial pass will help.
Snipe has never been an issue with this machine.
mine is straight spiral, is the byrd helical angled?
Just curious as at my age i am winding down and dont plan to upgrade any of my machinery.
Danny I agree about the thick and thin but then it is all my material so I cant fire the sawyer.
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

YellowHammer

Is the bridgewood similar to the Griz 1033?  

The Byrd heads have a slight spiral, the idea is to shear the wood and have the cutters lead into the wood with less of an impact load, such as seen with straight metal knives.  The problem with that is that with metal knives, there is a certain part of the cutter rotation when there are no knives in the wood, in a momentarily unloaded position, and the electric motor can stay at RPM.  With the Bryrd heads I've had, there is always a cutter in the wood, so there is a constant load in the cutter and on the motor.  That's why spiral heads seem to drag an electric motor down more, they are always in the wood.

The SCMI head is a second generation design and has an extreme twist spiral, so that there are times in the cutterhead rotation where there are no cutters in the wood, giving the electric motor a chance to maintain RPM, like with straight knives.  

The other problem with the Byrds and Grizz carbide heads I've owned is that the shoulder clearance between the edge of the cutter and the main body of the cutter head, the big round hunk of metal the knives are mounted in, is just over 3/16".  So if planing more than that, the board will actually bump into the cutterhead body because of the lack of clearance.  Then the board will feed under, and if the cutter head isn't spring loaded and can't raise up, then extreme loads and and even stalling the motor happens.  For metallic knive the clearance is about 1/4", and if you look closely at some of the specs between the same machine with either spiral or knife configuration, the knives will have a slightly deeper advertised cut.  They simply have more clearance.  

The feed speed plays a tremendous role in stalling and slowing the feed just a little will make a huge difference.

When the carbides gets dull, they really cause a lot more load on the planing.  As a rule of thumb, if the planer is too loud for me to talk nd be heard, then the carbides are dull and slapping the wood, so it's time to rotate them.  




YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

farmfromkansas

About rotating your cutters, make sure your cutters are dull and not just dirty.  Wood pitch coats the cutters, and makes them cut like they are dull, and if you clean them, can sometimes cut like new edges.  I use some LA Awesome ammonia cleaner I get at Dollar Tree store, dollar a gallon, and scrub with a toothbrush, then rinse with a little water.  Have to put a piece of cardboard under the cutterhead before starting this, but then after rinsing with a little water, use compressed air to dry the cutterhead, then turn on the machine to get the last of the moisture.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

Brad_bb

Yes, although I'm planning a dust collection system for the other machines in the shop, for this planer, and my MP100 beam planer, I'm thinking of just using blower motors (dust collection style) to blow the volume of chips outside into my 4x4x8 box.  My only concern with that is planing walnut.  Will fine dust drift towards my horses pen?  That is on the opposite side of the building as the box would be, but the prevailing wind goes in that direction.  The chip box has vent holes around the top perimeter.  I could cover those with filter fabric, but would it be sufficient?  The box is not water proof, so I may need to build a roof on it and paint the sides well. 
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

WDH

I did a 4x4x8 box too, but it was a pain to dump, so I ditched it.  Now there is no box, just a pile that customers come and get and keep the pile pulled down.  Mine are all just dry planer and jointer shavings, though.  Much easier, but I am in the country and am over a 1/4 mile from anything. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

doc henderson

@Brad_bb are you worried about respiratory stuff for your horses?  I have heard that walnut is not good on hooves in a stall.  I know cedar can over time cause respiratory stuff in people.  Had not heard about walnut and respiratory stuff with horses.  @Nebraska . It is good you are really thinking about everything!
Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

WDH

Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Nebraska

I don't know the distance the dust has to travel to get to them. In theory it could bother them if enough got there. It causes laminitis(sore feet/founder). Initally if the walnut is removed the feet get better, not sure how they will fair with repeat exposures may end up wrecking the pony. I need to come up with a dust management  plan at my house as well.  FYI Best wood for horse stalls is cotton wood it's hard and pretty bitter, horses don't eat it when they are bored as much. That's probably  been said here before I'm sure.  

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