Planer knives - straight or helical??

[boonesyard]

We do a fair amount of large live edge slab work and have decided to add a large planer to the shop. I've done a lot of research and have decided that the Woodmaster 725 is probably the way we'll go. I know there's been plenty of discussion on the matter of size and manufacturers, but it just seems to fit with budget vs its size and power requirements. I do a lot of slab flattening for customers with a large Woodpecker slab flattening mill. The addition of the 25" planer would allow us to flatten only 1 side, then finish up the other with the planer saving me a ton of time. It won't be the answer to all, there are plenty of slabs over 25", but it will work for many that we do. I also skip plane a fair amount of dimensional lumber for customers (we currently only have a Dewalt 733 ) and we do some cabinet and finish work out of the shop as well. 

I thought the decision to go with the helical head option was a no brainer, but when I visited with Woodmaster sales, they said that the max cut you can take with the helical is 1/16" and and max with the straight knives is 1/8". We are a very small operation not requiring great production rates, but time is still important (have to make some for the grandkids too). Also, handling the large heavy slabs from outfeed to infeed is also something to consider when the number of passes doubles with the helical head. Also, the straight head version is almost $1,000 less. 

I've heard and read that the helical heads do a great job with figured wood and leave a wonderful finish. We get plenty of wild grained stuff so that also was a big selling point. I know there is a lot of experience out there with this, and looking forward to hear your opinions on the matter.   

[Stephen1]

I will folow along.
The wild grains in slab wood will be an issue. The moving the slab around could be done with a hydraulic cart, but you would need room to manouver. 

[Larry]

I bought a 15" planer equipped with a Byrd Shellix head about 20 years ago.  It came with a 3 hp motor and the most I could cut on 12" and wider boards was 1/16".  After a couple of weeks I retro-fitted it with a 5 hp motor and routinely cut up to 1/8".  I think I might even be able to take a heavier cut, but my machine has a stop so I can't feed anything with over a 1/8" cut.

I wouldn't want a machine that could only take 1/16".  If the sawmill leaves a little wave the board gets stuck in the machine.

You might ask if Woodmaster could put a bigger motor on the machine.

[boonesyard]

They have a farm duty motor that I believe would be a good upgrade anyway, but they said the helical head would still only take 1/16". That's just not enough material in 1 pass for many applications. I'm looking forward to hear from other Woodmaster owners that might have some insight. Maybe the salesperson was incorrect about the specs.

[doc henderson]

for rough stuff with a variation in thickness, you need the bed rollers up a bit, so it does not stick on the bed.  and strait knives can take more cause there is more clearance to the cutter head.  the little square cutters have less room, and a finer finish.  ideally you would have a big honking straight knife planer with bed rollers up for right off the mill and finish with your helical head in small increments.  or a planer with adjustable bed rollers, but then heavier and more expensive.  I have a grizzly 20 inch with bed rollers barely above the bed, and if I get a wavy board, the first pass is a mess with getting stuck too thick, alternating with not moving forward due to too thin for the setting.  

[alan gage]

I have a 718 with spiral head and looking at Woodmaster's website it gives the same spec for both the 718 and 725 with spiral cutter (3/32" at full width and 1/8" with 6" board). I'd say the salesman's about right at 1/16". I've taken off 1/8" on wide boards and you have to slow the feed speed down so much I think it's just as fast to run multiple passes at 1/16". If you're taking off closer to 1/8" it doesn't take much (thick spot or goofy grain) to bog down and stall the motor. Then you shut off both motors, raise the head enough to slide the board back, drop back down for a lighter cut to finish the board, and then run it through again to even it out (since the first portion of the cut was deeper). So, yeah, it seems like less hassle to stick to 1/16" on wider boards. If you hit a slightly thicker spot you'll hear it bog down and work but hopefully it will make it through. Thankfully if I'm just looking for a clean face 1/16" will usually get me there or at least pretty close.

When running a lot of material through I wish I had a planer that could take a deeper cut and also had a faster feed speed (I think the 725 might be faster than the 718 but don't remember). But I don't wish for it bad enough to go out and spend the money on a planer that can do it. At this point I'm not using it to make money so the slower planer only costs a little of my free time.

I don't know how the blade life works out in the efficiency calculations (i.e., how much of that time gained by deeper cuts is lost by changing/sharpening blades?)

Are you thinking of getting the pro kit?  I bought mine used at auction and it came with it and I'm glad it did. I can't believe how handy the saw attachment has been. I used it to make consistent width flooring for my house and consistent width boards for lining the walls of my shop. Much nicer than feeding through a table saw. Pretty cool feeding one board in and getting two or three out.  Haven't done any molding or used the sanding attachment with it.

Alan

[boonesyard]

I know that we should probably be considering a larger, heavier machine with bed rollers for live edge product we're doing. It's really something how fast the price and power considerations start going up in large planers with more features. I've looked at a number of used machines (made some long road trips) only to find a reconditioning project (I've got enough projects 8)). I don't have 3 phase power, but I'd have no problem adding a rotary phase converter to the system. There have been some decent used machines out there with 3 phase requirements, but nothing decent with a helical head. Buy the time you buy a used 3 phase machine, add the phase converter and the helical head, the cost gets real high real fast. Maybe I've been thinking about this wrong and should just be considering straight knives for the planer in my application. I notice the Laguna shear tech heads say they can take 1/8"/pass, there must be some variance in the different helical heads?   

[Southside]

I run straight knives in my 725 and am very happy with how it does. I don't do a lot of big, live edge slabs so I can't really comment on crazy grain issues. With the farm duty motor if it will fit through the throat, it will come out the other side without hesitation. 

[YellowHammer]

That may be true of Woodmaster with helical cutters, but not true for helical in general.

I routinely take 1/4" off per pass with my SCMI facer and 3/16" off per pass on my Powermatic planer.  It just comes down to horsepower.




 

 

[Southside]

It's a matter of horsepower
For eight seconds or miles an hour
That's the way I am and it's a fact I can't ignore.......l

[boonesyard]

All of this info sure is helpful. If I want to plane large slabs, sounds like it's all about horsepower, horsepower, horsepower. Definitely going to rethink my direction and keep looking at options.  

[alan gage]

there must be some variance in the different helical heads?

No personal experience but from my reading I think that's true. The bigger Powermatic planers (like Yellowhammer uses) claim 3/16" cut with helical head.

201HH, 22" Planer, 7.5HP 1PH 230V, Helical Cutterhead

Pretty much everyone else seems to say 1/8" though. Woodmaster seems to be the only one that says 1/8" at narrow widths and 3/32" at full width with the salesman saying 1/16" in real life. I don't know if that's due to limitations in the machine or honesty of the manufacturer/salesman. It will take off 1/8". I've done it plenty. But it will choke if you suddenly hit a thick spot in the board. You're safer taking 1/8" off on the second side after one side has been flattened.

I'd be curious to hear from the Grizzly owners since their spiral head spec seems to be 1/8" on the 15 and 20" planers as well. The 24" only shows straight knives on the website until you get into the real big money 3 phase machines.

Alan

[doc henderson]

you can by helical Byrd heads to replace on the grizzly stuff, and I thought they had a single phase helical, but you may be right.  (in 24 ")

[farmfromkansas]

I had a woodmaster 718, and sold it because of the slow speed.  The cast iron grizzly machines run faster feed speeds, but the G0453px I have will overheat the motor and shut down for a while until it cools if you try to run a big pile of lumber through it.  A better planer for commercial use is the G0544 20" or the G581Z 24".  I bought the spiral cutterhead because I don't see as well as I did 20 years ago, and did not want to have to adjust straight blades, and it does not pull chunks out of the face of figured grains.

[boonesyard]

I'm definitely going to pull back and look at a beefier machine. Not that the Woodmaster wouldn't be a great machine, I just think for our heavy application I need to find something with bed rollers and to have the ability to hog off a bit more material in pass. Will still be looking for something with a helical head. Thanks all 

[stanmillnc]

I've got a heavy duty, 5HP, single phase NorthState brand machine from LeNeave Supply with the spiral cutterhead and it works great. It has a separate motor for the feed rollers (2HP I think?).

[WDH]

The Grizzly GO544 has a separate 5hp cutterhead motor and a 2hp feed motor.  

[scsmith42]

Depending upon your budget one option would be to obtain a good, used 3 phase generator and power a production sized double planer off of it.

My 25" Oliver is the workhorse of the shop.  It has helical heads top and bottom, with 20hp on the jointer head and 15 hp on the planer. Feed motor is 3 hp. 

If you're face jointing and planing a lot of slabs, you'll recover costs quickly with a powerful machine.

[longtime lurker]

The fastest job, and the best finish are always achieved with sharp knives. Straight knife or helical... Blunt is slow and Blunt is rough. (Although as YH points out horsepower matters.)

Once you decide sharp knives are better it's hard to beat Tersa: best knife system ever, and theres a half dozen different knife types to change from HSS to carbide to chrome depending on finish required and material being surfaced. In a minute flat.  ;D

Tersa cutterheads -- the best cutter block knife solution available - YouTube

[Brad_bb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a planer won't get the slab flat, eh?  You need to joint/flatten one side first?  If Boonesyard sends a slab with warp through the planer, it's going to come thinner but still have the warp, correct?
  

[petefrom bearswamp]

Brad, I thought I had posted a reply about flattening the slab yesterday but I guess it didnt get on this thread.
I planed one with a little warp 2 yrs ago and it came out warped.
Dont have a jointer big enough to flatten slabs

[barbender]

Boonesyard stated that he will flatten one side before putting it through the planer.

[btulloh]

A planer sled is the only way to make it work if you don't have a wide enough jointer.  It accomplishes the same thing by using wedges to establish a plane on the first surface, then it's a regular planing job.  That's what I have to do, cause I only have a 6" jointer.

I do have a 11.5" jointer/planer combo that was made by Inca, but that's still only 11.5" wide.  The Inca was an interesting and fairly expensive machine, but it's touchy to keep running right, and I've really just stopped using it.  I should probably sell it, but that's another chore.

Anyway - a planer sled gives you a way to flatten the first side correctly without having a wide jointer.  It's fine for limited production, but not a high-volume deal.

[doc henderson]

I do engraving, and the thin pieces tend to warp.  I have a 8 inch jointer, and have jointed in two pass keeping the wood flat on 3 points on wider pieces.  say 11.5 inch wide. until it sits flat on the table saw. then plane both sides.  better than making it firewood.



 

I hold it so the jointer takes down the two corners touching.  you can see the corner in the air leading into the knives.  this works for smaller pieces.  then plane the other warped side flat, and flip over to clean up the original jointed surface.

[boonesyard]

Boonesyard stated that he will flatten one side before putting it through the planer.

Yes, that is correct. I flatten one side of the slab with a large router sled and the plan would be to send it through a large planer to flatten the other side. I'd love to have a large SCMI jointer like YH, but that will not be in the cards. We have an old 6" jet jointer that we'll be upgrading to either an 8" or 12", depending on what we find, but I digress. The other thing I look forward too is once the 2nd side is flattened on the planer, we could flip it over and get rid of any milling marks that are left behind by the router. They don't take much to sand out, but planing would be another great time saver.
The search is on for a planer that'll fit our needs. Turning over all the stones to find the right one isn't too bad a job, as long as the stones aren't too heavy  .

[WDH]

A sawmill is just an expensive router sled . 

[caveman]

We usually use a sled for the planer but a couple of weeks ago a customer needed several slabs to build a horseshoe shaped bar down near Punta Gorda.  Rather than running them all through the planer multiple times on the planer sled, we skim cut one side flat on the mill as previously advised by YellowHammer.  We will be doing more slabs like that next week.

The hard, dry wood will dull the blade relatively quickly but the time savings and effectiveness is worth the price of admission.  If the blade is not kept in the wood, the blade's set may also be affected.

[RichTired]

Wood-Mizer has this device that will smooth the slab and take out the warp.

https://woodmizer.com/us/SlabMizer-MB200-Slab-Flattener

Might cost a little more than what you have been looking at so far.

[boonesyard]

Wood-Mizer has this device that will smooth the slab and take out the warp.

https://woodmizer.com/us/SlabMizer-MB200-Slab-Flattener

Might cost a little more than what you have been looking at so far.

In a perfect world, the slabmizer would be a great addition, but tough on the budget.  Also, we need a larger planer for some of the other things we do. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

Pardon my ignorance.
How do you build a planer sled?

[customsawyer]

The best machine I have for what you are doing is a Cantek 30" double surfacer. It is all 3ph and likely out of the budget as well but does awesome on the big slabs.

[farmfromkansas]

About 55 years ago, when I was in school, the boards the school had for use in the shop were some warped, twisted, knarly stuff, and I built projects from them.  They had supposedly been run through a straight-o-plane surfacer.  Was that a similar top and bottom moulding machine?  The boards were not flat at all, but maybe the storage and drying was not so great? 

[btulloh]

Pardon my ignorance.
How do you build a planer sled?

Probably best to google "planer sled" and see what turns up.  Many different plans and approaches.  
Here's a couple:
https://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/viewer-projects/planer-sled/
https://www.lumberjocks.com/projects/330353
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNg9BV4IF2Q
Basically it is a fixture that holds your work piece in a way that supports any twist or cup on the bottom so when it goes through the planer, the board doesn't deform from the pressure rollers.  It can be simple for one-time use, with just some wedges and such placed to hold the piece as it goes through the planer.  It basically creates an upside down jointer.  It takes a bit of fiddling to get the work piece situated and supported, but after that it's just a matter of running it through until you have one true face.  It's not something you'd use for production, but it's a solution.  After all, getting a twist out of a piece using the jointer is a skill that takes some time to master, and if you don't have a 20" jointer to go along with your twenty inch planer, a sled can come in handy. 
Obviously, the work piece and any supporting devices need to be held firmly so you don't create a wood chucker when it's run through the planer.

[WDH]

Customsawyer's planer is a beast,