Lucas Planing Head

[blackhawk]

For those of you with the Lucas planing head, how has it performed for you?  In one of the Lucas videos it said to only take a 2" overlap pass, is that your experience on max cutting width per pass?  Has the planing head been a money maker?

[Don P]

I've used it for flattening slabs and milling timbers. It does a good job of jointing/flattening. The finish is not a "planer" finish but it is flat. I tend to take more like 3" per pass x 1/8" deep. I'm in Grayson Co, where are you?

[blackhawk]

Hello Don - I was born and raised in Grayson County!  I now live in Pulaski County.  I'll send you a PM some time.

Brad

[Log Jammer]

I’ve been interested in the planer disc, I haven’t purchased one because I thought rotation would differ from a blade and cause wear.  Is this a possibility? My mill is a 2004 and I want to get all the hours I can.

[Don P]

Up! Out of the trenches men! Do you want to live forever?

Its smaller diameter. Bite and feed are up to you. If you drop in eighths and its smaller in dia, as long as you let it cut I don't see a higher load.

I want to dangle a shaper spindle off that flange.  

[chep]

One issue i have with the planer head on my mill is that it didmt seem to line up with the slabber. Ex. I make a cut with my slabber. I want to be able to put the planer on and surface the top of the next slab in the log before i make my nextt cut.  But in order to do that you have to adjust the mill height to line it up to plane the top of the next slab. I think lucas missed the boat on efficiency on that one. Ive only used it a couple times and it was finicky! To much adjustment.  Just my 2 cents

[Don P]

I could not agree more.

Oh, my flip quote above was Lord Spankbottom or some such, WWI, but in some form goes back to I think the greeks.

[Stephen1]

Chep, why would you surface a slab that isn’t dry?

[Don P]

@blackhawk
 Brad, did the doc in W-ville get hold of you? We're covered up, good guy, nice place.

[Gasawyer]

I've used mine for the past ten years works good on my 618. 3-4" wide passes at most 1/4" deep. Not too difficult to switch back and forth sawing to plaining.

[chep]

@Gasawyer
 Describe your process of planing. Do you save up slabs and have planing days? Or custom one offs? Do you set up on a flattened log or on sawhorses? 

[customsawyer]

With the way a slab moves when it's drying I don't understand why you would plane it before it is dried. Can someone explain the reasons that you would?

[Ianab]

Dry and Then plane it, Most swing mill operations are small scale. So adding a planer and sanding head to the mill to finish the dry slabs makes sense.

A dedicated "slabmizer" or CNC costs a heap more than a planer head on a swing blade,  A larger operation might be able to justify dedicated machinery, but for a one man band a "do it all" tool works. 

[customsawyer]

One issue i have with the planer head on my mill is that it didmt seem to line up with the slabber. Ex. I make a cut with my slabber. I want to be able to put the planer on and surface the top of the next slab in the log before i make my nextt cut.  But in order to do that you have to adjust the mill height to line it up to plane the top of the next slab. I think lucas missed the boat on efficiency on that one. Ive only used it a couple times and it was finicky! To much adjustment.  Just my 2 cents

My question was directed mostly towards this post. If he is wanting to plane before he cuts the slab, I don't see how it's going to be dry. It makes no difference in the size of the operation. It has to do with the nature of wood. It's going to move a little as it dries. Doesn't matter if Chep planed it before he cut it. It will have to be planed again after it has dried. 

[chep]

@customsawyer



I see your point of course. The one example I had tried to do this was on a sof maple burl/log that had sat in the sun in someone's yard , up off the ground for a bout 10 yrs. The thing was crispy. The slabs were all super wierd shaped, irregular etc, full of holes and rot pockets. I could tell that trying to reset these pieces after the fact was going to be a nightmare trying to hold them to plane them. So I tried my process of cut one, then plane.... I guess a router sled in a shop would be the only way to really plane them after the fact, but I had to try. 

That is the one time I tried that process. The other times have been on sawhorses, which I found tough to perfectly align the heights and had a bit more vibration then I wanted. And also using a big log that was flattened as my "sawhorse". That worked best, but isn't always the case that I have a big log to set up on.  Customsawyer, do you have lucas planer setup? What's your process? 

My question for @gasawyer is just me trying to learn 
I am trying to get better at what I do and am curious how others are setting up to plane. 
I shared my experience,  whether it was a  dumb idea or not I wanted to try. I struggled with the setup from one to the next.  
Believe it or not I have taken classes in wood structure and drying and I understand a lot of the forces at play.  I just want to be able to use my mill to its full capability. 
Cheers

[customsawyer]

I have a dedicated slabber and the WM slabmizer so never even tried to get the Lucas planer head.
When it comes to these Lucas slabbers GAsawyer has forgotten more about them then I know. He came to the project last year and was about to give it a full on tune up of everything he saw wrong. I didn't figure we had time for all of that and we just started sawing. I think I cut one slab before he fired me and took over on my mill. I was glad he did as I had plenty of other stuff to do. What little I know about them is probably less then yourself.
All I know is that it doesn't matter how "dry" a log is it is going to move was it dries after sawing. I see no point in planing a slab before it is dry. In planing on the Slabmizer lots of slabs will move as you are planing them. You end up having to flip them multiple times to relieve the stress equally.

[Don P]

Bumping along 

When we are set up on the concrete slab we put down a pair of ~8x8x6' WO timbers. Surface them with the planer head and do not move them. Set up on them. screw holding blocks to keep the work from moving. I'll see how the work is rocking and split the difference or figure what I'm letting go. And begin surfacing and flipping. Keep track of where you are in relation to the surface of the bunks. If you get lost, drop down, index, kiss the surfaces if needed and go again.

In the field I'll shim to plane a couple of long timbers lengthwise on the ground in the mill frame. Then toe screw cross bunks across the sleepers. Flatten the bunks and proceed.

If you are doing anything more than basic breakdown you start needing to create flat, square, things to index from. It can be a log or some kind of "furniture" cobbled together and faced with the mill. I could have done a better job on the right hand face with just the blade by dropping an eighth and skimming, which is the solution to the problem you were having chep. If the log moves take a light skim to reface it, then do your drop. They are pretty versatile.