Planer Moulders

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This question is for those with experiance using multi head 4 sided moulders.  Can you just feed a rough cut, over demensioned stock through it.  If the board not perfectly flat, does it need jounted on the face first?
I am looking into making hardwood flooring, and T&G boards for interior paneling and such from eastern red cedar, pine, oak, and a few other local species. Just need to know how or if the wood needs processing before it goes into the moulder

[Brad_S.]

Footer,

I asked that question myself not too long ago. Here's the thread.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=9699.0

I've since talked to many others and the consensus is that if the lumber is severely cupped, twisted or warped, pre-jointing is suggested. Moderate defects don't seem to need it.

Be warned, I'm speaking from 2nd hand information, not experience.

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Brad,
Thanks, I remember reading some of it when it was first posted. I guess I didn't follow it all the way through.  Thanks for the input.

[Norwiscutter]

That depends on how over dimensioned and rough cut you are talking about.

[FeltzE]

The more uniform the stock going in the better the final product. I've got a logosol, running 15/16" thick 6"inch wide pine boards I run the best face down taking off the least amount from the bottom of the input board, taking the excess off the top cut (finished back of the T&G board) that way I can be fairly assured of a good front face of the machined wood product. I plane to 3/4 in one pass that way, on stock cut 4/4 I'm still ok but it's better to take off an 1/8 on each side then. Thicker stock I preplane to 1" or slightly less.

I have run some 3" and 4" oak flooring on the logosol with good results, again preplane to 15/16 first if cut thicker. This will also provide you with a good choice of which way to feed the board for your finished face in the moulder.

The XL mouldmatcher I have acquired starts with a top face cut then the sides then the bottom the recommended feed is to have the profile cut from the bottom cutter on that, again the wood should be trimmed uniformly to within about  1/4 inch of final thickness for good feed and results.

Bottom line is garbage in prettier garbage out, there is some obvious reasons that so much commercial flooring is narrow and short, it's because they had to trim the defects out befor and/or after moulding starting with poor quality will result in a lot of wasted trim pieces.

Eric

[Norwiscutter]

Eric, do you have your knives sharpened locally or do you send them out? I am looking for a good place to start sending mine.  Also was wondering if you have ever scene a helical cutter head that could be swapped in for the top and bottom heads.  I don't foresee doing too much pofileing with the top and bottom heads other than straight planning.  I would think that the feed speed limitations of the machine would be determined by the top and bottom heads rather than the side ones.

[FeltzE]

I sharpen my own planer blades, the profile blades I've only honed the edge to bring them back up to a quality edge. And hone the back side a little too, using a water cooled 90 rpm grinder I can bring the edge back in a few minutes but not a true regrinding...

I have only used OEM knives so far, but have 2 requests for short run custom profiles to get ground... I'm holding off till I get the XL mouldmaster on line and I intend to grind my own. I did a first run at self grinding last night with way better than I expected results from tracing and free hand grinding.

I think corregated stock will be cheaper to buy and use than the pin set knives of the logosol for custom knives

There are several sites that you can google up for spiral cutterheads, I looked at them at the woodworking show in atlanta last yr. VERY expensive though.

Eric

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Do you guys end match you flooring? How is that done?

[FeltzE]

No I don't end match flooring, there is however a pair of fairly expensive machines that will do that for you. (we aren't in the "flooring business" per say, just trying to make sure we can provide appropriate products for our area.

Eric

[footer]

Thanks,
I have gathered from reading, mostly here, that it is more of a marketing ploy, but could find no info on how it is done.

[FeltzE]

I wouldn't say it's a marketing ploy. It does make for a better floor when installed, it will reduce the possibility of one board not matching the next especially if one board cups a little.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Hey FeltzE how do you like that logosol?  My brother just talked to logosol and were thinking of buying the 3 phase model. Have you run much wood through yours? Everyone we talk to likes there machine. But we haven't talked to anyone thats run one for any length of time. Were going the skip plane and straight line rip our boards before running it through the logosol.

[Brad_S.]

Eric,

Logosol really needs to put you on their sales staff payroll! :D

[FeltzE]

Actually I really like my logosol, however I have the single phase model which runs 3 hp motors instead of 4 hp motors. I have to be carefull not to overload the the feed rate on the wide heads but that being said there are a set of on board circuit breakers and they do work. . .  I've personnally tested them by running the planer head till it grunted to a halt on som tooooooo thick stock, popping the CB.

I've learned to set up the moulder then make a pattern board and hanging it on the wall with the setup information on it, thickness of shims, etc. It REALLY make following setups run much quicker.

Tonight one of my fellow part time sawmillers brought a perspective customer over about making some flooring. While he waited I pulled the logosol out, hooked up the vacum hoses, changed the side cutters and ran a few pieces of T&G flooring in about 20 minutes. (He was most impressed)  I have found that running the woodmizer cutting on the inch mark instead of 4/4 works very well for producing 3/4inch dressed lumber planning about 2mm off the face of the board (bottom cutter) and letting the top cutter plane the back side of the piece. This works well for a cpl reasons, one if a piece of wood jams in the machine the drive spindles mark the back of the board instead of the showing face of the finished product, second planning about 1.5 -2 mm off the face pretty much eliminates the amount of planner skip leaving the skip on the back side.

I saw that logosol is providing free training in mississippi for anyone buying one, I wonder if they will provide me with some training, I certainly would like to learn more.

(company kick backs are welcome...)

Eric 8)

[Norwiscutter]

gotta make sure that the the dust collection system on these is running smoothly if you want to avoid headaches.  I am currently dealing with dust collection problems from the blower that I have.  I run a 5 horse cornell blower that is supose to run at 3200 cfm's which should be more than enough for the logosol, which recomends 2400.  Well, haveing scene the factory logosol blower in action with the machine, I would say that it is probably best to just go with that one.

Eric is dead on with sawing one the inch rather than 4/4 with hardwoods.  With pine, I have found that 4/4 or even a little heavier doesn't bother it much.  My limitation right now is suction, not the machine.  I foresee that 1x6 pine T&G can be run at 40+ fpm if you have the dust collector to support that rate.  Haven't bogged down the machine since the first board I ran through it.  Turned out the feed motor was misswired at the factory, and since the factory tells you to check the motor rotation from the feed motor, all the cutter heads were turning the wrong way. really scared the heck out of me.

I am upgrading to a bigger motor on the blower which should hopefully fix that problem, but  the logosol itself definately does what they say it will.

[stumpy]

I need to jump in here! Are any of you familiar with Woodmaster Planer/Moulders?
Opinions???

[FeltzE]

I've got an RBI which is similar...