Pro Planer Drift Troubleshooting

[Sazerac81]

Hey Shopsmithers,

I have finally found time to put together the pro planer that I was able to get ahold of on ebay.

I am having a bear of a time from keeping the wood from drifting to one side. I have synchronized the mounting posts as well as I can. Each side is pretty even and is being tested with 3-2-1 block. There is a very slight difference from one side to another, about 1/4-1/8 of a handle turn for the 3-2-1 block to get just barely wedged under the support rods from one side to another.

I find that the wood consistently drifts to the right side of the outfeed table. Meaning that the leading edge is the left side. I have tried adjusting the roller tension and tried both tightening the right side and found no difference, and then tightening the left side and found no difference either. Tightening and re-tightening those roller tension arms seems to be getting me nowhere no matter which side I tighten, it doesn't seem to be effecting drift very much at all. No matter what I do or how extreme I tighten one side or another, I absolutely cannot get the board to drift the other direction.

Since no amount of adjusting the tension arms is getting me anywhere, can anyone tell me how it is supposed to be adjusted when the board is drifting to the right side of the outfeed table (when facing the infeed side) or another way of putting it is the leading edge is the left side of the board when standing on the infeed side of the table feeding the board into the planer.

Any help would be much appreciated. I hate to have to go messing with the mounting posts again if it can be avoided since it is a bear to go about doing it and is at least a 2 hour process or more. However, if that is what needs to be done, then I will do it. I imagine, if the table is tilted just slightly up on the leading edge side, that will cause the rollers to grab it just a bit earlier and more aggressively on the higher side and causing that drift that doesn't seem to correct with adjustments to the roller tension. That's what I think would happen in theory, but after measuring it with the 3-2-1 block, I find that the leading edge side is actually the side that is just a bit lower from the infeed rollers... It seems a little strange to me that the lower side would somehow pass through faster when compared to the side just a hair closer to the infeed roller. Can someone explain the physics of this to me or am I completely off base that the slight mis-alignment of the mounting posts has anything to do with the drift issue?


Thoroughly confused,
John

[BuckeyeDennis]

Short boards sometimes want to rotate a bit when being fed into my Pro Planer, but usually only at the very start of a feed. I've never noticed a drift trend to one side or the other.

Any chance that the planer knives are sharper on one side than the other?

Have you waxed your table? If one side has more friction than the other, that would apply a torque to the workpiece.

What type of infeed roller does your planer have? Ribbed metal, or rubber?

[Sazerac81]

Ribbed metal infeed. The table is waxed pretty well I think. I can re-apply some more to see if that helps. The piece I am testing is about 2.5 feet long. It's simply a standard 2*4 pine board. It Always drifts and always to that one side and I am testing it just a hair below the planer blades (when it's taken off all it can take after 2 passes at the same cut level) so they shouldn't be having an effect on the drift.

I guess I am going to try re-synchronizing the mounting posts. 'sigh'

Cheers,
John

[dusty]

If your blades are not installed/aligned properly this "drift" may happen. It is the result of the blades cutting deeper on one side (end of the blade) or the other.

I experienced this for years and just never dealt with it. One day I was planing some wide stock and noticed that one side was thinner than the other. Not much but enough to be measured with a dial caliper. Resetting the blades gave me parallel surfaces and a true feed through the planer.

As a side comment: A professional wood worker with whom I occasionally chat told me to make sure that I don't tend to use one side of the table more than the other. I did. There has long been a tendency to feed narrow stock into the left side of the blade. I now try to avoid doing that.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL QUESTION.

[Sazerac81]

If your blades are not installed/aligned properly this "drift" may happen. It is the result of the blades cutting deeper on one side (end of the blade) or the other.

I experienced this for years and just never dealt with it. One day I was planing some wide stock and noticed that one side was thinner than the other. Not much but enough to be measured with a dial caliper. Resetting the blades gave me parallel surfaces and a true feed through the planer.

As a side comment: A professional wood worker with whom I occasionally chat told me to make sure that I don't tend to use one side of the table more than the other. I did. There has long been a tendency to feed narrow stock into the left side of the blade. I now try to avoid doing that.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL QUESTION.

Good practice measures for using the planer Dusty. Thanks! I'll get it dialed eventually.

How did you eventually set the planer blade perfectly parallel across the board? I have the little blade alignment tool and have used a dial guage as well to set them straight according to Nick Englert's shopsmith alignment videos.

Cheers,
John

[everettdavis]

Those recommendations are spot on, but let me ask a few questions about stock you have been running... and give you some other things to try

1) What material is it?
2) How much have you been taking off per pass?
3) When you measure the finished stock, is it truly an even thickness?
a) If not, how much does it vary?
4) You said you have the metal roller, but have you removed it and examined it closely?

5) I heard of one fellow who had a bearing issue on one side that allowed the cutter head to move within the bearing under load that would not show up of course when setting cutter height. I don't believe it was documented in these forums, and can't remember where I read it a number of years ago.

I remember wondering if belt tension on a Pro Planer could introduce something similar.

If you do not have any truly even stock, take a little of your stock to another shop and run it through a different planer insuring it is even, then re-run it through your planer and see if it remains even. The point there is you can use something known true from your stock, to see if it remains true.

With that information, you can likely determine where the issue is being introduced.

I hope I have given you some additional ideas. Please do post your findings here as I am sure some of us will need that information in the future when we encounter it.

Everett

[JPG]

. . .

There is a very slight difference from one side to another, about 1/4-1/8 of a handle turn for the 3-2-1 block to get just barely wedged under the support rods from one side to another.

. . .


Thoroughly confused,
John

When you say post, I assume you are referring to chain synchronization.

That 1/4 to 1/8 turn corresponds to about 4 to 2 teeth on the sprocket.


I think you can(and need to) get it closer.

Do not ignore backlash. Always adjust the sprockets in the table raising direction.

[larryhrockisland]

I don't have this planer but is it possible that the feed roller is skewed or not parallel to the blades? Kinda like an old pickup running down the road with the back end drifting away from the front?

[billmayo]

I had a similar problem when the table was not aligned with the cutter head when I rebuilding planers a few years ago. I was getting crooked feeding of the wood when the left and right jack posts were different heights for the table. I found the table must be almost perfectly aligned with the cutter head by adjusting the jack posts socket wheels on the chain. I found I could get within 1 tooth alignment for all 4 jack posts. I cannot find my information on how much one tooth moves the table. I had it written down some where.

[Mike907]

I think the sprockets are 16 tooth, so one tooth = 1/256".

Mike