Finally bogged down the powerpro!

[adrianpglover]

I finally found a way to bog down the powerpro, pretty heavily in fact. I picked up some very twisted and bowed ~2.25"x14-18"x8' live edge rough-sawn oak slabs that someone was throwing out. Looked like they got a pallet of them in for a remodel and left them in the rain. I cut a piece down to 12" wide and about 3' long for a project I'm doing with one of my kids. Hot glued it to a straight piece of 1-1/8" plywood, also cut down to 12" wide. Ran this through the MK7 mounted planer, with the feed speed starting out at about 5 and decreasing as it engaged the full width of the board down to a speed of 1, taking off 1/32" on each pass. The PP started bogging down when it would run over some well knotted areas.

I'm not surprised by this at all and not disappointed in my setup. I think it's a good testimony to what this setup can handle. Oh, forgot to mention, I'm running the PP on 240V, so the full 2hp was available during this run. Tonight I'll be doing the other side of the slab. I think my final thickness will be around 1-1/4". Sucks to throw away so much of the lumber, but I don't think there's an easy way to take out this much of a twist and bow from the wood. Maybe I could minimize it for the other 3 slabs that I haven't touched yet, but I'm not sure how.

[adrianpglover]

I was planing again last night and realized I misquoted the amount I was taking off in each pass. I was doing 1/4 turns of the handle, which the chart says is 1/64" on each pass.

[algale]

I don't own either the Power Pro or the Shopsmith-mounted planer. But I'd have thought the Power Pro would have enough horsepower and torque to snap the plastic power coupler to the planer before the Power Pro itself bogged down.

I have occasionally had issues with my DW735 planer where I tried to put wood through without checking the thickness difference along the the entire width and length of the board. On those occasions I thought I was taking off a very small amount at one end but the middle or other end was much thicker causing the board to get stuck in the planer.

[Matanuska]

Have you checked the sharpness of your planer knives?

[jsburger]

Seems to me something else is going on here. I agree with Al Gale on variations of stock thickness and also the planer sled technique in that are you sure the hot glue is holding the stock perfectly stable. I also agree with Matanuska on blade sharpness. With this kind of a set up you need to start at a height that just kisses the highest parts of the stock and then work down from there. That doesn't mean that the planer will cut at the beginning of the feed. Light cuts until you get the high spots knocked down.

[adrianpglover]

As far as thickness goes, I always start where the board can't touch at all, and slowly through successive passes at a decreasing thickness of 1/16" on each pass, keep running the board through until it starts making contact. Then, based upon how the planer responds, I'll run a different thickness or switch the direction of the board if I'm getting large chipout. I'm thinking part of it was blade sharpness. I know that the planer bed did need a good waxing, which I did before running the other side of the board through the planer. Still had the same bogging down issue. Looking at the display, the speed wasn't dropping off that much, but it wasn't staying all that steady. Seems the control loop was having some issues trying to keep it at speed when under that heavy of a load. It's not like the motor stopped or anything.

As far as snapping the plastic collar in half, I've made mistakes before like running the motor in the wrong direction (mounting it on the planer side of the headstock and using the "chart" built into the PP which puts the motor into reverse). When I've done that I've actually gotten it to stop the motor on the wood. I'm sure that wasn't good for my knives, but it seems there's a safety protection in the PP that if you get too much load it'll stop itself.

The thing is, the PP is a digitally controlled motor, and there's a digital control loop that is constantly checking the speed and adjusting for the load. At some speeds under no load you can hear the updates since the motor has so much torque. I'm guessing they're doing updates in the 10-100 per second range (10s of ms for each update).

I have a small slipstone that I use from time to time to touch up the edge of the knives. I've never taken the knives out of the planer to sharpen them on the bench. I don't have the sharpener jig from SS. To be honest, when measuring the knife depth in the past, just to check it, I've not been all that satisfied with how I've taken the measurement to know that it's been set correctly. I know that there are a few minor knicks in my blades as I've got 2 ridges going down the length of the board, but I can sand/scrape those down easily enough. I may go through all of the adjustments listed in the manual again sometime soon as I feel like the chain is a bit more loose than I'd like (but I've always felt that way).

[jsburger]

If you have never removed the knives in 5 years and properly sharpened them I think that is your problem.

[nuhobby]

The other old tip from Nick / Jim. was to keep the planer bed waxed. But knife sharpness is first.

[JPG]

To me, bogged down and stopped are the same thing. Slight speed variation is normal even with a digitally controlled stepping motor.

[algale]

To me, bogged down and stopped are the same thing. Slight speed variation is normal even with a digitally controlled stepping motor.

Agree re bogged down and stopped. Is that not what the OP is referring to? Or is this some minor speed fluctuation under varying loads?