Trouble sharpening planer blades and planing pine

petik · Post by **petik** » Sat Jun 26, 2010 10:26 pm

I 'think' I may be having an issue trying to sharpen my planer blades. I recently purchased a used shopsmith (not pro) planer. The previous owner ran a piece of oak through it and although it left a couple of very minor nicks, the board planed just fine. I brought it home and hooked it up to my shopsmith and tried running a board of 1x2 pine (true dimensions 3/4 x 1 1/2) on it's side and the results were pretty terrible. Top layer looked more like it was chewed on than anything else... I figured maybe I was running at the wrong speed, but I tried small variation from T as well as adjusting the feed rate without success.

I own the conical disk as well as the shopsmith sharpening jig so I figured I'd try sharpening the blades. First time using the jig I set it up per instructions - which say to leave the table at 0 degrees instead of the usual 4. If the jig gives and exact 45 degrees, this would result in a blade angle of 41. I ran the blades through and got what looks like a nice sharp edge. I only used 80 grit as that is all I have but the blades looked MUCH better still.

Set the blades back in the planer - using the shopsmith video i set the blades at 0.132" above the cutter head (+/- 0.002").

Ran the pine again with exactly the same results as before sharperning!

I haven't used planers much in the past so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here. One thing to note is that the pine is pretty fresh...could that be an issue?

I'm going to try to run it through my jointer next and my old portable delta 300 planer.

Thanks for any advice!

shipwright · Post by **shipwright** » Sat Jun 26, 2010 11:06 pm

Wet wood will often act that way. If by "fresh" you mean wet or pitchy that is likely your problem. Try a dry board and if it planes fine you have your answer.

Paul M

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Sat Jun 26, 2010 11:29 pm

Did ya try turning it around and run it through the planer that way?

petik · Post by **petik** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 12:10 am

Yep, tried turning it around and tried a couple of other pine boards as well. I got them all at the same time so none have had a chance to really dry yet.

tkhudson · Post by **tkhudson** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 12:55 am

Sounds like shavings may be going around the planer knives and causing chip marks. Wet wood can definately cause this... might try a little more knife extension. Do you have a photo? Please dont take offense to this question, as I had done this once... any chance you put the knives in backwards?

8iowa · Post by **8iowa** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:48 am

I plane bag after bag of white and red pine here in the "Workshop in the Woods". It has all been air dryed at least three years. It would be pretty useless to plane and then use wet wood as it will likely warp and shrink as it dries - splitting, joints coming apart, ect.

I sharpen my jointer and planer knives on the conical sander with 150 grit. Then I carefully hone the bevels by hand on my wet stones, finishing with 8000 grit. When the knives will slice paper, like "schlippppppp............then they are sharp enough.

petik · Post by **petik** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:01 pm

Yep, definitely wet wood - I learned another lesson

I did actually check if my blades were on backwards but they were correct. I ran through a piece of dry european beech i had laying around and it planed just fine.

Interestingly, I tried running the piece of pine on my shopsmith jointer and it went through great - very clean, even though the blades on my jointer aren't exactly sharp.

I wonder why the big difference between the jointer and the planer. The blades are very similar, the cutting speed is similar as well - sure the planer is a bit faster, but it shouldn't make that much difference.

On the sharpening, you're absolutely right, I need to do a much better job sharperning my blades. I ordered a set of honing stones - now just need to get the 150 grit paper for the sander - just finding it hard to stomach 25 bucks (delivered) for getting 3 pieces of sandpaper.

Lastly, is the manual correct that the table should be set at 0 degrees against the conical sander? Is this what you guys do?

shipwright · Post by **shipwright** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:39 pm

petik wrote:Yep, definitely wet wood - I learned another lesson

I did actually check if my blades were on backwards but they were correct. I ran through a piece of dry european beech i had laying around and it planed just fine.

Interestingly, I tried running the piece of pine on my shopsmith jointer and it went through great - very clean, even though the blades on my jointer aren't exactly sharp.

I wonder why the big difference between the jointer and the planer. The blades are very similar, the cutting speed is similar as well - sure the planer is a bit faster, but it shouldn't make that much difference.

On the sharpening, you're absolutely right, I need to do a much better job sharperning my blades. I ordered a set of honing stones - now just need to get the 150 grit paper for the sander - just finding it hard to stomach 25 bucks (delivered) for getting 3 pieces of sandpaper.

Lastly, is the manual correct that the table should be set at 0 degrees against the conical sander? Is this what you guys do?

Difference between jointer and planer is that the chips get away from the jointer while the planer recycles them on to of the infeed side of the board with a resultant gumming up (technical term) of the works.

Paul M