Shopsmith Forums

I own a non-shopsmith planner and it came without a dust port. Since I was short on money I did not order the "extra" and by the time I had the money they no longer have that part......... oh the story of my life.

Anyway I have had thoughts of making my own that has not happened yet. My solution is to get out a tarp and put it down then put the planner on top and have go at it. Most of the chips end up on the tarp which is better then nothing but not by much.

The good news is that I don't do much planning anymore so with less use comes less chips. It is pretty amazing to see how many chips come off, with at collector you have no idea.

The other tool that produces hung amount so dust is the drum sander, it has a 4" dust port and it needs it. I tried running if for a small job without and the amount of dust was epic. I will never do that again.

I'd say those who want one should get one, there is no time like now, and I really wish I had a planner that I could get any kind of collector for.

Ed

I can't believe none of you guys know what this is about. SS has offered a dust collector for the planer for years. It works very well but it does not get everything because of the way a planer cuts. Am I missing something?

jsburger wrote:I can't believe none of you guys know what this is about. SS has offered a dust collector for the planer for years. It works very well but it does not get everything because of the way a planer cuts. Am I missing something?

Your clear plastic dust collector has a sheet-metal baffle installed on the underside. That piece is a newer improvement, and greatly increases chip-collection efficiency. Older models of the dust chute did not have it. My used planer came with the dust chute, but not that baffle. I bought the upgrade from the mothership and installed it, to excellent effect.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maint ... 14390.html

Sounds like I am getting the dust chute and the planer blade alignment guage. In terms of the helical cutterhead, I will be getting that most likely just before it becomes unsafe to use the existing planer knives after multiple resharpenings/honing.

Money is not so much an issue luckily, just space and time. I will share how the install went with the chute upgrade!

Thanks for all of the info!

Cheers,
John

Just FYI: They will be offering carbide planer blades for the shopsmith planer if you don't want to go full helical. There is a small price premium. Also he answered my question on knife number and knife rows when comparing the more expensive shopsmith helical head with the very popular dewalt 735 helical head:

Hi John,
The number of wings depends on the diameter of the head. The DeWalt head only has a diameter of 1.84" and the Shopsmith diameter is 2.27". That's why there is the difference of 4 and 5 wings.
There is always 1 knife per inch on each wing; so the Shopsmith has 12 knives per wing and therefore a total of 60 knives. The only exception is the DeWalt planer as this one only has 10 knives per 13" wing. This machine is the most popular bench top planer and there is a huge demand for these SHELIX heads. While the SHELIX head normally is all about best possible cutting qualities, the majority of people that have this "cheap" planer also want the SHELIX head for as cheap as possible. For this reason, they reduced the number of knives per wing. In my opinion, they should at least offer a higher grade head for the DeWalt for those who more care about the quality than the price, but they do not.
So yes, you are right in assuming that the Shopsmith with SHELIX head will provide better cutting results than the DeWalt.

Yes, the planer blades we sell can also be re-sharpened. They are actually of much better quality than most original OEM knives and last longer. However, if I am informed correctly, Shopsmith also uses better steel for their knives; so this statement may not be correct in comparison to Shopsmith's original knives but ours are at least very similar in quality.

Btw, we also offer Shopsmith replacement knives in Carbide, although they are not online yet. Carbide lasts you about 10 times longer than the original HSS knives. The price is $156.90.

Best Regards,

Steffen Morning
info@mywoodcutters.com

BuckeyeDennis wrote:

jsburger wrote:I can't believe none of you guys know what this is about. SS has offered a dust collector for the planer for years. It works very well but it does not get everything because of the way a planer cuts. Am I missing something?

Your clear plastic dust collector has a sheet-metal baffle installed on the underside. That piece is a newer improvement, and greatly increases chip-collection efficiency. Older models of the dust chute did not have it. My used planer came with the dust chute, but not that baffle. I bought the upgrade from the mothership and installed it, to excellent effect.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maint ... 14390.html

OK, I understand now.

Hi Dusty;
I have a part that snaps into the metal bars in the planer and exits out the logo hole in the top on the out feed side hood. I have had it since I bought my original planer. It is from the mother ship. This thing together with my Harbor freight 2HP dust collector leaves almost nothing behind. It does a great job of dust collection.

My woodworking club has a DeWalt planer and we switched to Shelix head. Aside from the obvious cutting difference there was a substantial noise reduction as well. I guess from the fact that only a few of the cutters make contact with the wood at a time. Probably cut the noise level by half.
Bill V

That is nuts $600+ for just the cutter head, yes I know the SS planer has some great features, but I can get this with one, and my nephew has one and I have used it and it is nice.
http://www.woodcraft.com/product/159608 ... rhead.aspx