Shopsmith Forums

I just bought a SS planer off ebay, it's a 1999 model and when I tried it tonight, it's not feeding the wood through very well. It will start feeding through and every few inches it slows or stops unless you help it along.

Do the infeed/outfeed rollers need to be replaced when they are getting older? Mabye the rubber has lost it's grip? Anyone else had this problem? How hard is it to fix?

Not sure how much use it has had but the first thing to do is wax the table. This is the fix for most on this question. I got my planer around 1992 and never had to adjust the rollers.
I bet wax is all you need. I use Johnson's past wax for wood floors. Lowe's stocks it in the cleaning aisle.

Also look at the wood you are planing. If it has low spots it will stall, I have had this happen when planing rough lumber.

cincinnati and james.miller gave good advice. If waxing the table don't solve your problem, you might want to adjust the infeed roller to put a little more pressure on it. If the infeed roller is the rubber kind, you might want to replace it with the knurled roller which is designed to grip better.

I didn't know any of the SS planers had rubber rollers. My planer - another brand - has rubber rollers. Instructions with it say don't plane any wood thinner than 3/4".

Also instructions say if wood slips - the rollers need cleaning. Clean them with mineral spirits. I have found this cleaning works!:)

I had the same problem with 2X12 oak boards when I tried to use my Ebay brought planer the first time. In my case, I sharpen the planer blades which resulted in a much improved job. It was a Shopsmith mounted planer. The headstock really got hotter than I believed was good for it. If yours is mounted on the Shopsmith, check that the headstock does not overheat. I am switching it to a stand and a 3 HP 220 VAC motor that I have.

Bill Mayo

I purchased one of the earliest Shopsmith mounted planers. It had a rubber infeed roller. That was also an era before I had the dust collector. I found that in order to keep it feeding boards, I had to vacuum out the interior and wipe down the rubber rollers with mineral spirits. When the steel knurled infeed roller became available I upgraded. With the addition of the dust collector my problem was solved.

By the by, we no longer use rubber infeed rollers -- to much slipping; they don't wear well. The infeed rollers on our new machines are "cogged" steel rollers.

With all good wishes,

Nick do you know when they made that switch? Is it related to the date for the dust chute retro?

I guess what I really wanted to ask is if the Pro Planers always had the knurled infeed rollers. The retro roller states its for "stand mounted" planers with serial numbers below 20000 (March, 1985 or so).