Shopsmith Forums

I'm still figuring out the organization of these forums, so I apologize if this thread should live somewhere else.. I'm used to ones that have a lot more categories, I guess.

Yesterday I received in a new planer from Shopsmith to go with my new Mark 7. Ordered it on 12/24. A bit upset at Fedex for delaying the delivery by a day or two until I called to find out that they had "lost" the item in their final sort warehouse. I've had this trouble with them a few times in the past year...so yeah...

The box the planer came in had been beat up a bit and had a hole in the outside of it. Looked like Fedex had added packing tape to the outside as well to keep the box closed. From what I could tell, it looked like they had rolled it onto different sides to get it on and off of hand trucks, and the weight of the planer had collapsed all of the packing paper on the inside so that it had a lot of room to move around. Nothing was missing and nothing looked damaged during shipping though.

In unboxing it, I found that the table mounting posts weren't synchronized, as much as 1/4" to 1/2" off between one post and another. The manual indicates that it should have been fully aligned prior to leaving the factory. This doesn't look like damage, just an oversight on the side of the factory team. I spent about an hour last night correcting this, although I wouldn't be surprised if I'm 1-2 teeth off on being in correct alignment. (I didn't make the feeler gauge but used a block of wood with uniform dimension as a gauge. Also didn't use any clamps to keep the mounting posts from moving while attaching the chain, so one or two posts could be off 1-2 teeth.)

Also, the table is a cast aluminum piece with a piece of stainless steel sheet metal glued to the top of it. This stainless steel piece had a protective plastic film still glued down on it. Upon removal there was a dirty glue line around the edges where the film was. I understand the purpose of this, but the updated manual insert also indicated that no cleaning of the table was required on the "updated" planer and made no mention of this. Since the synchronization step was missed at the factory I'm wondering if they also missed the step of removing the film and cleaning the table as well.

As I stated before, I synchronized the table mounting posts, removed the film, and cleaned the table. Given the issues I've found just from unboxing the tool, are there other items I should be looking for to see if the factory missed other items prior to testing out the tool?

You should be having this conversation with SS.

Did you keep all the box/packing etc.? Pix would be nice to have.

That is too $ an item to be messing around with when the shipper is culpable.

The box was damaged, but the planer itself was not. Looking at the design of the planer there isn't a way for the synchronization to get off unless the chain gets removed.

I took my time last night and set it all up and ran a test board through. This was a cheap 1x3 around 2.5' long of pine from some old project from HD or Lowes. I ran it through multiple passes on the slowest feed rate and with the M7 set to 5000 RPM, each time taking 1/32" off. I read through the troubleshooting section of the manual to get an idea of what issues to watch out for. I didn't notice the board walking either direction. The only thing I did notice was a little more than the 0.005" of snipe at the first and last 2.5" or so of the board. It also seemed to be asymmetrical (more on either the first or last of the board), but I don't remember which direction I was feeding the board through. I'm going to redo the test later and pay closer attention to the feed direction. I'm thinking that the feed roller pressure is off on one side or the other.

My question now: Does leading edge snipe mean that the infeed roller pressure is too low and trailing edge mean that the outfeed roller pressure is too low? If so, how much should I adjust the screws? 1/2 turn on each and test it again?

Congratulations on your new acquisitions. While not nearly as much fun as using the tools, reading the instructions and thoroughly understanding them is vital. Most of the answers to your questions I think can be found in the Owner's Manual. My planer is an older model than yours, but my manual was purchased about 5 years ago, and like yours, came with a Supplemental Instruction sheet. And yes, while the Supplemental Instructions say the protective film on the table was no longer needed or provided, apparently that has changed over the course of production and the instructions are not entirely up to date.

If the planer left the factory with the synchronization posts that far out of whack, then I would definitely get them properly adjusted before going any further (page 29).

The manual says a snipe of up to .005" is normal (page 44). If more than that, then yes, the Trouble Shooting Guide says that pressure on the rollers is too light (page 68). Snipe occurring on the infeed or outfeed end indicates pressure is too light on the associated feed roller.

For adjusting the pressure on the rollers, yes, adjustments in 1/2 turn increments are recommended (page 32).

In addition to the manual with its directions on aligning and adjusting, there are also some informative videos online for viewing. The videos are a bit dated and not high-tech by any means, but still worth watching.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm Sawdust Sessions 5, 10 and 20 have segments related to the planer.

And the online Video Shop Tips have good info:
http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Tips.htm

And there are the online Woodshop Tips, such as this one on planing:
https://www.shopsmith.com/woodshoptips/ ... /page9.htm

And last but not least, Everett Davis has compiled copies of the Owners Manuals for all three Planer Models and placed them on his Google Drive, along with additional information not found in the manuals. This can be accessed through this thread: https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/main ... 16113.html

Hope you can soon get everything set up and adjusted to your satisfaction and begin enjoy using your new tools.

Thanks br549 for all of the links and information. That's exactly what I was looking for.

I've spent enough time on the SS website to see that there's a wealth of information out there to digest, but it seems to be a bit fragmented and the organizational style of it isn't obvious to me at first. Unfortunately my day job and our 4 kids ages 6m-6y have kept me busy enough that I haven't been able to spend much time devouring the website.

The infeed vs outfeed was the specific piece of info I was looking for here. I will be going through the various videos and manuals over the next week or so and see what other info, tips, and tricks that I can pick up to make better and quicker use of these tools. I have a pile of 8-9' rough cut cedar boards that my father in law gave me at Christmas to run through. Just have to decide which project on the list will get that lumber use first.

One more quick question though: I only ran my test piece through the center of the planer, so I don't know how the rest of the knives perform, but on my test piece I did notice a small ridge, which would indicate a nick on a knife. Is this generally expected of a new planer? It wasn't much of a ridge, but with how the rest of the board turned out so smooth I was a bit surprised.

Glad the info was helpful.

If you are getting a ridge, then all 3 knives must be nicked. I bought my planer used and have never had new blades, but would not think this is to be expected. Perhaps in one of your test runs there was a nail or staple that accidentally nicked the blades, or if all of your test pieces have had it, perhaps they were nicked at the factory. A simple fix would be to offset one blade slightly (left to right) so that all three nicks are not in a row. After using for a while and re-sharpening of the blades is required, the nicks should be able to be removed.

A method I have found to be useful is to SLIGHTLY pull up on the far end of the board(trailing end) as the board is feed into the planer, and the same slight lifting on the leading end of the board as the trailing end exits the planer.

This prevents the board leading end from lifting up from the platen prior to engaging the second feed roller and ditto when the board trailing end leaves the first feed roller and is between the two feed rollers.

JPG wrote:A method I have found to be useful is to SLIGHTLY pull up on the far end of the board(trailing end) as the board is feed into the planer, and the same slight lifting on the leading end of the board as the trailing end exits the planer.

This prevents the board leading end from lifting up from the platen prior to engaging the second feed roller and ditto when the board trailing end leaves the first feed roller and is between the two feed rollers.

I agree. I also use this method and get almost non-existent snipe on boards using my Mark V mounted planer. Often what I will do is put a cheap round bubble level on the leading edge of the board when feeding it. While holding a 6' or longer board and trying to feed it, it can be difficult to know where level is and trying to hold the board slightly elevated, but not too elevated, so as to minimize snipe. The bubble level works well for me to try to hold that few degrees (above level) angle while feeding. Of course, once the 2nd feed roller has been engaged, you can remove the bubble level. I guess alternatively, one could setup a roller stand at the appropriate height to guarantee feeding at the appropriate height to minimize snipe, but I find the hands on method JPG describes to be much more practical and expeditious. All I added to his method is a level to try to gauge the angle of the board while feeding.

Having 4 kids under 7 at home I don't get a lot of time in the shop. Also been working on some other things. Last night I was looking at the planer a bit closer and found that the table was moving at the beginning and ending of the cut. I found that I was getting some movement in at least two of the elevation screws, as well as a small amount around the barrel nut and table connector. After tightening all of this up and re-synchronizing the table my snipe is mostly gone, or at least not noticeable. I likely need to adjust the infeed and/or outfeed rollers some, but not a big issue there.

I did read some threads on how to get good synchronization on the table and decided to take a slightly different route than what I saw there. Using the method for adjusting the blade height from the SS videos, I did something similar using the machinist's dial indicator to check the distance from the top of the table to the top of the tie bars. This allowed me to get a nice measurement without needing to use feeler gauges.

A week or so ago I made a dust chute that looks similar to the SS one from some plexi I had laying around. It works alright, but not nearly as well as I'd hope. I'm not getting any fine dust that's not being collected, but I am getting a lot of chips that aren't collected. I haven't dismantled my DC to see if it's getting clogged at the intake, but I don't suspect a problem there either. I've thought about ordering the official one from SS, but with the situation in our nation right now I'm not sure what kind of time frame I'd be looking at. Is the SS dust chute good at collecting all of these chips falling on the table and board or does it have a similar limitation?

I found that the planer dust chute made a major improvement in the chip collection, but it won't get all of the chips. At least I am not wading ankle deep in chips.