I purchased a MiniMax FS-30, combination !2″ jointer/planer about this time last year, and I’m frustrated with both its performance and the requirement to repeatedly switch functions throughout the course of woodworking projects.
I’ve made the transition (planer to jointer) hundreds of times, now, and have it down to an art, but it’s tremendously frustrating and, I believe, wastes precious time in the shop.
Also, the FS-30 has inherent limitations in its planing mode: If you, for instance, try to remove less than 1/16″ of material in a pass, the machine leaves very pronounced roller marks on the workpiece. The FS-30’s infeed roller is metal and a “helical teeth” design. It grabs the wood and pulls it past the Tersa cutter knives, but the adjustment of the roller is very sensitive. It can be lowered and raised via “lugs” (allen screws) that are turned from the top of the machine; lowering the roller increases pressure and “bite” on the workpiece, and raising the roller lessens it. If the roller is not perfectly adjusted to the hardness of the wood being thicknessed (say cherry vs pine) then the roller leaves pronounced marks on the workpiece. This is a gigantic pain in the
.
I talked to the MiniMax salesman who helped me with my purchase, and he responded, “The problem goes away if you make sure that you’re always planing 1/16″ or more.”
How many times, when fitting a part in the final stages of a project, have you needed to remove a minor blemish or stain in an essentially flat, and perfectly thicknessed workpiece. It happens to me quite often: I want to remove a 32nd, or perhaps even a 64″ in order to make a piece fit perfectly.
If you do this with the MS-30, you end up having to remove the infeed roller marks with a cabinet scraper and/or protracted sanding.
My work routine is probably not the best thought out, typically, and I might have three or four different projects going at once. I often will work on two projects, in different stages of completion, during the same work session. This results in lots of trips, back and forth, to the FS-30 jointer/planer, and lots of time spent cranking the thicknessing table up and down and removing/reinstalling the jointer fence.
The phrase, “Life’s too short,” springs repeatedly to mind.
SO—I’m in the market for a good stand-alone planer. I don’t want to go the benchtop route, because I want this to be the last planer I ever buy, and I want something heavy and solid.
I have been looking at the Powermatic, single-phase 20″ planer with the helical cutters.
The noise level is an issue, because my wife and I work out of our home, and her office is above my 3-bay garage shop. I’ve never seen this powermatic unit, but I’m told that its performance is remarkable and its noise levels are very reasonable.
Any recommendations or comments are welcome.
Replies
Powermatic builds professional grade machines, if that's what you want. But even when I've used top of the line heavy duty Oliver planers, I still need to sand the stock- it's a part of life. Thickness planers are just that, they plane to thickness, but never leave a finished quality.
Expert since 10 am.
I know you're right (in re finish scraping and sanding), but you'd have to see these infeed roller marks to know what I'm referring to. They require a lot of scraping to remove, and it's a pain in the ####.I'm just as willing as the next guy to perform the required finishing steps -- I'm not looking for mirror-glass perfection -- but I had an old, $150.00 Ryobi 10" portable planer (AP-10 with shop sharpened knives) that would produce a surface far superior to my $3,500 MiniMax.Everything's a matter of "degree," I guess, and I'm convinced that a planer should produce something that requires less finishing "elbow-grease" than this machine does.
I still need to sand the stock- it's a part of life.
No PRO here or production requirements. I always use my drum sander for final size.
Hand plane sometimes.
Drum sander is a fantastic addition to a shop. What model do you have?
If you want the best, you need to look at either an older Powermatic, pre-80's, or any older Oliver, not the Taiwanese crap brutalizing the once proud American manufacturer.
Everything else is 2nd rate in comparison to those 2 machines.
Jeff
Unlike you I had a combination jointer/planner/mortiser and I miss it greatly. The time required to make the shift was minor compared to the convenience of the wide jointer and the space saved. As to taking off 1/32” or even 1/64”???? No heavy duty planer is meant to do that, it is what hand tools and sandpaper are for. Your old Ryobi had rubber covered feed rollers and it could produce a finer finish but I’d sure as hell hate to have to mill a hundred board feet of 4/4 cherry with it. I think the problem is not with the Mini-Max FS-30 but your expectations are not in line with what it is built to do. The salesman is correct; it is not a finishing machine.
I think we're talking past each other, somewhat.I keep trying to convey that I don't expect a surface ready for finish. I guess I'm not doing a very good job using the language, even though I'm trying pretty hard.I've seen output from a lot of planers, and some is better than others. My guys (construction crews) routinely use our DeWalt 12" and 13" portable planers on the jobsite to turn out product with the need of, say, only a 6" random-orbital sander (180 grit paper) to be ready for finish. The wood that emerges from my MiniMax needs much more surface prep than that.I think we're beating a dead horse, here. It's pretty much intuitive (for most people) that the finer the surface that your planer produces, the less small tool and hand-tool work is needed in order to get the job done.I think MiniMax tools are terrific, in general, and I wouldn't trade my MM 16 bandsaw for anything. I also like the FS - 30's 12" jointer capability; it's terrific at jointing. I just have a problem with the planer infeed roller, and the way it mars the surface of the wood.I wouldn't compare the AP-10 to a serious production planer in terms of its capacity to thickness mass quantities of stock; that'd be nuts. But, I don't routinely mill hundreds of board feet of anything. I'm very luck to have a three bay workshop -- about 1100 square feet -- so space is not a huge concern.
Well my shop is a 1000 square feet, but I’ll take any extra space I can get, there is never enough. I just never looked at my power planer as a tool for removing a few thousands of an inch, that is what the L-N 4 ½ is for, (the wood will move that much anyway). And no matter what, a cutter head is not going to leave as smooth a finish as a hand plane will. The planer and jointer are for dimensioning stock, not fitting joinery or going straight to 120 grit. I can level up a frame joint much faster with a plane than cranking a planner up to remove that small amount.
I am sure you would be very happy with the Powermatic 20" with the Byrd Shelix head. I have a Bridgewood 20" spiralhead planer and it replaced a 1978 Powermatic 100 (old school) planer and I couldn't be happier. The blade changing is nonexistent and the finish coming off that machine requires just a 150 grit beginning on my ROS. I can take off thousandths of an inch per pass, don't buy that 1/16" crap that is a design flaw. The noise level using my machine is almost half of the old 3-blade Powermatic 100 and I have heard the Byrd Shelix is even quieter. Use the MiniMax as a dedicated jointer and get a planer if you have the money and the space. Check out this machine as well http://www.extremausa.com/planers_pro.php it has a Baldor motor and comes with an optional helical head. That Byrd head is hard to beat and you will be happy with either machine.
I would think that any industrial planer, like a Powermatic or older Oliver is going to feature serrated infeed rollers just like your MM combo machine does. The Delta DC-380 planer that I had before before I bought a MM FS-41E also had serrated infeed rollers. Finish planers (aka. bench top or lunchbox) feature rubber infeeds, that's how they can take a pass of 1/64" and not leave track marks..
So essentially the only benefit that a single purpose machine like a dedicated planer is going to offer over the jointer/planer combo is the time saving in the change over time from jointer to planer..
I've spent the last hour and a half dicking around with the roller lugs on top of the machine, and I just kept raising them until the roller marks all but disappeared. You can just barely see them now, and that's only with the very lightest of passes.I was running doug fir, which is soft, so the roller may need to be dropped down again to run hardwoods, but the difference is pretty amazing. I'm not too stellar at reading this manual, which (as usual) comes in about six different languages and isn't really too complete. A lot of getting to know your machine(s) is a matter of trial and error. I was reluctant to mess with the infeed roller because I thought I might get it out of parallel with the bed, but the workpiece tells you when the roller is right: It leaves marks on the side of the board (1x10) that has more pressure.Anyway, I'm a pleased with the way it's cutting now, and the end result is more than acceptable. I just wish you guy's could've seen what it looked like this morning. The impressions that the roller was leaving were really deep.I appreciate everybody's advice and patience.I am still going to look at a stand-alone planer, because I'd like to avoid the change-over process, and I'd also like to be able to thickness wider stock than my MM will handle 11 7/8"
Just as s point of reference the least amount of material that I can reasonably take with my MM-41E is 1/32" in the planer (as a final pass) and expect the serrated metal infeed roller marks to be removed..
Edited 3/31/2008 8:08 am ET by BOBABEUI
I understand, and you are no doubt correct about the minimum that any production planer could be expected to remove without leaving roller marks.All I can say is that my machine was leaving very deep impressions on the surface of the wood unless I took a significantly deep cut. The FS-30 doesn't have a digital reference gauge -- and I haven't measured the planed stock, before and after an effective, "mark-free" pass -- but I think that what my machine was doing (before adjustment) was producing ribbed dents in the wood that were well over 1/16" deep.The FS-30 comes (as Frosty can tell you) with an impossibly dense, 1/4" manual that's published in half a dozen languages. Directions have been translated from Italian into Croatian, into Latin, and from thence into German, French, Spanish, and -- finally -- back into English. (or, something like that...)Instead of the manual being divided into different sections (each section being printed in its own language) all languages appear on every page. Every language has its own column, so trying to cross reference referrals (between topics) is kinda like catching a fruit fly with a pair of chopsticks.If you investigate the manual, persistently, you can learn, for instance, that your FS-30 has "lugs" to raise and lower the infeed roller. There are no actual instructions on adjustment -- just the comforting knowledge that adjustment is possible.So -- if you're willing to experiment with your $3,500 tool -- you set about cranking on the lugs with a 1/4" allen wrench, alternately raising and lowering the two ends of the infeed roller while (there are no adjustment marks on the "lugs") you run stock through on a trial and error basis, visually inspecting what emerges from the outfeed end.Mine is not a production shop: I don't mass-produce the same end-table, multiple times, machining all the same parts to the same specs in an orderly way. That'd be a well-orchestrated waltz, where my shop is more like an '80s-era disco where everybody's doing coke.I sometimes like to "sneak up" on a part's thickness (in order to fit it into a space that I arrived at organically -- (e.g., with little thought) -- and this requires lots of light passes.The way my FS-30 came from the factory in Italy, light passes weren't possible without producing wood that looked like it'd been compressed for use in biscuit-joinery.I appreciate all the repeated pointers about the real function of my thicknessing planer and the recommendations that I use sandpaper to correct the problem.Next I need instructions on how to use sandpaper, I guess.:)
Have you considered changing to a rubber infeed roll? I'm a firm believer in tool modification.
I don't see the change over from planer to jointer as a big problem. I think for some folks it's a blessing in disguise as it get them to think in more organized terms of doing their work.
I know you can tweak a machine to take very light passes. I've done it on various planers over the years.
I know you can tweak a machine to take very light passes.I have a crap 6 inch jointer that will take off 'fuzze' if I want it to! OK so a big box Ridgid.. My only problem with it IS the operator!
I was refering to a planer as taking a light cut. It's definitely doable.
Didn't think about swapping out the rollers.This shows that you've got more mechanical ability and are way braver than I am.
Yep, the MM manuals are definately POS, you will get no argument here.. If you need to remove 1/16" to remove the infeed roller marks, something is definately not adjusted correctly. As you stated, the infeed is set too tight and is overly compressing the wood.I guess everyone is different, I think the MM jointer/Planer was the best purchase I have ever made..
Edited 3/31/2008 12:19 pm ET by BOBABEUI
I had the same problems that you experience with my FS-30. I also found the same solution that you did. I guess that "too soon old, too soon smart" is still in effect.The changeover time is minimal compared to the gain in space in my 'real estate constrained" shop. The ease of switching DC hose, at the SAME END of the machine, from jointer to planer operation was a prime motivator in my selection of MM. I would like that extra 1/8" of planer width though.Frosty"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
Your FS30, and the other clones IMHO are only Stock Prep tools meant to flatten one side and plane the other parallel and straighten one edge. Beyond that :-( Then it's on to the finishing power tools with many more CPI like the DeWalt 735 @ 179 CPI
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
I have four Powermatic tools (among which is the PM 20 Helical) that I think are just fine. I don't, however have anything to compare them with. I can say this, though, the planer makes about one third the noise of the PJ 882 jointer. I hope you have dust collection.
That sounds like a Minimax response, based on my experience.
I don't know the Powermatic specifically, but I'd consider a 20" with helical cutters to be a dream planer. Doesn't get a whole lot better than that, man!
Yup.The Powermatics are sweet. I know a lot of guys say their new stuff is "junk" (Taiwanese), but I've been very happy with my Powermatic 2800 drillpress, PM 2000 table saw, and my Powermatic 719T mortiser. Great machines and great support if you call HMS in Tennessee.MiniMax tech support (just got off the phone with Tim Tidwell) is great, too. Patient and knowledgeable. They agree (MiniMax in TX) that the manuals are pretty bad, but the Italians aren't willing to rework them. Tim said that "users" have produced their own downloadable (pdf file) manual for the MM 16 bandsaw, and it is supposed to be very good.Anyway, I got a primer from Tim on how to fine-tune the infeed and outfeed rollers, and now the machine is working great. Virtually no roller marks and no perceptible snipe.
Perhaps there is some technical reason i am unaware of, but could you not just remove that 1/32nd or 64th in jointer mode? I have had no trouble in the past fitting parts by taking multiple thin shavings off on a jointer.
just a thought
-pjw
That didn't occur to me.D'oh!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled