We tuned up my Powermatic 14′ planer a few weeks ago. It’s cutting very evenly now, and the noise level has gone way down (not sure why that happened, maybe the chip breaker was way off causing the extra noise?).
Anyway, now the stock doesn’t travel thru on a straight line, but skews off to the left. Is this caused by the power feed rollers being set wrong??
Replies
Hi Rick,
The extra noise was probably caused by the fact that just one of the knives was doing all the work (was set lower than the rest). Now they're properly adjusted.
Feed skewing. I experience just a slight amount of this occasionally on my 15" Delta but it doesn't affect the planed dimension. I've often wondered what causes this. It sounds like your problem is much more severe than mine, though.
Maybe RickL can chime in here. He's had a lifetime of experience repairing and maintaining this type of equipment.
Paul
I have the 16" planer, and I also have some skewing as the planed material feeds thru. Seems to be mostly at the start of the planing, because sometimes I'll help guide the material at the start to keep it from skewing and once it feeds a little bit of the material thru, the skewing stops.
Jeff
When does it start to skew? Infeed roller, cutter, outfeed roller? Not sure about your model but does it also have table rollers?
Sorry Joe. I must have been thinking about RickL. You're Joe, not Rick.
Paul
yep, it has table rollers, and infeed/outfeed support rollers. Can't tell where exactly it starts skewing, but it's as soon as it's coming out the back.The cut seems true in thickness, and fine enough. It didn't used to do this skewing before we "tuned' it up :-)http://www.woodsshop.com
I got to thinking about this. As I said in my previous post, my 16" Jet planer does some skewing as well. Thinking about it, I speculated that, maybe my infeed roller is not parallel to the table, hence it would contact one edge of the board and start pulling it in, before making full contact across the surface to the other edge, skewing the board in the process. Considering that, I continued to review how I work my material.When I prep my boards, I follow a process for squaring wood, similar to the same process I used to use as a machinist for squaring up metal. This process must not be deviated from if you want reliable, accurate and consistent results.I joint one face of my board flat on my jointer. I then joint one edge straight, registering against the jointer fence with the jointed face. That leaves me with a board with one flat face, and one straight and square edge. I then plane the opposite face flat and parallel to the jointed face, registering the jointed face against the bed of my planer. Now here is where the problem of skewing could start.The unplanned 'rough' face about to be planed, is not flat or level, it is rough. Because it is rough and uneven, the infeed roller could be perfectly parallel to the bed AND STILL CONTACT ONE EDGE BEFORE THE OTHER, causing the board to skew as the cutting starts. On my planer, once the board is being cut and the infeed roller has full contact across the width of the board, the skewing stops. It's only at the beginning of the cut when the infeed roller only has partial contact with the piece where there's any skewing. So...there may be nothing wrong with my planer infeed roller, it's just a symptom caused by the uneven rough surface of the board and the way it is engaged by the infeed roller before planing. That said...if this is true, then the following planing cut on a previously planed, parallel and smooth surfaced board, should not skew after the first pass. However...the other factor here that may affect the skewing is the cut on the end of the board. If the board is not cut square on the end (as the board feeds straight into the planer), this could also cause one corner of the board to contact the infeed roller first, also causing skewing as the rest of the board is pulled in, even after the first pass.Somewhat complicated to explain in text. I hope I'm explaining this clear enough to understand what I'm suggesting. Bottom line, I don't think there's anything wrong with my planer or yours, skewing may just be a function of these attributes of the boards we are working with. You could test this by planing a perfectly squared, flat, parallel board, fed straight into the planer. If THAT board skews, then there may be something else affecting the process and causing the skewing. At that point, I would be rechecking the rollers to see if they are parallel to the bed, and perpendicular to the sides. If THAT is not a out of spec, then it's possible the infeed rollers have more 'bite' in some areas along the length of the roller than others.Whew...that's all I can come up with. I occasionally have minor skewing, but my boards come out perfectly parallel with no snipe, so I didn't give it much thought. To me, it's about flat, smooth and parallel, minor skewing...is no big deal...but hey, that's just me.Jeff
Edited 1/18/2008 4:20 am by jeff100
Buy a better planer. <g>
I LOVE my planer. It's a real workhorse, I wouldn't trade it for anything except maybe a bigger planer. I could give a rip about some minor skewing, I"m betting that's an issue with any planer...and my boards come out flat...flat...flat. Also, I LMAO when I read about guys cutting the sniped ends off the boards that come out of their 12" planers.Edit: I just read the bandsaw post. #### for tat. I get it...;-)
Edited 1/24/2008 3:44 pm by jeff100
Yes, I had to get my jab in. <g>
Actually, my Delta 15" was doing that skewing thing. I went back and reset my knives. Apparently, and for whatever reason, it quit the skew thing. Now it draws through straight. My guess is I failed to set one of the knives on one end just a tad high, and it was pushing on that side of the board when it entered.
I guess I should check my knives then. It's time to change them anyway. Thanks for the heads up...
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