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$10,000 to spend- what planer?

stoneaxe

Stainless
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Location
pacific northwest
Been thinking about buying a new planer-
Accuracy and quality of cut, plus ability to process multiple parts of different thicknesses. Probably an insert carbide head, segmented infeed rolls. New Taiwan 25" 15 hp with numeric controls for size is about 10K.

Any other ideas?
 
Shop carefully, nice heavy old iron will cost a bunch to retrofit to a segmented insert head, so it will probably have to be new, medium weight offshore iron.

Stuart
 
Been thinking about buying a new planer-
Accuracy and quality of cut, plus ability to process multiple parts of different thicknesses. Probably an insert carbide head, segmented infeed rolls. New Taiwan 25" 15 hp with numeric controls for size is about 10K.

Any other ideas?

You BEEN runnin' one, you'd know best how your work stresses which and what is important to your use.

Modified a Newman 600 24" X 8", 6 HP integral 3-P

like this one...

https://youtu.be/m6exyo7feWA

.. to an external 1-P motor back in '73 or '74 for the Boss's son-in-law. Like new condition, but it was already old enough to vote.

Steel blades, overly-seasoned rough sawn native White Oak.


The only money made with it was Dixie Saw constantly doing blades, and yrs. truly settin' em - so the operator could see to it we were kept busy "real soon" doin' blades again!

"seemed like a good machine at the time"... but... progress..

Next video.. Newman S382 High Speed Double Surface Planer

Newman S382 High Speed Double Surface Planer From Hermance Machine Company - YouTube

Annnd ... that one is already many years old, NOW, as well (2007).. but they do turn-up, used.

"Back to you" for YOUR needs...

But whatever else.... Carbides sound GOOD! "Essential, even!"

Appalachia boy, here. Red Oak is for the stove. White Oak or Cherry for most other stuff. And we've been known to frame a whole house in ... native Hickory.. trim it in Cherry... then floor it with native Black Walnut.. every splinter of it growed right on our own land.

Because we were too barefoot poor to use store-bought "pine" yah needed folding money to BUY!

:D
 
Wow..and I thought my post was useless...

Stuart

Won't argue wit' dat' Either one of them. Whydja DO either, anyway?

check out the blather in #3...if you can decipher it!:eek:

Welll.. if he knows WOOD planers? He will already know Newman-Whitneys as right decent American Iron... and North-Eastern native hardwoods (damned hard but lovely Maple, up New England way..) as a tough test, too.

Et Tu?

And Taiwan? Ever been in the wooded mountains of Taiwan?

As with PRC mainland.. they have to export machinery ... so they can import OUR wood!

Pull up a satellite shot, North Carolina, Virginia, the mountains clear up to Maine.

Hardwoods, Stuart. Hardwoods! Over fifty percent of Pennsylvania alone is back in timber since farmers went off to become drillers and desk-jockeys.
 
There is a nice rehabbed Griggio on Woodweb from someone I have dealt with. SAC made a very nice planer with Tersa heads. they are reasonable because they are out of business. The Oliver 299 is a very good older machine although the ITCH head needs to be ground in place. When you get into the good planers, the benefit of the insert head is less because the design of the machine includes a chipbreaker and pressure bar. I have an insert head on a small planer but the Tersa is my go to machine 95% of the time. Changing chipped inserts is harder than moving the tersa blade and you can swap knives for dirty lumber or figured stuff easily. Dave
 
Can't recommend a specific machine, but some questions for you:

Are we talking about a high volume of material to plane? Might want powered table rolls & dua

Is space an issue? Some of the finest old wedge bed machines are huge and heavy, but that's what makes them great

Regarding heads - I think the biggest advantage of a Shelix type head over Tersa or Terminus is their ability to handle highly figured wood without any tear out at all. I did tests with a piece of intensely curly, quarter sawn hard maple, and even a fairly dull shear cut carbide head had less tearout than brand new Tersa heads in a well set up, almost new SCMI planer. Other than that, I prefer the cut of the straight knife type heads. And knife changes are fast!
 
If the planer is not high volume production, I'd look at a 5-6K planer ( any used Euro ) and a 4-5K single belt sander. A WB is really nice to have and even the best planer needs some final sanding. The WB eliminates about 80% of the final ROS or hand sanding. Dave
 
Would a "straight-o-plane" or modern copy be more to your usage ?
Double sided, and the "carpet feed" to take out warp.

Not as high speed production line as shown by Thermite above, but still not a ryobi plug in the wall type machine.
 
We are running two planers, both old 13" Rockwell's. Our volume is very low.
One has a shelix insert head, the stock that goes through this one ends up with a pass though the wide belt. This is the one I want to upgrade, as the feed and hp are marginal. We work sapele, maple, beech and cherry, mostly. A slightly rougher cut is acceptable, chipout is not.


The other has a straight HHS knife, with a 20 degree back grind to get the cutting angle to about 10 degrees. The stock that goes through this one gets no sanding. This machine has poly in and out feed rolls, so a very small pass is possible with no feed roll marks. The near scraping cut leaves no chipout, and a clean finish if the knives are sharp. Back ground the way they are, they stay sharp for quite a while. This machine cuts very thin small stock.

Space and power are limited, this is a small shop with a wood floor.
Big old American iron is not the right solution for our needs, even though I love the old iron..
 
Some time early next year I will try to get some pieces planed on a Powermatic 20 with shelix head. Sapele ribbon stripe. Hoping chipout is gone. I ran some sapele through a 24" Delta Invicta (Brazil?) followed by a pass through my 3 head SCMI 42" wide belt and my not so sharp eyesight missed a few chip outs. I suppose I could take 2 sanding passes.
 
Some time early next year I will try to get some pieces planed on a Powermatic 20 with shelix head. Sapele ribbon stripe. Hoping chipout is gone. I ran some sapele through a 24" Delta Invicta (Brazil?) followed by a pass through my 3 head SCMI 42" wide belt and my not so sharp eyesight missed a few chip outs. I suppose I could take 2 sanding passes.

Mixed bag, eyesight.

Mine had gradually degraded - cataracts THOUGHT to have beeen macular degeneration that turned out to NOT be.

Finally got that sorted, ended up with 20/15, 1/4 Diopter or less left-right imbalance. Better vision that EVER!

And all the home furniture-ing, cabinetmaking, and home remodeling trim I did prior to 20 - 25 years ago still looks good, but.. it's right TEDIOUS re-doing all the slovenly fitted, filled, caulked, and otherwise band-aid-patched trash of "the blind years" - the 10 to 25 years in that dam' gap.

Especially frustrating when the eyes are gone young again, but the muscles and energy levels are NOT!

:(

I can see merit in migrating to a "CNC Controlled" planer. Plenty of merit...
 
Unless you need 25" for width of cut I would go with a 20" machine. I have an SCM but it is not an insert head. It has the built in sharpener and I really like that feature.
A 25" machine does end up to be a rather large beast if your space is limited.
 
I agree with Michael, but that's probably because I also have a 20" SCM planer w/ grinder.

stoneaxe- some questions for you
do you need a 24" wide planer, considering that you've been getting by with a 13" Rockwell?
what sort of work do you do?
 
Find an old woodworking maching. If you want top of the line - northfield foundry. They’re still in business I believe they’re the only American woodworking machine manufacturer still around. Big, quality, American made iron. From a real foundry. And they will pretty well cast any part for any of their machines that you need. Segmented heads can be acquired although not cheap. Without major retrofit From several companies. He also might find one that has an indexible head already. Old industrial Powermatic is also good and again parts are more readily available. feel free to message me with any questions if I can’t help I can point you in the right direction for sure.
-Evan
 








 
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