dewalt 733 driving me crazy.

[jason]

Hey all. I took this planer to the shop because it would bog down and trip the onboard breaker partway through a 4/4 piece of red oak. The technician looked it over and reported back a few days later that the brushes and everything else looked fine, but the blades looked like they were pretty worn down. So I had him put brand new blades on, paid 80$ and I took it back home to try it out. It seemed to work fine, but after a couple of passes, lowering it 1/64" each time, it would start sounding like it was taking A LOT of stock off, as though I had it set too deep...Then again, it would trip the onboard breaker, leaving me cussing quietly under my breath. (my young son was watching me).

I bought this planer from a fella for 75$ a few weeks ago, because he said it would do the same thing for him. He said it was a factory reconditioned purchase. (I suppose I should have paid attention to the little red flag going up in my mind...) I noticed he had a brand new Rigid planer.

Thanks for your help. Jason

[Lew Hodgett]

Call DeWalt tech service, and have the serial number handy, they are pretty good with this machine.

At least they were with me.

BTW, doesn't cost $80 to get a set of blades ground, not even here in SoCal.

Strictly from memory is was less than $15 for a set of 13" blades.

Sounds like the post clamps might not be doing their job.

Lew

[B A R R Y]

I have hundreds of board feet through a 733, using it enough to keep three sets of knives in sharpening rotation.

I agree with Lew, it sounds like the locking and height adjustment mechanism isn't working right, and the blades are pulling the cutterhead down into the stock. I often run mine without the head locked when I'm starting off with rough lumber, and it still doesn't slip.

Is the height adjustment handle moving? Is the threaded height adjuster post or the nut that follows the post stripped? The threaded rod makes it very difficult to move the head, so I'd look closely there for damage.

[John]

Something you might try, after you lower the cutter head, turn the adjusting handle back in the opposite direction just till you feel a little resistance.

In machinist terms, this is called taking out the lack-lash in the lead screw. Unless the main adjusting screw is a Ball Screw, all threads have a certain amount of lack-lash in them. When you adjust the cutter head down, you are registering off the bottom side of the thread, and when your work piece starts through the cutters, the vibration allows what slack that is in the screw to be to be taken up, allowing the cutters to come down in the work piece.

I have a 1" travel dial indicator on a magnetic base mounted in my Delta plainer, and can see if the cutter head is staying where I put it. I always dial down past the depth I want to cut, and then crank back up to it. This takes out any slack that might be in the adjusting screw.

[Leon]

If the guy that you bought the unit from indicated the same problem I suspect that there is a problem with the planer. Maybe not your set up.

That said, be sure to use an adequate extension cord. Shorter and heavier gauge is desirable. Sometimes 1/64 is still too much on these bench top models especially on wider hard wood boards.

[jason]

I was applying some wax to the bed, pondering. I got to noticing the extension beds. They were flush in height to the bed under the planer, and there is a bit of an incline as you get further from the planer. So perhaps the stock was riding up the bed and exerting more pressure against the rollers and knives thereby causing it to stall out? I consulted the manual I got off the net and dropped the beds so that the ends of the beds were level with the bed under the planer...Unfortunately I was running late for work this afternoon, so I had to put it aside. Does this sound plausible?

[Leon]

Keeping the base slick will certainly help and if the infeed and out feed provide enough resistance the going could be tough but most often the motor heats up or stalls because of the strain from the cutter. The infeed and out feed rollers have a tremendous amount of low gear pull so I doubt that would be the problem unless there is enough drag to stall the rollers.

[CW]

Sounds like a sure recipe for snipe. I have my Delta adjusted with the outboard ends of the table high. No snipe.

[nailshooter41]

I don't know that this is the problem, but it sure could be. If the outfeed table is higher at its end it will push the wood up causing a bigger bite from the blades, but a lot more upward pressure on the blades.

I would have never thought of that. I have set up 2 or three of this style of planer, including my own 733, certainly the infeed/outfeed is the first thing I do. I would think at some point the repair shop would have at least checked that out.

Hope you found the problem. Like Leon said, make sure you have enough juice to the machine, too.

Robert

[Nova]

I believe, if you read the manual, DeWalt recommends that the ends of the infeed and outfeed table be adjusted slightly higher than the table to help prevent snipe.

[jason]

Bugger. I tried taking 1/32" off of a 4' pine 2x4 through it today and partway through it crapped out again. The breaker on the motor tripped, it sounded like the blades were still rotating as it came to a stop...There was a little bit of bow in the 2x4, but nothing significant.

I have 200A service panel in the garage, the breaker for the garage is

20A, juice runs through 12ga wiring, and nothing else is plugged in. Periodically when I switch it on, it'll pop the breaker. I wouldn't think it would pull that much of a load to trip the panel breaker. Flip the switch again and it'll run fine. So I plug in the 5hp rigid shopvac and hook it up to the dust chute, notice a little drop in the sound of the planer motor, but it still runs...I can feed a board through it, if I take barely more than a whisper off the board, it'll run it through, but when I take any more than 1/64" off pine or oak, it'll stop. And it'll do the same if I have the shopvac not running.

I've read some of your posts saying the cutter head may be getting pulled into the stock and overheating the engine. Care to elaborate a bit more on that? How does a fella adjust that?

[Lew Hodgett]

Try a different breaker.

Lew

[DZIN]

New breaker? New motor? Is it at all possible that the infeed table is slipping down?

[jason]

So, with a bit of trepidation, yesterday afternoon, I removed the guard over the cutterhead and looked at the knives. Yup, they looked fine. Placed the magnetic knife gauges on and noticed there was a bit of space between the knife edge and the gauge. I thought, "surely when I I took it in to get it looked at and the tech changed the blades he would have set the knives up correctly..." That's when I noticed there was some marks on the cutter head body itself, suddenly it dawned on me that the stock is contacting the head with minimal blade contact! So I took a deep breath, crossed myself, (put on gloves) and loosened the 8 bolts, allowed the blades to come out about

1/8" more to kiss the edges of the magnetic knife gauges. Buttoned things back up and ran the same 2x4 through. It didn't sound like it was taking much stock off, so I set it 1/16 deeper, saw nice shavings coming out! Didn't bog down a bit! Ran the 4/4 8" oak plank through with beautiful shavings shooting out the chute!. Didn't even hiccup! Thanks for all your ideas. Jason

[Lee Michaels]

I know it is a tired old cliche, but .........

When you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself!!