planer problem

[habbi]

I have a new dewalt 13" planer and I am having hard time getting it to feed reliably. The wood is pine which has been air dried for 2 years. The rubber feed rollers are getting covered with sawdust/chips and will not feed the board properly. Every 2 or 3 boards I have to wipe the rollers down with paint thinner to remove the dust which must have some pitch in it. Is this normal? How do sawmills feed green wood into their planers? Also the boards are getting small (

[CW]

You don't have a dust collector connected to it, do you? Connect one and both problems will go away.

[Doug Miller]

Which one, specifically?

Normal when planing air-dried pine, yes. Kiln-drying hardens the resins in pine, and greatly reduces this problem.

Sawmills don't plane green wood. They wait til it's dry.

[David]

Also the boards

[habbi]

The planer has a 4" exit chute and blows a very large amount of air from it. The factory DC adapter reduces it to 3" and the I have it going back through

10' of 4" flexible hose >

[Duane Bozarth]

You can't...the 4" exhaust is for hooking up to a DC...w/o that you're only option is to let 'em blow because it isn't going to blow them into anything--ain't a gonna' work.

[David]

[David]

[no(SPAM)vasys]

The planer is designed to be used with some form of dust collection. It has a 4" port for attachment to a dust collector. The adapter actually reduces the 4" to 2.25" for use with a shop vac. By attaching a 4" hose and simply running it into a barrel you are restricting any fir flow produced by the planer itself. If you don't have any means of duct collection you would be better off removing the 4" hose and let the planer try blow the chip without restriction. This is best done outdoors unless your neighbors are armed.

[CW]

If yours is anything like mine, unless you use a dust collector, you will have problems. Lots of chips get thrown out but not enough.

everywhere.

[habbi]

[habbi]

How many cfm's should you look for in a DC system, I assume it should be more than the planer puts out of it's own fan.

[Patriarch]

"habbi" wrote in news:2w_Ze.97153$ [e-mail]:

A DC adequate for your needs will cost you maybe another US$250-$300 at most. And be useful for most, if not all, of your tools.

One thing leads to another, doesn't it? ;-)

Patriarch

[Fred]

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I'd go with the 1.5 hp models usually rated at about 1000 to 1200 cfm. I ran my planer once with no Dc. Bought one the next week.

[George M. Kazaka]

Fred , I had that gear break also, Dewalt gave me another, after a little use it broke also, after waithing to get the gear, I forgot how the chain was supposed to go, so left the cover off to see if the chain was tracking properly, As it was running I noticed that it wobbled, called the Dewalt service center, explained what was going on as i have now had it over a year. they told me it was probably a bent drive roller, took it in an dropped it off and the repaired at no cost, They told me that they had a problem with the feed rollers in more that one model, the feed rollers are all the same Take the little plastc cover off on the side it covers the gear & chain system and turn the unit on if there is a wobble you will have to problem seeing it.

By the way this sucker does blow chips into the next city, I hooked up a hose and put in a board clamped down to a barrel I don't have any problems not using a DC

Good luck, George

[Unquestionably Confused]

And that's a good thing so long as SWMBO buys into your argument

[Fred]

Good to see you getting it working, George. Do the knives stay sharp after you fix the problem? I had a lot of problems with feeding when it was new but I know its those knives. I've made the mistake of storing my DeWalt planer on the garage floor and it collected a *lot* of rust within a short time. It was so bad that I couldn't move the cutting head, had to take it apart and restore it - what a rust magnet! That was my first and last DeWalt, I've gone to Harbor Freight (hey, it works for me), Bosch, Hitachi, Panasonic (drill), Skill (mag 77), Porter-Cable, Milwaukee and a few others since then. The 13" DeWalt planer looks like a pretty good one, much more solid than my 12.5".

[Patrick Conroy]

"habbi" wrote in news:cF_Ze.97159$ [e-mail]:

It *sounds* like you have the DeWalt DW735 planer? Is that correct?

If so, I've had mine (my DW735) hooked up to a 1HP DC (about 500CFM) and a

1 1/2HP DC (about 900CFM). Both DCs were able to clear the chips.

[habbi]

Yes it is the 735. Today I tried using about 2.5' of rigid 4" duct work with a 90 on either end into a 55 gallon barrel with a mesh bag over the top. Same problem, after 5 or 6 boards the rollers get coated with dust/chips and the board will not feed, it gets so bad that i have to grab the unit and push very hard with my waist on the board to get it through. Then I raise the cutter head, wipe the rollers clean with kerosene on a rag and everything works perfect for a few more boards. I plan on doing my cabinets in kiln dried maple, I hope it works better on that. It must be the pine pitch, the odd board actually has a bit of sticky sap on the ends.