Planer Problems

[John Moorhead]

Folks -

I'm teaching WS at a local high school - the prior teacher left in a huff, and apparently, in a hurry.... The planer, a 20" SAC (an Italian make) was broken due to a broken outfeed roller drive chain. The planer is about 5-10 years old, near as I can tell. Santa Rosa Tool, the firm that sold the school district the planer, says they can't get parts or a service manual for it, which is REALLY annoying.... Anyway, I finally found some chain that would work, obsolete metric size... rrrr.... and yes I bought extra... I installed the chain and fired the machine up for a test and everything seemed okay.

I fed a length of scrap through the machine and it will draw it in just fine, but, as before, the work stops half way in and doesn't get pulled out by the outfeed side rollers. Everything is turning, but I can't see why it wouldn't get pulled out of the machine with the roller spinning.

If any of you have any ideas, I'd sure love to hear them. It's been a real PITA not having a planer for the last several months and I am getting tired of teaching kids how to build birdhouses out of cedar shingles. HALP!

TIA

John Moorhead

[Bob AZ]

John

Just a shot in the dark but did any alignments get disturbed in the chain replacement process. Or was it working properly when the chain failed? Remove the blades and the retaing screws and then run the planer to see if it draws the board through. That way you can check the draw in rollers and the draw out rollers. Bib AZ

[Morris Dovey]

| I fed a length of scrap through the machine and it will draw it in | just fine, but, as before, the work stops half way in and doesn't | get pulled out by the outfeed side rollers. Everything is turning, | but I can't see why it wouldn't get pulled out of the machine with | the roller spinning. | | If any of you have any ideas, I'd sure love to hear them. It's | been a real PITA not having a planer for the last several months | and I am getting tired of teaching kids how to build birdhouses out | of cedar shingles. HALP!

John...

Isn't there a pressure adjustment for the outfeed rollers? It sounds like you might need a bit more "pinch".

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[David]

ask these guys:

[Leon]

Is the board getting past the chip breaker and cutter head? If not, perhaps the chip breaker needs to be readjusted. Also the infeed and or outfeed rollers may need to be have more pressure applied.

[Preston Andreas]

You need to tune up your planer - height adjustments, roller adjustments, chipbreaker, etc. You will need a dial indicator and you can make a couple of homemade bases for specific measuring of the bed rollers and the overhead feed rollers and cutterhead.

You might check out

you need any further information email me direct.

Preston

[eclipsme]

Hi. I had a similar problem on an old Sears planer. I wiped the rollers with denatured alcohol to get the schmutz off (technical term!). Had to do it a couple of times, but feeds well now.

Just a thought.

Harvey

[marc rosen]

Hello John, I did a search on the website

and there are several SAC planers lited. Maybe one of the owners could provide a copy of their manual to help you out.

Marc

[mark]