Is My Planer Set Up Correctly?

At least, and depending on the thickness of the stock and the material, perhaps will need far more than that to take any flexing out of the workpiece itself as it goes through. Planers exert quite a _lot_ of downward force and wood is an elastic material.

Also, with these little lunchbox planers, the construction on the bed mounts/head simply may not be stout-enough to resist the wracking forces when there is a significantly different side-to-side loading owing to twisted material going through the planer. D-D may simply be deforming the geometry of the planer itself in part because it isn't built strongly enough for the task.

The plain planing (so to speak :) ) exercise will at least eliminate that the head isn't aligned with the table when the forces are uniform across the stock; after that is confirmed then he can move on to better arrangments to hold the workpiece and checking for other issues.

But if his stock he's trying to straighten is 4/4 or less, it's going to take a really solid support all along the length to keep it from just bowing as it goes through...why I've rarely in 50 years done the exercise for other than heavy stock--it's just too much bother given there are better ways to rough prepare the material first or just use better material from the git-go and find other uses for the specific material. Unless it's a really exotic, high-priced or truly remarkable in some other way, the result just is rarely worth the effort in my book.

On 1/30/2019 9:01 AM, dpb wrote: ...

Typo -- "...the head isn't MISaligned..."

--dpb

On 1/30/2019 9:01 AM, dpb wrote: ...

...

This can be checked by running a narrow piece partly thru the planer and cutting power, then measuring the height from bed to head across the width of the bed to see how much deformation there really is under load.

(When done, back off the bed/head depending on which is the movable part, probably head? to remove the workpiece, obviously don't try to restart with the workpiece still in place).

On 1/29/2019 6:17 PM, dpb wrote: ...

...

And, keep the same orientation each pass -- several passes in the same orientation will let you determine a very small misalignment that isn't apparent on only one or two by compounding the error each pass. Wider stock is better test material, too, of course...

If you are sending twisted boards through a planer you get twisted results. You need to run the twisted boards through the planer on a sled longer than the boards. AND you need yo chock the boards with small wedges so that they, the boards, do not move while going through the planer.

In that case, your planer is working fine. What sled design are you using? Can you post a pic?

Everything you've mentioned has been done. The shims have been secured to the board and sled with either hot glue or double sided tape. The board doesn't rock, flex or move on the sled.

If I had a jointer, I would do that.

I'll have to have friend do that for me. Maybe even take the planer to his shop and compare my results to his.

Nothing will happen until at least next week, so this is going on hold for a few days. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I reread the long tale of woe...is the apparent problem only the trailing end seems to be having too much taken off if the problem is that part seems too much removed if I understand what you wrote?

How long is the workpiece and how are you supporting it coming out the backside of the planner? That sounds like it may be that the whole workpiece, sled and all is causing the rear table to droop and raising the back end up into the cutter head owing to the moment arm off the rear table...these little guys aren't all that beefy, the table may well flex, too, without additional support.

Could it be as simple as the outfeed table not being level or at least co-planar with the planer bed?

Even if the out feed table does not flex the board will try to pivot the tail end up with the fulcrum at the outer edge of the out feed table.

Although the in feed and out feed rollers in my planer are not spring loaded they will flex and deform slightly causing what may be a similar problem if my out feed support is slightly lower than the planer bed. Somewhere in the last third of the board it will develop a very slight taper as the weight of the board starts pressing up on the feed rollers - and a bad snipe when the end of the board passes the in feed rollers...

Maybe an extended feed table or standing feed rollers will minimize the problem.

How about an extended feed table supported by roller stand on the in and out feed side? That's what I've been using.

Sounds like it should work. I will say the last time I had problems with a twisted piece of lumber that would not get flat, I ended up knocking off the high spots with a jack plane so that it laid solid on the sled without shims. That really did the trick.

Please read this (carefully) and *then* follow the image link below. I believe that I have addressed all of your concerns.

If I've missed anything or if you have any other questions about the set-up or my technique, just let me know.

On 1/31/2019 4:14 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ....

In bulk, that's a reasonable-looking approach.

What we don't see, however, is the actual setup when trying to do a planing pass.

You don't give any measurements but if I just guesstimate that the difference is as much as 1/32" over the last 3-ft of the material then the angle is

Other than me feeding the sled in and retrieving it on the way out, what aren't you seeing? Should I post a link to a video? ;-)

That's the setup. What do you think is missing? Is it just the shims? If you want me to insert shims and then take the picture again, I can, but I kind of think that that would be a waste of time. On the twisted boards that I'm actually trying to flatten, I am shimming the gaps both to eliminate any rocking and fill them in to prevent flex.

The board being planed is 70". The sled is 72".

As I mentioned, the gap shown in the image is exaggerated because of other things I did to it. Even then, the exaggerated gap in the image is less than 2'.

In practice, after planing the board with the sled, the gap is more like