Wood planer advise

Butch(OH)

Well-known Member
Place we just bought came with a large amount of rough sawn hardwood boards plus the haymow floor, (which is coming up) is made of 2" x 12" to 16" wide hardwood boards that were laid on the joists (not nailed) I have a lot of uses for the wood and own a 13" Dewalt planer but also have experience with how long the knives last in dirty rock hard wood so here is the question. I have found several pretty decent 18-20" Rockwell wedge bed planers, by the time I purchase a spiral inserted cutter head they end up being the same price as a new 18"-20" import from places like Grizzly or Jet or the new Powermatics when they are also equipped with an inserted spiral head. If your going to spend the same money would you go with an old H-D machine like the Rockwell with an upgraded head or go with a brand new import?
Thanks in advance!
 
The short answer is import since parts are actually as easy to get and alot less money. For home use and starting with new you probly will never need anything but cutters anyhow. The long answer is neither,a drum sander does almost as well,is less money,does even better on dirty material and you don't have to worry about running into nails.
 
Why not consider a woodmaster? You can get them in 12", 18", or, 25" capacity, plus they also do other things than just plane. Craigslist searches usually turn up a few for sale.
 
Depends on how much time you have.
The older ones are likely to be cast iron base and copper wire in the motor.
Could've already lasted a lifetime and probably go another.
Run all you can thru the old straight knives, use a "stud finder" to scan them for metal.
Then upgrade to the spiral.
 
You could help the wood by washing it with a power washer and allow it to dry a couple days before planing. As far as Rockwell they have pretty much abandoned their customers. It's very difficult to get repair parts for any Rockwell equipment. I only have experience with one Grizzly machine, a wood shaper however it is the poorest made machine I've ever used. Jet and Powermatic have a lot better reputation as well as Shop Fox. I don't personally have experience though with the equipment the have made this century. If you like woodworking I would suggest you get some big old cast iron planer. They have a lot more power and the weight cuts down on the noise and vibration. I bought a Newman 600 planer and couldn't be happier. It saves a lot of time too. I spent about as much time repairing the Rockwell planer and using it. The 22-560 planer had a nasty habit of falling apart.
 
Yes, the wood has been in the corner of a barn for a very longtime, moved about etc. It is not covered with mud but dirt that would be expected from?? years of less than ideal storage. The haymow flooring is mostly Oak and they didn't square a lot of it, just cut slabs 2" thick until they got around 16-20" wide then the flipped the cants so some are sawed on one edge and not on the other if you get my drift? I have tried to plane wood like this in the past and it dulls regular knives about as fast as I cared to change them so I am looking into a H-D planer with the inserted cutterhead, don't know anything about the drum sanders the other fellow posted about, checking that out also.
 
I would go with the suggestion to power wash the dirty wood, let it dry and then plane it with a knife planer that you can re-sharpen the knives to do the rough planning. Save the spiral head planer until you get down to doing the finish planning.

Re-sharpening or replacing knives will cost less than replacing all the cutters on the spiral head. Those cutters will wear out on dirty wood also and have to be replaced.

Lots of old brands no longer have parts support. Several of them went bankrupt (Steel City is gone) because the customer base has dwindled away. Very few young people interested in woodworking anymore; they want to just sit at their computers and play games.
 
What kind of $$ are you looking to spend? Good planers that are capable of taking in that sort of task with any efficiency are goring to run $2-10k used or more. Are you planing on doing lots of wood work that requires planing in the future? To what thickness are you surfacing the boards? I'd get a price from a local lumber mill on planing the boards to your desired thickness before I'd spend the big money on a quality planer with a helical cutter head.
 
I have a 13 dewalt. A grain of sand will dull blades very fast. Put a chainsaw in dirt, same thing, dulls it. I made a blade sharpener for my bdewalt. You can buy one too. Some will tell you can't sharpen them, but you can.
 
Hello, I run a small cabinet/wood working shop in NE Texas, a Drum sander would not be the best tool for this job. Many shops are now using their wide belt sanders with 50 grit belts to "abrasive plane" rough sawn wood. It would probable be cheaper to find a cabinet shop or hardwood supplier to someone to do this for you. Also many new planers use carbide inserts instead of planer blades to plane lumber, these are easy to change out and your lumber may ruin the edges, but the inserts can be turned in a fair amount of time. I would look to a cabinet shop or Hardwood Lumber Supplier to get this done in the most cost effective way. You will eat up planer blades at an alarming rate and will constantly be sharpening them and have a mediocre surface left on your lumber. It is probably worth doing, but just need the right process to do it. Anyway, Happy Wood Workin' , Johnny P.S. I am a third generation wood worker and coming up on the 100th anniversary of continuous operation of the family business my grandfather started in the 1920's.
 

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