Blade and table tolerance - SIP Planer Thicknesser

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twodoctors

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Hi all,

So I have a SIP planer thicknesser which I bought pre-loved a while back. Changed the blade recently as one of them had a chip somewhere (and I'm no good at sharpening them).

Anyway I don't have a jig for adjusting the blade, so I used the method shown on many YouTube channel where one adjust the blade height so that it moves the wood by no more than 5mm. Managed to do with a bit of trial and error, and I was checking at the left and right hand part of the blade only. All tighten up and it was still doing fine... except when I check the middle of the blade the movement is more like 6mm. Only a tiny bit out, suggesting either the blade has a bit of a curve (new blade) or the table is not flat (which I can't detect with my straight edge).

Is still still within tolerance (for a budget planer thicknesser)? Or it is time to offload it for a new one perhaps?

Thanks.

Adrian
 
That's fairly negligible (Especially on a cheap unit with questionable build quality) but if you want it parallel you could try slackening all but the two outer gib screws, ever so slightly pinch up the ones you just undid and tap the blade on the back of the bevel with a bit of wood lightly, tighten up the screws and try again. We're literally only talking a few thousands of an inch here so a little tap could be all it needs to straighten the knife in the block.
 
All tighten up and it was still doing fine... except when I check the middle of the blade the movement is more like 6mm. Only a tiny bit out, suggesting either the blade has a bit of a curve (new blade) or the table is not flat (which I can't detect with my straight edge).
Also quite possibly you introduced the fractional curve when tightening the gib screws.

Both the curve in the blades and flatness of the table are quite easily checked.

The blades by touching them together on both the cutting edge and back.
The table can be checked with a laser level, not by levelling it but by checking if you have any more/less of the line showing across the table.

You can eliminate (or introduce) that amount of curve by careful (or careless) fitting.
 
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