Elektra Beckum Metabo HC 260. -Question on Cutter height??

[tc42]

Hi,

I recently bought one of these second hand from an original owner who had used it very little (and only as a thicknesser). It is very dusty and needs blades etc so I am going to do a strip down, clean and alignment.

Prior to this decided to check for any major alignment issues or warping of the tables. Can't see any (material) warping issues BUT I am very alarmed that the cutter head (without blades) sits higher than the outfeed fixed table level by a small amount.

From everything I have seen on other planers including my hand plane, the cutter head should be below the height of the fixed outfeed table with the blades standing proud of the cutter and very slightly proud of the outfeed table. Is this normal for the HC 260??

For anyone with this machine, could you let me know how much the cutter head sits below the outfeed table plane by??

Thanks for any advice

Tim

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Hi - on mine the main body of the cutter head is only about 0.5 to 1.5 mm below the top of the outfeed table. I guess this is a safety feature (a bit like limiters on spindle tooling) which also effectively limits the maximum depth of cut in one pass. Cheers, W2S

 

[WellsWood]

There must be some adjustment in the outfeed table height surely? I find it hard to believe they are manufactured directly to tolerances required for correct operation. I wonder if it is designed to be set up using shims? I have a TS2500 saw from Scheppach and the sliding table uses shims, provided with the machine when new, to acheive the required tolerances during commissioning - there's a job I never want to do again!

 

[Woody2Shoes]

There must be some adjustment in the outfeed table height surely?

Don't call me Shirley

Yes - the height of the outfeed table is adjustable.

Cheers, W2S

 

[Hemsby]

Seems incredible that the machine could be used with the cutter block above the table #-o .

From memory the cutter block shaft and bearings are in a fixed location so no height up or down adjustment there, but will check tomorrow.

The outfeed table has no adjustment other than a grub screw either side of the table at the extreme end of the clamping strips.
These are for minor adjustments to compensate for “twist” in the table and only really affect the table furthest away from the cutter block.


The table could be raised by shims between the clamping strips and the table either side. But to raise the outfeed table any height may result in the infeed table being unable to rise the extra height.


The cutter block (without blades) is approximately 2.5 mm below the outfeed table height on my machine.

 

[Ring]

Slacken the allen nuts off this allows the table to be slid up towards cutter head.
Jim

 

[tc42]

Thanks for all the help / advice.

It still has the original blades that are very blunt so at the moment it it doesn't do anything well. In brief tests, thicknessing is ok but to have the blades above the level of the cutter head (which they have to be), means that the blades are too high for jointing activities.

Jim, I can see how to adjust ramp the outfeeed table up, so all should be ok now so i will make the gap 2mm.

Thinking about it, it seems odd that this adjustment and clearance check is is not covered in the manual (or at least the metabo one that I have). If the outfeed table is too low as with mine, you cannot set blade height for jointing correctly. If the outfeed table is too high, the blades would need to be set to stand a long way proud of the cutter head which presumably is not good either (I presume there is a limit to how high the blades can stand unsupported).

Having the outfeed table 2mm implies the blades stand 2mm proud of the cutter head which seems ok??

Thanks

Tim

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Having the outfeed table 2mm implies the blades stand 2mm proud of the cutter head which seems ok??

Yes - I'd be very careful to avoid having the blades projecting any further from the cutter head - for the safety reasons I alluded to previously. There's a current thread somewhere else on here all about sharpening the cutting blades. Cheers, W2S

 

[tc42]

Also what do people use to lubricate the threads that support the underside table??

 

[Fridgegod]

Hi, there are some grub screws on the blade holder to allow you to set the cutter height, uses a small allen key, I think 2.5mm if I remember correctly. As an aside Metabo say that with a ruler sat on the outside table pull the cutter block backwards by hand, the rule should move backwards between 4 & 6mm to the outside side, they say this is the perfect setting.