Fox planer thicknesser help needed

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Jeff Hartley

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21 Aug 2005
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Isle of Arran, Scotland
Hi all,

I've just taken delivery of a Fox F22-565 planer thicknesser. I've never used one before and the instructions are brief to say the least as well as being in some form of "Franglaise". Could anyone who owns one of these machines please reply with a little advice re:

How do I set up the outfeed table in relation to the blades on the planer, as supplied the outfeed was 1mm below the blade at the top of rotation.

How exactly do I use the thicknesser? There is a circular handwheel that lifts the thicknesser bed up and a handle to the left which I assume sets the roller pressure, is this correct? How do I use these together to take a cut?

For anyone consdering one of these machines (I got it in Rutlands sale for £509 incVAT), it seems very well built, the tables and framework holding the cutter block are all very heavy cast iron and it feels like a lot of machine for the money.

As delivered, one of the adjusting handles was broken and the top of the fence has a dent in it causing the fence to be twisted. How are Rutlands at replacing damaged parts? I hope I won't have to ship the entire thing back :(

Take care all and thanks for any help you can give.
 
Table should be same height.
Handle is to lock pillar to required height
Other lever connects drive to send wood through m/c
Wind up bed to thickness of timber, lock ,send it through adjust say 0.5-1.0 of a turn repeat.
Send jpeg to rutlands.
Lubricate the thicknesser bed (wax) this is important
 
Hi Jeff,
I had one these some time back, if you do a search on this forum you'll find a wealth of info on how to set them up etc.

Unlucy Alf is correct on the Aminster being the same machine, although the Axminster has the additional extending rollers on the thicknessing bed,
and also Aminster give you a blade setting tool (very useful).

Hope this helps.
 
Many thanks for the help lads. I never realised it was the same as the axminster unit....

I'll get an email off to Rutlands with some pictures of the damage and see what they say, I'll post back with the results.

Regards to all, Jeff.
 
Jeff, welcome to the forum

Usually, I set the outfeed table exactly level with the blades. Most manuals seem to say that the blades should be a tiny bit higher than the table but I find that this introduces a little snipe on boards which is prevented if blades and outfeed are dead level
 
Just to update the group....

I sent an email to Rutlands last night and this morning I was called at work by Georgina from Rutlands to say they had seen my message in this forum, and recieved my email with pictures and that the replacement parts are already on thier way to me.

Also,

Rutlands were aware of the poor quality of the manual supplied by Fox and were actively badgering them to issue an improved one (at least to the quality of the Axminster manual I hope).

How about that for service?

I'm a very satisfied customer at this point :)

Thank you Georgina if you read this and well done Rutlands.

Regards to all, Jeff. :D
 
Hi Jeff

I'm glad to hear that Rutlands are sorting things out for you. That is excellent news.

I have spent far too much money with Rutlands recently and I made a mistake when ordering some cutters that I had thought were 1/2" and turned out to be 1/4" shank. I was very impressed with the way that thier customer services handled things for me.

Cheers
Neil
 
Agree on the silicone DW - it'll spoil finish...

It's a good PT for the money, but is quite fiddly to set up, in the absence of any decent manuals... Definitely, your first step is to wax the tables - makes a hell of a difference. I found that the other critical issue was feed roller pressure adjustment - used trial and error. I rate it highly, for those who're willing to take the time to configure it.
 
Can someone tell me how to adjust the tension on the infeed and outfeed rollers on this machine please.

Any other advice welcome. I have found that it deals with thicknessing hardwood beautifully but young pine just clogs it up!

Thanks,

Gordon
 
An easy way to adjust ( I assume this is because of the pine clogging the feed rollers) as it tries to grip the timber is to clean and lubricate the thicknesser bed with some silicone free lubricant such as easy glide or similar, as I suspect the green pine is very wet and won't let the feed rollers grip properly and is also sticking to the planer bed somewhat mainly due to the high resinous content of the timber your using.

If you really must adjust the feed roller pressure this is a tricky one, if you look under the planer bed you will see the bolts with the springs attached, and you loosen the bolt to relieve the tension, But and a big but, there usually isn't much thread on the bolt. There is quite a few posts on the forum with pics from some time ago as this was an issue with this machine and in order to adjust the tension you need to remove the panels on the machine and release the chain tensioner which drives the feed rollers.

If your looking to increase the pressure be careful as the feed roller pressure is linked to the feed roller drive train and can put to much strain on the running gear.



hope this helps
 
Tony":wsd2pwb4 said:
Usually, I set the outfeed table exactly level with the blades. Most manuals seem to say that the blades should be a tiny bit higher than the table but I find that this introduces a little snipe on boards which is prevented if blades and outfeed are dead level

I say the outfeed table should be slightly lower than the top of the blades. The reasoning is explained in David Charlesworth's first book. The setting procedure involves balancing a ruler on the outfeed table overhanging the blade, then rotating the blade by hand (machine unplugged obviously). As a blade passes the ruler it should advance the ruler by 2 to 3mm. My Jet P/T actually comes with a device to check this.
 
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