Kity 439 in feed problems

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dean0866

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16 Dec 2012
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Milton Keynes
Ever since I’ve owned this Kity 439 the feed into the thicknesser has always been a bit hit and miss and the final straw was when it ruined a piece I’d prepared for a table I’m making. It’s time to do something about it. I stripped the machine and found each of the rollers had collapsed bushes at the drive end. The shafts supporting both the drive and plastic wheels in the feed roller drive chain were both worn too. To cut a long story short I’ve replaced all the failed components and reassembled the machine and the feed through the thicknesser is now working …..too a point. It’s still difficult to get the wood to engage on the first feed roller and thus be drawn through the thicknesser. I suspect it has something to do with this in-feed bar assembly shown in the picture and it’s fitting into the machine. If I remove it, the wood feeds through the machine no problem but when I replace it , the wood has difficulty being engaged by the first roller. This has always been a problem with this machine and I wonder whether this shaft has been fitted incorrectly in the past and thus causing the issue. I’ve checked both the internet and the manual and cannot find any reference to its correct orientation or position within the machine and thus, here is my ask. Does anyone have the same machine and can post a picture of its correct orientation and position within the thicknesser in-feed?

The second picture shows where this in-feed bar is located in front of the fluted in-feed roller.
 

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Hello I have just joined this forum and noticed that you may be having similar issues to those I have experienced with my 439.

I had to rebuild as there were multiple jams and gunned up rollers that needed cleaning.

From what I can gather the cutter head is in a fixed position to the body of the machine. There is adjustment within the outfeed and infeed table height positioning and the feed rollers are mounted in these table castings using a spring and bronze Bush. I noticed that once I had reassembled everything that the kickback pawls you have shown in your photo are much lower than the feed rollers, therefore preventing stock being drawn in.

1. Does anyone know the correct height from the cutter head (not from the blades) to the outfeed table surface?

2. Should the kickback pawls prevent stock in thicknesser engaging rollers - why would this be happening?
 
After completely rebuilding the 439 my conclusions are these:

1. Sadly cost reduction has replaced tried and tested cast and machined components for sheet metal chassis. This due to the design has introduced lots of ‘slop’ which is fine if you have setup jigs but no good for servicing.

2. The thicknesser infeed ‘claws’ can gum up and by design only allows material to engage with the splined infeed rollers when the toothed cams have rotated sufficiently to let the material pass and engage on the infeed roller, these prevent kickback.

3. The mounting for said toothed infeed is sharing the same bolting point as the bracket for the table, however there is approximately 1-3mm of slop in the bracket positioning which affects table height and relationship to this roller.

In conclusion the production modifications to reduce manufacturing costs ultimately reduced the serviceability of the product.

The outfeed similarly due to the mounting bracket has 1-3mm of slop, I managed to get mine planing very nicely but the engagement on the thicknesser is still problematic due to the kickback pawls being marginally lower than the feed rollers.
 

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