Maintaining Even Wear On Surface Planer Knives?

[pollys13]

I read to maintain even wear, move the fence when you can into a new position. I have the Mk1 version of the Metabo HC 260 C planer, thicknesser.

It came with replaceable knives, I bought an adapter so I can use resharpenable blades. I have a Scheppach 2500 wetstone grinder with a planer knife sharpening jig.

Should I be doing this; repositioning the planer fence, when possible to maintain even wear?
Cheers

 

[Mike Jordan]

In an ideal world the knives would be sharpened when they show any sign of losing their edge, however in the real world it's often a good idea to use different areas of the blades for surfacing or thicknessing in order to get the job done without the need to sharpen part way through. Some also use the very back edge of the blades (with the fence pushed right back) to plane edges of sheet materials and even plywood edges, thus keeping the damage to an area that is possible to avoid.

 

[pollys13]

In an ideal world the knives would be sharpened when they show any sign of losing their edge, however in the real world it's often a good idea to use different areas of the blades for surfacing or thicknessing in order to get the job done without the need to sharpen part way through. Some also use the very back edge of the blades (with the fence pushed right back) to plane edges of sheet materials and even plywood edges, thus keeping the damage to an area that is possible to avoid.

OK cheers and for the extra bit of info/tip

 

[custard]

Should I be doing this; repositioning the planer fence, when possible to maintain even wear?

Yes, it's a good idea. On my machine the guard can be folded down in various sections to prevent it sticking out too far and getting in your way. One disadvantage of this is that there's one perfect location for edge jointing, so unless I'm scrupulous about ringing the changes this small section of my knives gets far more wear than the rest. I really have to force myself to reposition the fence into less convenient settings to avoid knackering the knives prematurely.

Incidentally, one workshop I worked at had a policy of shouting out when the planer knives were about to be replaced, so anyone who wanted to edge joint ply or MDF could do it without knocking seven bells out of the fresh knives!

 

[Eric The Viking]

Incidentally, one workshop I worked at had a policy of shouting out when the planer knives were about to be replaced, so anyone who wanted to edge joint ply or MDF could do it without knocking seven bells out of the fresh knives!

That's the sort of thing you don't see in books!

 

[transatlantic]

Incidentally, one workshop I worked at had a policy of shouting out when the planer knives were about to be replaced, so anyone who wanted to edge joint ply or MDF could do it without knocking seven bells out of the fresh knives!

buuuuuut - doesn't that just mean you have more sharpening to do?

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

They were going to be sent out to a service anyway (is what he meant) so "have at it" with your blunting resinous man made boards because a 3rd party will handle the sharpening.

 

[RobinBHM]

Theres nothing more annoying than doing a cutter change on a 4 sider only to have somebody put a piece of wood through with a staple in it! (the cutters are TCT so they last a long time unless chipped)

Or on the surface planer pushing a bit of iroko through with some calcium deposit on it -really knocks the cutters out.

Anybody pushing through mdf is in big trouble!