Spiral head planer thicknesser

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Has anyone with experience of spiral cutter blocks on planer thicknesses, any opinions as to their advantages/disadvantages. My first experience of one was ind the USA. About 12 years ago. I remember at least one of the knives left a ridge in the work, as it was obviously not seating in its bed, perhaps a bit of dirt got in there. It seemed to operate fine aside that. Axminster are championing spiral blocks in their trade range machines, and are using knives with a slight camber, which seems logical to me, to reduce the chances of what I described above. But aside the advantages in planing tricky grained timber and noise reduction are there disadvantages? Do the knives work out to be economical? TCT has good wear resistance, but once dead, it would be a few hundred to replace the set. Nick them prematurely and it could be expensive. And what about resin build up, is it a PITA having all those nooks and crannies for gunk to accumulate and perhaps prevent the knives seating properly?

Any thoughts?

Mike.

 

[custard]

The next time I change my planer it'll be to a spiral block. I've seen them in action in quite a few furniture workshops now and I'm sold. Much quieter, packs loads more waste in the extraction bin, and best of all I've yet to see any trace of tear out on even extremely figured timbers. The tear out improvement is so extreme it's as if feed direction has become irrelevant.

It has given me a bit of a grievance with Felder as they refuse to do a "block only" spiral upgrade kit for retro fitting, even though I've heard from two of their senior engineers that it's perfectly feasible. I suppose they're trying to push their users into changing the complete machine.

However, this is all based on hardwood furniture usage, I've also heard comments that some joinery operations aren't as impressed with spiral blocks when it comes to taking the whopping, single pass cuts that they seem to relish!

 

[ghettoblaster]

A friend has one and whist I was skeptical to begin with I am now on the lookout for one.

Noise is reduced but it is still noisy. The advantage on wild grained woods is what tempted me.

You get slight grooves down the length of the board but nothing worse than a straight knife planer.

The cost actually worked out better than a tersa system as far as blade replacement goes, if, that is, the 20X lifespan is true.

Not sure I would get an axminster one, maybe the SCM instead.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Custard, Won't Felder just sell the block as a spare part, they needn't know it is for an upgrade.

I hear what you are saying about the advantages, I was reasonably sold on the idea when I used my American friend's Powermatic with spiral block. And I won't be taking massive swipes with it, either. But the situation I'm contemplating at the moment is getting a reasonably priced second machine to put in a school workshop. It would be my machine, to use for my furniture projects in hardwood, but I would also use it for school prep work. This, I'm sure, would entail planing a lot more softwood than I would normally use. I'm envisaging a hefty resin buildup around all the knife recesses, which might be a real nuisance when it comes to rotating/replacing the knives. Am I overthinking, but cleaning around all those sharp knives in situ would be painful, quite literally. The lower noise in school would be great, though.

I'd love an SCM one, but can't afford a second machine of that calibre.

Mike.

 

[memzey]

I started this thread a couple of weeks ago on Tersa knives but it quickly became a block type comparison including spirals:
tersa-knives-t98549.html
Lots of interesting info on the pros and cons of both.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Mike, one of your original questions was about nicking a blade.

I only own a small, traditional planer, but I saw a demo of the Hammer ones at Peter Sefton's last year or the year before: brilliant thing. If you nick a cutter, you just rotate it. It's true that a complete set is expensive, but you get four cutting edges (x2, I think), and you can both buy and replace them individually too.

It's a shearing action rather than a conventional "squared plane iron", giving a cleaner cut, and needs a lot less power (small cutting edge), They shouldn't tramline - something was either nicked or not set up properly.

Peter S. has had a good look at them, so I hope he picks up on this thread, as his take would be valuable. Way out of my price range, but I could if I would.

 

[Ali]

It has given me a bit of a grievance with Felder as they refuse to do a "block only" spiral upgrade kit for retro fitting, even though I've heard from two of their senior engineers that it's perfectly feasible. I suppose they're trying to push their users into changing the complete machine.

I bought a Jet 310 P/T a few months back and found some users who had bought aftermarket Helical Heads so it is possible.

I have not yet placed an order so can't vouch for them but have you seen this?:

https://shelixheads.com/index.php?route=common/home