mdf through a planer

[doughboyshredder]

Bad idea?

[EricW]

I think it would be ok. A lot of dust thought unless you hook up a vac or something.

[MontuckyMadman]

Ply and mdf are pretty hard on the blades. Your beast should be fine for the short term, but mega fuggin dusty.

[falls]

Won't be catastrophic. Just will wear your blades out quicker.
MDF has a lot of glue in it. Glue dulls the blades.

[doughboyshredder]

Cool, I guess I'll finish dulling the blades in there by running these through. I have one inch wide strips that I want to plane down for the spacers in a new planer crib. I'll hook the shop vac up while running them through.

[MontuckyMadman]

Yeah that's no big deal. FYI my planer does not cut spacers like that perfectly. snipe front and rear.

[doughboyshredder]

Yeah that's no big deal. FYI my planer does not cut spacers like that perfectly. snipe front and rear.

Oh yeah, the snipe on this beast is deadly.

[Dr. Delam]

I run my MDF spacers through my planer all the time. I also usually use an old MDF ski template as a test core on a new setup. I don't notice any dulling at all of the blades. The only time I notice a rapid dulling is with bamboo.

As we all know, super dusty. One of these days I am going to get one of these:

[skidesmond]

Here's some tips to help prevent the sniping:

http://woodworkersjournal.com/forum/arc ... 20503.html

BTW - I just planed some would yesterday using the Railroading method. It works. Also if you're planing I've put separate pieces in side by side. Start one, then insert the next one a few seconds later. I had no idea it was called Railroading or why it prevented sniping until now... I was just trying to get it done faster.

[Jekul]

I used my planer to make some mdf spacers as well. As everyone has said, make sure to hook up a dust collection system before going. I didn't notice any dulling of my blades, but probably only ran 30 6" x 6" square through.

[twizzstyle]

MDF cuts like a dream on my planer. I just made the camber section for my new mold this weekend doing this (just like planing a core). It cuts nice and easy and leaves a perfectly smooth/flat surface, but it makes a TON of dust - mine was actually coming off in like strips? Real big mess, but works just fine.

For what its worth... for this new mold I made the TIP molds like normal, cut a bunch of ribs with the router and bolted them together. For the center section I cut just two ribs that were inverse of the camber I wanted, and used those as a crib to run some MDF through the planer. The end result is a perfect camber section that is perfectly flat (assuming the planer blades are flat). Took about 5 minutes, vs an hour or more cutting a bunch of ribs and bolting them together only to find out I suck and nothing is flat. win.

[doughboyshredder]

Here's some tips to help prevent the sniping:

http://woodworkersjournal.com/forum/arc ... 20503.html

BTW - I just planed some would yesterday using the Railroading method. It works. Also if you're planing I've put separate pieces in side by side. Start one, then insert the next one a few seconds later. I had no idea it was called Railroading or why it prevented sniping until now... I was just trying to get it done faster.

I planed down some cores today, and managed to get almost zero snipe. I was hand feeding them, and found that keeping them off level, by holding them up quite a bit above the feed table did the trick. If I had a good feed table I would set it significantly highier than the planer table. Was real surprised how much of an effect this had. Previously I was trying to hold them level as they went in and came out of the planer.
Thanks for the link.