To bad you don't have the manual. They often provide you with an easy approach to tune the machine. It's a good article there, but a little complicated in my taste.
I don't remember which one you bought? Is it a one where you adjust(lower and rise) the cutter or the table?
It doesn't necessary means that the infeed roll are to tight, it can be the knives that are mounted to far in in the cutterhead.
I think you should wait with the dial gage. You should be fine with just a piece of wood. I will show you how my planer is set up, but I need to scan the pic in the manual first. Old school but it's an old planer.
Sometimes you can get tear out when planing against the grain. You could try feeding the other end of the board through first and see if that helps at all. Also if the wood is extremely dry that can happen.
When I plane figured wood like birds eye maple it helps to have a spray bottle of water handy. Spray the board lightly just before you feed it through and that helps lessen the tear out.
Definitely super dry wood, had no idea about the spray bottle. Will try that.
OAC, I was just going to head in to town for a caliper, but will try and set it up without first. I think I get what you're saying.
Here is how my planer is tuned. It's probably different from yours, but might get you some ideas. It's a crap picture mixed with swedish and english. I translated the core part. I think you get the rest from the picture.
That's pretty much exactly what I did, and now pieces are coming out with a great finish.
My problem now is that one side is .4 mm thinner than the other side. I double checked all of my blades with the planer pals, and with digital calipers and they are all within .1mm of each other at all points on the blade, so I know that's not the issue. I guess I need to check the bed for squareness with the cutting head? I can't imagine that the in feed or out feed rollers can effect the thickness of the finished piece, can they?
Gotta be the bed, but I don't think that's even adjustable. Is the cutting head roller typically adjustable?
It's possible but I hope not. That's the problem I had with my jointer. One corner of the table is about .5mm lower than the opposite corner. It's not noticeable until you make a few passes, then you start scratch your head and wonder what's going on. How do the cores look across the width of the core? You may have to fine tune with a belt sander. Let us know.
When I tried the planer crib method last year I had the same problem.
I solved it by running the base MDF plank of my crib through the planer and build the crib on top of that.
It didn't fix the source of the problem but at least I had a surface that was parallel to the blades. You have to always feed your crib in the same direction though...
A bad day skiing is always better than a good one at work...
I mean dialed. They look perfect and are coming out within .05 mm across the full width.
I used my digital calipers to set one planer pal .4mm different than the other one and reset the blades at a slight angle to compensate for the difference I was seeing (which I assume is from the bed surface). I also reset the in and out feed rollers accordingly.
Shiz is looking tight now. Coming out with a great finish. Surprisingly NO snipe, and well within intended tolerances. Each turn of the handle yields a .1mm cut.
Took half the day, but it was definitely worth it.
Oh, spray bottle of water is money. I am amazed at the difference between a pass without a quick spray and a pass with a quick spray. Night and day. Skidesmond, thanks a ton for that tip.
