Electric Planers & Blades & Pinblocks

[Erwinspiano@aol.com]

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       Terry
   I owne a ten inch ryobi (good Machine) & recently sold a 12 inch delta 
(also good) & neither could keep up with a lot of wide maple planning without 
bogging down on anything but small bites.
     I recently purchased a 3 bladed Dewalt 13 inch Its a new model under 
500.00 & it is far more substantially built. You could call it portable but it's 
heavy. It has 2 speeds> One for hogging it off & the other for a fine cut. & 
it is fine & smooth.
  On the others I used them both a good deal but did not ever have the bent 
blade thing just fairly quick dullness. The ryobi was a little work horse & the 
delta is a great machine for many lighter duty type shops. The delta has a 
nice cutter head lock. The ryobi blades are thicker than the delta but harder to 
change. The delta blades are two sided & easy to flip. It's better to discard 
& buy new ones than waste time sharpening. They aren't that much.
  The but is planing wide pieces of maple take its toll on any planer blades 
& a heavier machine will be required.
  Get out the check book. In fact a 15 inch would even be better & the new 
delta is about $1150.00 if I remeber right.
  Dale
I have a Dewald 12-1/2-inch electric planer. I use it quite a bit. I can 
plane Sitka Spruce all day with it. I can plane narrow-ish hardwood boards all day 
with it. But, I have been making a number of pinblocks lately and find that 
when I run wide hard maple boards through the planer numerous times, it seems 
to take its toll. I suspect I am simply reaching the limits of durability with 
such a tool.

The blades are what seem to go first. I have enough power (unless of course 
the slower rotation when stressed contributes to poor performance). The unit is 
wide enough for most of my needs. But the knives get dull quickly. It takes a 
long time to sharpen them (I spent four hours removing, sharpening, 
reinstalling and adjusting them yesterday). Yesterday I noticed that one edge was 
cutting deeper than the rest of the width. I found that one of the knives had bent 
at one end.

It seems that running wood through the planer with the grain parallel to the 
knives is hardest on the planer. Are there any wisdom-type rules for such 
grain when planing with an electric planer?

I think this planer is just not heavy-duty enough for running lots of wide 
hardwood through it. Do bigger planers have thicker, more heavy-duty, knives? 
Are knives of higher-quality metals available -harder (like for hand planes)? 
Anyone have a recommendation for a bigger planer? How do others handle planer 
knife sharpening (I am sharpening mine on my Tormek unit)?

Oh, and here is a picture of my latest pinblock. Quarter-sawn hard-maple 
epoxy-bonded with a Delignit cap. Operators are standing by......

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