Contents
Should you plane with or against the grain?
No matter which way you feed the wood, you’re planing with the grain part of the time and against it the other part. When you’re planing against the grain, the knives tend to lift the wood fibers and tear them out, leaving the surface chipped and gouged.
Can you use an electric planer on end grain?
adjust depth of cut on top of planer The power planer has three rotating blades on its base. A power planer’s primary function is to smooth the surface of wood, but it can also be used to smooth wood’s rough end grain.
What should you do if a board sticks in the planer?
To fix the problem, unplug your planer, fully raise the cutterhead, blow out stray chips and dust with compressed air, and wipe the rollers with mineral spirits and a shop cloth to remove any sawdust buildup. For most planers, you won’t be able to freely turn the rollers to clean the opposite side.
Is a electric hand planer worth it?
No. A handheld electric planar is more of a shaping tool or heavy stock removal tool when tollerances are large. It is kind of an electric scrub plane. It has its uses, but you aren’t going to get milled surfaces out of it like you will with either a jointer/planer or scrub/try plane.
How does a thickness planer for wood work?
And because a wood planer works by slicing certain thicknesses of material off of the wood piece, it’s perfect for milling and squaring up rough lumber. Be sure to run through board stocks with rough surfaces on the top and flat surfaces on the bottom for quality results.
What happens when you feed a board into a planer?
Feed the board into the planer so the cutter head cuts with the grain. When the board is fed into the wood planer against the grain, the cutter head catches at the grain, resulting in tearout. Tearout can instantly ruin an expensive piece of lumber. Tearout happens when you feed a board into the wood planer with the wrong end forward.
What’s the best way to feed a planer?
Another trick is to feed in a sacrificial board first. Then feed the next board in against the end of the first board and continue feeding boards end to end. Finally feed in another sacrificial board. The planer will treat it as one long board, and only snipe the first and last boards.
What should the tension be on a planer?
I’ve found that a setting of about 0.20mm works for most of my planning needs. The last thing to check and adjust is the spring tension on the in-feed and out feed rollers. This is usually done from the top of the planer. Look for 4 circular Allen keyed screws directly above the ends of the in/out feed rollers.