I was super lucky and just purchased a Skil 100 7.5 planer for faction of what they are selling out there for. The tool is in great shape and I don’t believe that it has been run in MANY years. I have never owned a Skil and would appreciate any advice as to what should be done before I power it up and start shaping. Is there any maintenance I need to do? I want to make sure this beautiful tool lasts a lifetime and operates to its/my utmost potential Thanks in advance for your help!
gazingus,
Congrats on your score! PeteC is probably the “man with the plan” for what you need to know. Search the archives. Bill Barnfield has posted some good stuff on them as well. Probably others but that is who comes to mind. You need to check the condition of the brushes. Make sure they are not stuck etc. Pay attention to their location and orientation when removing. That way if they are fine you can put them back like they were. If they are badly worn it would be best to have it serviced to clean up the armature. Considering its value it would be money well spent.
regards,
Dave_D
I’ll second that: Pete_C prolly knows as much about Skil 100s as any man living.
Some things I’d check: the drive belt for cracks or age, and while you have the belt off, make sure the ‘cylinder’ that holds the blades turns relatively freely and doesn’t have any real play in it.
While you’re doing that, wouldn’t hurt to have the blades out and have 'em resharpened. Any half-decent tool sharpening shop can do 'em.
If you have access to a compressor, blow any dust you can out of the motor cooling slots and also the switch area. Check and replace the cord if necessary. They’re cheap and they can crack with age which in turn can drive you batty checking everything else.
hope that’s of use
doc…
Great suggestions guys! I really appreciate the help!
Rats - knew I forgot something.
While you have the belt cover off and the belt off, and after you checked the cylinder by turning it by hand, do the same with the motor. It should turn relatively easily and smoothly. If not, don’t force it but get it to a good tool repair shop.
Sorry about that. Senior moment, i guess
doc…
Thanks to everyone for their kind comments. I would be happy to check over the planer for you Gazingus, I’m in Dana Point so please e-mail me direct, the address is in my profile.
I have the best advice anyone could possibly give you…
Give it to me…trust me…I’ll take goooooooood care of it! LOL
What do you need with a Skil 100 anyway…I’ll just trade you one of my Hitachi’s and you’ll be all set. ROFL
(-;
No…oh well
Congrats bro…I’m totally jealous.
I go with the concensus. Send it to Pete C. He did a great job on mine.
Quote:
I go with the concensus. Send it to Pete C. He did a great job on mine.
I’ll “fourth” that! I had Pete go through mine, money VERY well spent!
Pete since your the Guru on Planers I thought I’d ask you if this Japaneese Hitachi is worth converting and can it be?
“Blade width: 136 mm” That’s a lot of blade… The Skill is 76 mm, the Hitachi is 82 mm. I remember a thread (Bill Barnfield’s?) saying that too wide is no good for shaping boards.
How about for SUP’s?
Ha ha ha, good one, Surfding!
Aloha gazingus and others
Personally, I think the Skil 100 is still the best tool for shaping surfboards. And by this I mean the actual ART & CRAFT of TRUE hand shaping. Much of what is being done today is also creating a shaped blank… but the process and tools used to get there and the skills needed to use those tools is vastly different then what was needed in years gone by.
This can be attributed to 4 main causes. 1. The maturing of the product. 2. Blanks that are very close to final shape. 3. Shaping Machines. 4. Molded boards. All issues which reduce the need for hand shapers, let alone, the well designed and functioning tools they need. Hence the stagnation in the development of planers perfectly suited to hand shaping. If every surfboard created and sold today was hand shaped with a planer, there would likely be enough planers sold that I would be making custom planers instead of surfboards!
But since that isn’t happening, finding a Skil 100 and learning to using it well is the next best thing. But to get the best results from your new tool and emerging skills using it, some modifications are necessary. Here are a few suggestions…
Remove or bend out of the way the clicker engagement device inside the shoe so that the depth adjuster can slide freely side to side.
Loosen up the shoe itself so that is will slide freely. This may require honing up the shoes slide tracks ever so slighly. Often just some rubbing compound in the tracks is all it takes.
Drill out the ends of the slot that the depth adjuster moves side to side in.
Shorten the foot
If you do shorten the foot, you need to create some kind of “stand away” to cause the power cord to arc out away from the tools blades.
Radius the foot and shoe’s parimeter edges slightly.
Polish out the bottom.
Texture the handle.
Sharpen the blades and keep them sharp.
Adjust the blade depth so that they just barely cut at zero on the depth adjuster.
There are probably more but that is all I can remember at the moment. I would be happy to answer questions detailing with the suggestions above. The suggestions others have made, regarding an old planer are all accurate and good. Check the belt, the brushes, the cord, the blades, etc.
Balsa’s recollection about my comments on wide planers was likely me commenting on the fact that many Asian made planers, have their belt guards down at the same level that the main foot is. Some also have a bearing bulge on the other side that is also too wide and too low. You can see this on the Hitachi planer in the photos above. This makes the whole planer much wider but the real problem is that the width is actually wider then the blade’s cut. This won’t work.
Notice in the photos of the Skil Planer that the belt guard is lifted higher then the shoe level and the bearing bulge is higher and small. When you are staggering cuts, you can’t push the planer’s blade sideways into the next cut because the bump created by the belt guard, prevents the planer’s blade from reaching the ledge created by the last cut! The same happens with a bearing bulge on the other side. You will also find yourself riding up on these appendages and lifting the blade off the surface of the blank where no cut can take place or the cut will be tilted at a less then ideal angle.
So to be clear. A wide planer alone is not a deal breaker. But when its width is wider then the blade’s actual cut and that width, is not lifted higher then the greatest depth of cut the planer can make… then the planer won’t work well for shaping.
Remember shaping isn’t just arriving at a finished board. It is a culmination of all the ideas, design, artistic influence, sense of style, intuition, creativity, craft and skill you can physically muster. And this is the key. You are physically shaping! And that changes everything.
The goal is of course producing a board that works well. But it is also creating one that looks good and reflects your personal sense of style in it’s creation. Shaping is a dance. And much of the pleasure in a dance is personally dancing!
Shapes can be made on a machine and they can be molded. But then… there is little dancing to be done! Clearly many are trying to avoid the dance and I understand the economics of their reasoning. But for many, the dance is were the pleasure is, even if the economics don’t allow it to make much sense.
Owning a surfboard company that makes surfboards, is not the same thing as being a person who personally makes the surfboards. These are two different dances. Both are fine, it just depends how you want to dance. If you want to hand shape surfboards you need to learn the dance and own the proper shoes (tools) for doing so. Lucky you! Cause you just got the right pair of shoes!
Having great tools to use in this creative process is fantastic! But even more so, is the need to have the refined skills these tools demand. If we shaped in clay only our hands would suffice. But the foam requires that we use some additional help. Sandpaper and sureforms are great but, the speed of the planer is really the key. It can allow your creative ideas to be manifested in the foam almost as fast as your ideas evolve in the process. When you are a beginner, the speed that ideas will come may need little more then sandpaper. But as one’s sense of design grows these ideas will want to come to life faster then what the sandpaper will allow. This is where the planer comes into powerful play. Tweaking your planer to expand it’s capabilities and improve it’s use is how you get there, otherwise your dancing with the wrong size shoes.
Enjoy!
While I’m not Pete by any means, maybe I can give you a few thoughts;
First off, it’s a Japanese model, probably precious few imported ito the US. And parts, especially blades, belts and brushes, are gonna be awfully hard to come by.
Next, it is definitely wide. That’s real nice for doing a beam, lets say, in as few passes as possible, but not for doing curves.
,
Then there’s the weight; I kinda suspect this puppy would run around the same as the slighly bigger Makitas, at around 20 lbs…which would make my Rockwell Versa-plane feel like a Hitachi. Plus, working a blank with the thing, I dunno that it wouldn’t tend to bend the foam a bit, and give you concaves where you didn’t want them.
hope that;s of some use
doc…
Beat me to it!
Hi Surfding,
I can get motors rewound to any voltage, but it’s expensive. For the cost of a new motor, you could get this Makita 1806B: 6-3/4" cut, 11 amp motor, 19.3 lbs if you really want something big.
If you’re thinking of gettign someone else to look at it I would stand by Pete C 100% more if that were possible, you won’t find a nicer guy. He did and excelent job on mine,
Still need to get the power transformer to get it going, but I won’t be shapping foam till the spring so I’m not in a rush.