i have a hitachi P20SBK planer that i picked up at a yard sale the other day for cheap. is there anyway to do the clark foam mods yourself? mainly the depth adjustment on the fly feature…or is there a way to send it into clark to get it modified?
Howzit?!? Although they are basically the same machine, Clark foam guys designed their own adjuster. If you had an old Clark/Hitachi, you could interchange the whole assembly. I’ve done that. Otherwise, out of luck. Aloha…RH
Hello…
I bought a cheap harbour freight planer, which is a rip off of the hitachi. I made my own simple cam adjuster, it took several tries and some tweaking before I came up with the current setup, but it works great, and cost nothing.
I can get full adjustment in a half of a turn.
I don’t know what your home engineering is, but here is what I did.
I found a sleeve to go on the threaded bolt of the shoe, cut at an angle, drilled and tack welded a lever to the bottom half of the sleeve, put a self locking nut on the top of the sleeve and tacked the sleeve to the nut, a washer on the bottom of the whole thing, played with different springs, greased everything a little and put a rubber grommet on the end of the lever. a little fine tunning and presto…
As you swing the lever the two pieces push against each other and lift the shoe…
I have yet to make it look pretty…
I love this stuff…Josh
Hey Josh can you do some sort of sketch of your method, please ?
I’m having trouble understanding it , but it sounds good.
Careful with the heat on the Hitachi - if you get the main bearings too hot they can deform the plastic seats that are built-in the body of the tool. This can't be fixed. (add the required ''don't ask me how I know this'')
Are you using a grit drum? They can contribute to overheating. Some of the new ones that are spiral grit ''blades'' are supposed to run cooler. I've actually been thinking about starting a thread to ask what peoples' experience with them has been.
…hello,
seems that when you say spiral you possibly mean “thread”
also je je or he he in English is better understood as “ha ha”
-can you post the specs of your vac system? amperage, etc
is it a vac cleaner, a pro one or a home one?
-also, a common problem with the front hand adjuster is the fatigue of the hand itself if is too high
thanks
How’d you do the depth-on-the-fly mod? When I picked up my Hitachi I did all the other mods but never found a good way to do the depth adjustment one.
well its not as good as the "original" clarkfoam hitachi but it work good to me.. what i did is changing the original bolt which have lots of spiral for one with less spirals. i dont know if I am making my self clear, (i am from Chile jeje) anyway, when you have less spirals you have to turn less to make the same effect. so i went to this place where they fix tools and stuff with bolts and metal jobs.. and i told them what i wanted.. they were pro enough to make me a whole new handle.. (the white one with the metal thing to put between the fingers..) that was it. now i have to a bit more that half a turn to make a deep enough cut and back to zero. i found it very usefull for shaping rails.. and chaging rockers..
hope i was clear enough..
bye.
You guys that post in a second language amaze me!
You found what we would call a ''machine shop'' and they made a custom adjustment mechanism for you.
I'd suggest that you move the lever down as low as you can get it on the collar. Most pro shapers like to have the side of the lever hand ride right on the blank, for better feel and control of the tool. You can't do that if the lever is too high.
edit to add that what joshrastafari did 4 yrs ago with the incline plane riding up on the other incline is almost exactly what I did to a Skil 96 back in 1981. I've never seen another like it until now. That's a very simple solution, and it works fine. Not quite as smooth as the Clark mechanism but effective.
I agree with you, it would be better. but the guys in the machine Shop were kind of " why do you need this changes anyway" hehe.. i was not going to waste my time talking about shaping rails with them right? anyway I love my hitachi, the only problem is it gets a bit overheated after shaping 2 boards.. I think it is caused by the drum. apart from that the vacuum system its a great add on.
i hope my contribution helped somebody.
bye.