i recently had and destroyed a makita power planer but besides that the only probs i had with it was i couldn’t get enogh depth in the cuts and couldn’t get it uo the nose rocker. i tried turning the planer at an angle but it didnt help. i was wondering is the secret to deeper cuts removing the metal base like on the older skil 100 models or what? by the way im pretty sure i will be buying the clark foam hitachi planer so information on that particular model would be most helpful.
So your saying cut horizontally from rail 2 rail?? also it seemed like at on the planers deepest setting it still was barley removing any material which made me try and pull the blades out further which eventually led 2 the death of the planer.
To scoop out the nose deck, cut ACROSS the stringer, with medium depth, planer angled slightly (not dead straight across), moving slow, and super slow motion as you cut the stringer.
You can go left rail to right, or right rail to left, whatever.
Gee, I hardly ever used full depth 1/8 cuts anyways.
Since I’m shaping, I’m not surfing, so I might as well get my deltoid excercise in.
I"ve cut that old 7’11" porker blank down to thin semi guns for small peeps, and didn’t use full depth cuts.
Seems deep cuts, for me anyways, make for less accuracy and can chunk the blank just when you are about to stop thinning.
Heck, that’s about how I feel about hand sanding. 40 minutes of it is good excersise, will make me paddle better, and generally good for my heath and fitness, if I don’t ingest too much glass dust.
I have two ebay Makita copies. Side by side with a real Makita at the local tool shop, they are identical except mine lack the brand sticker. I get about 1/8 inch depth of cut at max setting. If I wanted to cut deeper I’d have to keep my blades very sharp, and go slower than I want to. So I don’t.
This is important: the blades should be set so that they only just barely touch a straight edge laid on the rear platen. Don’t set 'em deeper than that! If, after that blade setting, you feel that depth of cut is inadequate, shortening the platen at front and back can be of some help. Next, look at the way the front platen is set up, and see what it takes to raise it further.
Planers are made for wood, generally, and are not intended to make deep (say, over 1/8") cuts. They don’t have the power to do deep cuts in wood, they’d overheat and burn out the motor. But foam is much softer (except gnarly stringers) and shapers need to consider the available motor torque, heat, and depth of cut.
We all have issues about scooping the deck up front. As previously posted, cut at across the blank, planer at an angle, and go slow especially when cutting the stringer.
i think i got it i was recently watching the shaping 101 vid and it just seemed like his cuts were much deeper but i could and most likely i am, wrong. thanks for the help.
What you are suggesting will probably result in a disaster!! Cut down parallel to the stringer but hold the planer almost or wide open at almost a right angle to the stringer do a series of cuts to break thes urface of the blank. That or a n easier way is to use a belt sander to shape it.
One thing that will make you over-adjust for depth is, surprisingly, dull blades. If the blades aren’t really sharp, they tend to ride up on the material instead of cutting it. The tendency then is to adjust for a deeper cut. Keep those babies sharp.
And there is a correct setting for the blades. Don’t pull them out thinking you’ll get a deeper cut. They should be exactly in line with the rear plate of the planer, not higher or lower. The depth of cut is determined by the front plate. When the front plate is raised you expose more of the spinning cylinder that does the cutting. Then the back plate rides along on the freshly cut surface, whether it’s 1/64" cut or 1/8".
The Clark modified planers is a great tool. Having used a bosch planer with a max depth of 1/16", I now have trimmed hours off shaping a board.
The Clark has been modified with a floating depth adjuster…meaning that there are no settings as with most commercial planers you can buy at home depot, etc.
The depth adjuster on the Clark modified, is a knob that when rotated clockwise raises the front plate of on the planer thus increasing the cutting depth. I think my max cutting depth is a little over 1/4", but you can tweak it to go deeper if you like.
It does take a bit of time to get used to though, because with the pre-set depth planers, you don’t have to worry about the depth varying and thus creating uneven cuts. With the Clark modified, or the Skil planers you need to use both hands in unison, one on the depth knob and the other on the handle to guide the planer. But this is the tool that any real shaper uses and one that you should progress to.
With the Skil 100 we always extended the cutting range across the front with a hack saw blade (made the smile wider) and then dropped the blades down. If you were gutsy you could set it up to take 1/4. Talk about a time saver! I also had a Porter Cable that would cut 1/2". 10 amps with a spiral drum. Nice tool, never ripped the foam. Used that for all the heavy cutting on flats and the Skil for the fine work…