I took the thing apart, installed one blade just fine… and the other one was tighter than a !@#$%!%*%^&$@$!@#$~!, so I got the hammer out and !@#$!@%@#^#$%^@%@$%@%^##^&#$%^@#%$@!!! That thing got so jacked up and stuck, that it even damaged my barrell. I think I can still use the barrel unless I bend the shaft somehow unknowingly, but no I have to order another blade… or another pair if they don’t sell them separately. This was right after I sold my Danny Hess 5’11" Pacheco Quad for a mere $630 (which slid forward as I was pulling up to meet the guy who bought it… and if shattered my dang windshield on my Land Cruiser)!
Believe it or not, I was being careful and was quite delicate with the hammering… I just didn’t realize how weak the carbides are, and especially weaker with those notches cut out for the screws.
If my barrel is tweaked, where can I get that thing replaced or repaired.
Anyone around Carlsbad that wants to install the other blade when I get it… or a new pair if they make me buy the pair?
DAve
I’ll help you, but you may want to have PeteC, take a look at the mechanicals for you.
Thanks Bill!
Dave, The cutter drum shaft is easily bent (not hardened steel). I put them in a manual lathe with a dial indicator on the end and tap-tap with a plastic hammer until I get less than .005 eccentricity (about 2 hours later). Always remove the blades after using it while the drum is still hot. The aluminum expands more than the blades and they’ll come out easier. Avoid using any oils, its gets behind the blades and will throw out on the blank later. After you get your new blades in, run the planer and see if you feel any excessive vibration different from before. If so, let me know and I’ll see if I can straighten the shaft.
Sorry about all that misfortune in one day, I also have those days when everything I touch turns into sh*t. That’s the balance of things when you have those other days when you can do no wrong.
Sounds good. So if it’s still a tight fit even after warming up the planer and the aluminum cutter head, do you use a piece of wood to tap them in? I bent the one, by tapping it in from the side.
It could be that ANK is making them too thick, or has a sloppy tolerance on the thickness. Or, it could be that the slots in the drum are bent from overtightening the blade screws. You can CAREFULLY file the slots a little bit and see if this helps, just don’t go crazy. First, check and see if your old Skil blades fit easily. If so, then the new ones are too thick.
Kawika. First I wonder why a shaper would need carbide blades in a planer? Carbide dose not take impactwell and is not as sharp as HS steel. They tend to get little chips knocked out of them. On the other hand they would tend to last forever if you are carfull what you plane. I have only used one set of HS steel blades on my skill 100 in 30 years. I sharpen them on the planer with a sharpening attachment and then hone them by hand. I do have to reset them from time to time. Of coarse I have only shaped about a dozen surfboards with my skil . It would be impossible to say how many hundreds of thousands of feet of wood that it has planed. Even on my jointers and thickness planers I don’t use carbide.Except with one exception. If I have to mill a shit load of Ipe or Jatoba then I wil change the set up to carbide. Although I must say that on a thickness planer the 4 sided carbide inserts are the way to go. I don’t think I would use my skill 100 on Ipe or Jatoba as it would possibly destroy the bearings or shaft or even drum.Just my thoughts which are worth about two cents ! Wood_Ogre
In a followup to all of this… I ended up giving my planer to Pete C, and when I got it back, it literally looked like a brand new planer. It was bead blasted, a new cord installed, all the electrical and mechanics were rebuilt, cleaned, and honed, the barrell was microbalanced with the new blades and it purred like a kitten. Thar was 5 years ago, and I still have the same blades in it. Thanks again Pete! And thanks Bill for the reference and Wood Ogre for the tips.
Good to hear from you again, and I’m glad that everything is still running well with the planer. You can’t kill those 190’s and 676’s, they be around forever.