I picked up an older shopsmith planer off craigslist, took some time to clean it up, perform maintenance per the academy videos, and have planed some boards for a few projects, and it seemed to be performing fine.
I did some end grain cutting boards for Christmas presents, and on the initial (long grain) glue ups, ran them through the planers to clean them up, which looked good.
I then cut those into the pieces that are flipped for end grain, and found out (after cutting them all), that the pieces were slightly fatter in the middle than on the edges. So, shaped sort of like this: (). Not much (I didn't measure), but when multiplied by the number of pieces glueing up for the final cutting board, those differences were too much for me to overcome with clamping pressure. (I attached a picture, where I have the pieces tight at the top of the picture to highlight the gaps at the bottom of the pieces)
I worked around it via the belt sander and finished the projects, but now I'm revisiting the planer to see if I can figure out why they came out shaped like that, and I think that one problem may be the planer blades, during my calibration/maintenance I didn't sharpen them or check that they were set correctly. I have the sharpener and blade setting gauge now, so I will due that at some point. My thinking is that the previous owner(s) may could have planed a lot in the middle of the blades, leaving it duller in the center, and sharper on the sides.
The other thing I noticed is that the table might be out of sync. I have a 3-2-1 machined block that I place on the infeed table left side and raise the table until the upper tie bar touches the block. Then, moving the block to the right side, I can put a .005" (.127mm) feeler gauge between the 3-2-1 and the upper tie bar. On the outfeed side, I can get a .009" feeler gauge on the outfeed left (when facing the infeed), and a .017" feeler on the outfeed right.
So I started through the synchronization steps in the manual that I have, but I may have an older planer than the manual covers. The instructions state:
My problem here is that I don't see any set screws in the bottom, or any way to do that. Which will present a problem at step 4: Loosen the four set screws in the underside of the table at the connector. I don't see any set screws. That got me thinking my machine might be a tad older.2. Check that the connector setscrews and barrel nut setscrews are tight. Check for any up-and-down play of the table. If there is any play, tighten the nuts on the bottom of the table elevation posts to the point where there is no vertical play in the table, but not so tight that the posts become difficult to turn
The model number is M5990. Serial number is 12261. Motor is 1 1/2 HP, and 3450 RPM. It is a grey machine, vs the black planers that I have also seen.
I also noticed my planer doesn't have the ability to use the table raising / lowering mechanism on each individual post, but just the left side of infeed table elevation post.
My questions:
* Are there different synchronization options for the older machines?
* Are those measured differences in table to upper tie bar small enough to ignore? Such that I just focus on sharpening the blades and setting them.
Other side information:
* Sometimes there can be a problem feeding stock through while planing, and the planer would sort of stall out on some pieces. I'd again think that dull blades could be the culprit here. I have tried double checking the spring tension and making sure no impacted stuff was under the roller arms.
Thanks,
-Randy