brown_hawk
05-05-2008, 10:40 PM
I've had these for a while, but with the discussion of the Wixey Angle Gauge for setup, I thought I'd throw in a review of these setup tools that I've used for planing wood for my kitchen cabinets.:)
In doing the kitchen cabinets of rough cut lumber, the initial job was also one of the biggest: four side a stack of 4’x4’x8’ one inch rough cut white oak to 3/4” stock.
Since I already had a ShopSmith Pro Planer, I naturally made plans to use it for the job. One thing I recognized was that I was going to have to keep the blades sharp, which also meant taking them out and putting them in again as many times as needed. Since this can be a fairly painstaking process, I looked into ways to make it a little simpler and faster, as the sharper the blades were kept, the better the end product.
What I ended up with was the Jointer Pal and the Planer Pal. These use rare earth magnets to hold the blades of the jointers and the planers level while all you do is screw the wedge in place and go.
The Jointer Pal is a one piece unit running around $30. The procedure is simple. Unplug the machine, move the fence out of the way, remove the blades for sharpening. Put the sharp blades in place, with the wedge holding them loosely. Put the Jointer Pal on the outfaced table, with one set of magnets holding the blade at the highest point of rotation. Screw in the wedge, go to the next blade and repeat. At the end of five minutes, your jointer is ready to go, with all the blades perfectly aligned with the outfaced table. To move a nicked blade, just repeat the above procedure, just making sure that the blade has moved far enough to eliminate the nick.
For a 12” planer, two of the Planer Pal units are recommended (about $150). Those first need to be aligned to make sure that they are both holding to the same height. The Planer Pals are a half circle that clamp on over the blade area and hold the blade the same way as the Jointer Pals do.
They don’t make one for the ShopSmith, and the regular ones sit a little high. To get them to work, the plastic top over the dust port has to be taken off, and the aluminum shield just below that needs to be slightly bent up. Bend it too far, and chips WILL come flying out of the small gap between the plastic top and the metal top. To do this, a long allan wrench that can be chucked into a cordless drill makes the job a lot less tedious. The screws holding on the plastic top are long and awkward to remove. But a whole lot less frustrating than trying to set planer blades with gauge, screws and squinting eyes.
Once the setup is done, setting the blades goes very quickly. Again, about five minutes and the blades are in and you are ready to close up the planer. For the SS, that gets a little tedious without the allan wrench in the drill, but the effect on the wood of sharp blades is very gratifying. Using the slow feed and fastest blade rotation on all of the wood described, I start my sanding with 220 grit, because I don’t need any greater grit. So much for the end product of sharp blades and fairly easy blade settings.
Would I recommend these two setup tools? Or any similar magnetic setup tools?
For the Jointer Pal, at $30, the answer is yes. For that amount of money, and the trouble misaligned jointer blades can cause on a fine project, it makes all kind of sense to just have such a handy setup tool, especially if you do any amount of jointing. And if you are using bifocals, life just got simpler.
For the Planer Pal, at @ $150, at this point, I am very ambivalent, at least for the SS planers. The amount of money involved, and the preparation of setting them up are two big negatives. It would take planing a LOT of wood (like over 1000 board feet) to make this attractive. I’m not sorry I bought it, and I am more than glad that I had it while planing that mountain of wood, but today I would probably be more inclined to use the Battery Operated Height Finder and the SS gauge than the Planer Pal. Both will do the job. If they made a model that fit the SS so removing the top wasn’t necessary, I would give it a better mark and recommendation. As it is, I’d give it a 5 of 10.
If you are going to be planing a lot of wood and sharpening your own blades to save money and get smooth final cuts, then the Planer Pal is an option worthy of your consideration for the SS.
For other planers where the Planer Pal fits without all the fiddling, I’d go 7 of 10, mostly because of the price.
Hawk
In doing the kitchen cabinets of rough cut lumber, the initial job was also one of the biggest: four side a stack of 4’x4’x8’ one inch rough cut white oak to 3/4” stock.
Since I already had a ShopSmith Pro Planer, I naturally made plans to use it for the job. One thing I recognized was that I was going to have to keep the blades sharp, which also meant taking them out and putting them in again as many times as needed. Since this can be a fairly painstaking process, I looked into ways to make it a little simpler and faster, as the sharper the blades were kept, the better the end product.
What I ended up with was the Jointer Pal and the Planer Pal. These use rare earth magnets to hold the blades of the jointers and the planers level while all you do is screw the wedge in place and go.
The Jointer Pal is a one piece unit running around $30. The procedure is simple. Unplug the machine, move the fence out of the way, remove the blades for sharpening. Put the sharp blades in place, with the wedge holding them loosely. Put the Jointer Pal on the outfaced table, with one set of magnets holding the blade at the highest point of rotation. Screw in the wedge, go to the next blade and repeat. At the end of five minutes, your jointer is ready to go, with all the blades perfectly aligned with the outfaced table. To move a nicked blade, just repeat the above procedure, just making sure that the blade has moved far enough to eliminate the nick.
For a 12” planer, two of the Planer Pal units are recommended (about $150). Those first need to be aligned to make sure that they are both holding to the same height. The Planer Pals are a half circle that clamp on over the blade area and hold the blade the same way as the Jointer Pals do.
They don’t make one for the ShopSmith, and the regular ones sit a little high. To get them to work, the plastic top over the dust port has to be taken off, and the aluminum shield just below that needs to be slightly bent up. Bend it too far, and chips WILL come flying out of the small gap between the plastic top and the metal top. To do this, a long allan wrench that can be chucked into a cordless drill makes the job a lot less tedious. The screws holding on the plastic top are long and awkward to remove. But a whole lot less frustrating than trying to set planer blades with gauge, screws and squinting eyes.
Once the setup is done, setting the blades goes very quickly. Again, about five minutes and the blades are in and you are ready to close up the planer. For the SS, that gets a little tedious without the allan wrench in the drill, but the effect on the wood of sharp blades is very gratifying. Using the slow feed and fastest blade rotation on all of the wood described, I start my sanding with 220 grit, because I don’t need any greater grit. So much for the end product of sharp blades and fairly easy blade settings.
Would I recommend these two setup tools? Or any similar magnetic setup tools?
For the Jointer Pal, at $30, the answer is yes. For that amount of money, and the trouble misaligned jointer blades can cause on a fine project, it makes all kind of sense to just have such a handy setup tool, especially if you do any amount of jointing. And if you are using bifocals, life just got simpler.
For the Planer Pal, at @ $150, at this point, I am very ambivalent, at least for the SS planers. The amount of money involved, and the preparation of setting them up are two big negatives. It would take planing a LOT of wood (like over 1000 board feet) to make this attractive. I’m not sorry I bought it, and I am more than glad that I had it while planing that mountain of wood, but today I would probably be more inclined to use the Battery Operated Height Finder and the SS gauge than the Planer Pal. Both will do the job. If they made a model that fit the SS so removing the top wasn’t necessary, I would give it a better mark and recommendation. As it is, I’d give it a 5 of 10.
If you are going to be planing a lot of wood and sharpening your own blades to save money and get smooth final cuts, then the Planer Pal is an option worthy of your consideration for the SS.
For other planers where the Planer Pal fits without all the fiddling, I’d go 7 of 10, mostly because of the price.
Hawk