How often do you sharpen planer blades?

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
After two kitchens, several pieces of furniture all from rough lumber, my conventional planer blades still appear to be going strong. It’s been a few years since I changed them. Really surprised, or maybe I have just forgotten how nice a new set leaves the finish. Normally touch up with a RO, but it does not need much. In fact, my drum sander with 150 grit needs a lot more RO work than the planer.

How often do you change or sharpen your planer blades?
 

LeftyTom

Tom
Corporate Member
Like you, I have run a good number of bdft through my Delta lunchbox planer. I have not noticed any decrease in performance/smoothness, so I haven't a clue.
 

walnutjerry

Jerry
Senior User
Like some medications--------as needed. When the noise level gets too loud or there is a nick in the knife leaving a bead lengthwise on my lumber I know sharpening is past due.
 

Roy G

Roy
Senior User
Willem, if you aren't sure if you need to sharpen/replace the blades, now is the time to run some abrasive wood like teak through the planer. You will be able to definitely know it's time to sharpen then.

Roy G
 

bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
I'll change planer knives every two jointer knife changings. That seems to work out about right.
Maybe I'm the exception, but I like changing jointer and planer knives. To me, its the same thing as tweaking a hand plane to get the maximum efficiency.

I enjoyed the comment about teak. I once did a counter top for someone out of 2" teak. Never again. I think planing particle board would be easier on the knives.
 

Oka

Casey
Corporate Member
My planer blades dull kinda fast but All the wood I use is pretty hard. If I had to guess I am getting 3-600 ft before they get dull
 

JimD

Jim
Senior User
My planner is a Ryobi AP-10. I believe this model was the original lunchbox planner. I bought it from a guy at church who had replaced it with a DeWalt because he believed it didn't work. I paid him 100 for it. I brought it home and it wouldn't feed lumber through but the motor ran. Then I saw the blades. They had clearly NEVER been sharpened. The edges were rolled over. So I pulled them and sharpened them. It took awhile. But once the blades were sharpened it worked well. I had to replace the drive belt when I set it too deep on hardwood (the board was thicker in the middle) but that is the only issue I've had. I recently swaped the sharpened original blades for a new set of blades I bought several years ago.

Long story to say you can wait a long time but eventually you have to replace or sharpen the blades. For most people, you can go years. I make a fair bit of furniture and usually start with rough wood but I still got several years out of the sharpened original blades and they are still not too bad.

It isn't hard to inspect the blades on mine so I can do that, or just wait until it doesn't plane right. At least on mine, I can get rid of a ridge from a nicked blade by loosening the bolts holding the blades and shifting it a fraction of an inch in either direction.
 

bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
My planer blades dull kinda fast but All the wood I use is pretty hard. If I had to guess I am getting 3-600 ft before they get dull

That sounds about right for a conscience operator using tropical hardwoods.

Figuring that a full size chest of drawers eats up roughly 100 BF, that would be thee to six chest of drawers.

It takes me about an hour to set three 18" planer knives and check the rest of the settings. That's 54" of cutting edge being set. A hand plane's blade is 2" wide (est.) so that would be like setting 27 hand planes with sharpened blades. That's roughly two minutes per plane. That sounds about right since it doesn't take a long time to get the sharpened blade set right in a hand plane.

Hand planes often get treated with pampering care while a planer or jointer gets treated like a lawn mower. Go figure.
 

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