Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
481
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
Posted: 9/22/2024 2:08:14 PM EDT
Was surprised as to how well this flattening plate did on a Tormek grading stone of mine here recently.  Top is a new stone vs an older one that was used to the point that it had a pile of gullies worn into it in a bunch of different places. I got no pics of the stone before fixing it because I honestly was not expecting it to even work half ass correctly or last for more than a second or two before taking a dump.  I spent a whopping 5 minutes to resurface a $40+ dollar stone back to like new surfaces / working conditions on both sides... It worked well enough that I used it on a few other / different stone surfaces and DID get before and after pictures...   The impregnated metal that came out with a very light surfacing -  Surface was obviously glazed in a bad way from looking at that buildup and now is not.   |
| I just put a helical cutter in my DW735. After reading a slew of reviews I went with a head from findbytools.com, pure chinesium. Saved $200 over a Shelix and it cuts flawlessly. Perfectly balanced, the carbide are excellent, the machining was perfect, and I saved 40% over the popular brand. The fact is, 87% of products from American companies are being manufactured in China or Taiwan anyway. |
|
Originally Posted By Homesteader375: I just put a helical cutter in my DW735. After reading a slew of reviews I went with a head from findbytools.com, pure chinesium. Saved $200 over a Shelix and it cuts flawlessly. Perfectly balanced, the carbide are excellent, the machining was perfect, and I saved 40% over the popular brand. The fact is, 87% of products from American companies are being manufactured in China or Taiwan anyway. I've got a sheartak (chinese) in my 735 and a shelix (us made) in my jointer. Both seem to work just as well as the other. |
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
484
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By Echd: I've got a sheartak (chinese) in my 735 and a shelix (us made) in my jointer. Both seem to work just as well as the other. I have a 735 (with the regular straight blades) that I really, really like. Also have a much larger and more powerful American planer that was converted to the insert / helical crap and a similar sized / power level American planer with straight knives right next to it. Did you ever stop to notice how much LESS of a cut you can take now because you went to that helical cutterhead crap vs the straight knives that you had? Losing 40% of your cutting power is one thing when you got a big planer with lots of power to begin with (think 7.5hp and up). I can't imagine how tiny the bites you are limited to must be on a tiny, low HP lunchbox type planer like the 735 must be with that type cutterhead. The machine I converted literally went from being able to easily honk an 1/8th inch or more off of a 10" wide piece of hard maple in a single pass without the motor even thinking about bogging down to now barely being able to do half of that in a single pass with a same width piece of stock. You can hear the difference in the motor and tell how hard it is working now. That planer is more like a 1/16th of an inch off per pass max now thanks to the helical cutterhead 'upgrade'. Not a big deal if planing a single board down a tiny bit to smooth things out but that difference in time needed to get from A to B is going to noticed if you have a few hundred board feet of whatever to be surfacing. In my experience the helical crap costs a good bit of power for a slightly better cut (sometimes and on some woods more than others). A cut / blade angle that you can't change either... You are stuck with those cutting angles and that loss of power thanks to all the stuff you are spinning around now. The 735 is awesome for the fact it can slow down the feed and allow more cuts per inch. Even with straight knives that alone is going to give a better surface finish than most else in that category of higher feed rate planers. (also easier on the motor if one can slow down the feed) Ever notice how sometimes a particular piece of maple will just not be willing to go through a particular planer and pop out the other side 100% defect free? Then you stick the same piece through a helical and it comes out a little bit better (at the cost of power)... You can do the same with straight knives by tweaking the cutting angle to the particular wood you are working with. These would be what I call highly figured maple blades.  That reduced angle does not cut as fast and a crap ton of power went out the window but... The percentage of surface defects in the finish dropped noticeably. |
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
485
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By ske714: I realized a while back that the only thing I would accomplish by avoiding Chinese tools is having a lot less tools. Chinesium stuff that will last for a little while and be sortof acceptable for any sort of regular use or... Stuff that can be a work horse forever and then some...  
|
|
Originally Posted By Aaron56: I have a 735 (with the regular straight blades) that I really, really like. Also have a much larger and more powerful American planer that was converted to the insert / helical crap and a similar sized / power level American planer with straight knives right next to it. Did you ever stop to notice how much LESS of a cut you can take now because you went to that helical cutterhead crap vs the straight knives that you had? Losing 40% of your cutting power is one thing when you got a big planer with lots of power to begin with (think 7.5hp and up). I can't imagine how tiny the bites you are limited to must be on a tiny, low HP lunchbox type planer like the 735 must be with that type cutterhead. The machine I converted literally went from being able to easily honk an 1/8th inch or more off of a 10" wide piece of hard maple in a single pass without the motor even thinking about bogging down to now barely being able to do half of that in a single pass with a same width piece of stock. You can hear the difference in the motor and tell how hard it is working now. That planer is more like a 1/16th of an inch off per pass max now thanks to the helical cutterhead 'upgrade'. Not a big deal if planing a single board down a tiny bit to smooth things out but that difference in time needed to get from A to B is going to noticed if you have a few hundred board feet of whatever to be surfacing. In my experience the helical crap costs a good bit of power for a slightly better cut (sometimes and on some woods more than others). A cut / blade angle that you can't change either... You are stuck with those cutting angles and that loss of power thanks to all the stuff you are spinning around now. The 735 is awesome for the fact it can slow down the feed and allow more cuts per inch. Even with straight knives that alone is going to give a better surface finish than most else in that category of higher feed rate planers. (also easier on the motor if one can slow down the feed) Ever notice how sometimes a particular piece of maple will just not be willing to go through a particular planer and pop out the other side 100% defect free? Then you stick the same piece through a helical and it comes out a little bit better (at the cost of power)... You can do the same with straight knives by tweaking the cutting angle to the particular wood you are working with. These would be what I call highly figured maple blades. https://i.imgur.com/hAwzhEo.jpg That reduced angle does not cut as fast and a crap ton of power went out the window but... The percentage of surface defects in the finish dropped noticeably. Precisely the opposite experience. I actually replaced my cutter head while rebuilding my motor. Absolutely smoked it and it always struggled to cut more than 1/32 on anything 6" wide. It was like that since new. Granted, I plane nothing but hardwood but I also plane on speed 1 so I expect it to at least eat 1/16 without a lot of struggle. Every review and article I ran across regarding helical cutters suggested faster, smoother cutting with less motor strain. My sample of 1 with the DW735 type 1 is I can take a deeper cut than previously, over 1/16, though I don't do a lot of dimensioning so I haven't pushed it. It's not your 7.5hp machine but, my experience was certainly consistent with what I was told I could expect. It definitely performs better than it had before. |
|
Originally Posted By Aaron56: Chinesium stuff that will last for a little while and be sortof acceptable for any sort of regular use or... Stuff that can be a work horse forever and then some... https://i.imgur.com/cp6PFYa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4orFeZK.jpg Originally Posted By Aaron56: Originally Posted By ske714: I realized a while back that the only thing I would accomplish by avoiding Chinese tools is having a lot less tools. Chinesium stuff that will last for a little while and be sortof acceptable for any sort of regular use or... Stuff that can be a work horse forever and then some... https://i.imgur.com/cp6PFYa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4orFeZK.jpg I accumulated all the quality workhorse tools I needed, years ago. Now I'm retired, and what I buy is just to play with. I'll buy the highest quality I can justify when weighing the three factors - cost, need, and want. If your disclaimer was because of the lack of quality, that's certainly a valid reason to avoid them. I assumed it was because of China itself, and "buy American". My most recent shameless purchase... Attached File |
9 lives - 9 pellets... Coincidence?
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
486
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By Homesteader375: Precisely the opposite experience. I actually replaced my cutter head while rebuilding my motor. Absolutely smoked it and it always struggled to cut more than 1/32 on anything 6" wide. It was like that since new. Granted, I plane nothing but hardwood but I also plane on speed 1 so I expect it to at least eat 1/16 without a lot of struggle. Every review and article I ran across regarding helical cutters suggested faster, smoother cutting with less motor strain. My sample of 1 with the DW735 type 1 is I can take a deeper cut than previously, over 1/16, though I don't do a lot of dimensioning so I haven't pushed it. It's not your 7.5hp machine but, my experience was certainly consistent with what I was told I could expect. It definitely performs better than it had before. Advertisements do tend to tell people stuff that is not always factually correct or at best 'misleading'. None of the stuff you said about the 735 jives with my experiences (or commonly heard complaints about them). A 'since new' 735 is not likely to be 'struggling' with a 1/32 bite on a 6" board and burning up motors. That sort of stuff should be considered way off into the 'not normal' category for that machine. Yeah you 'could' be trying to plane some old, hard ass, dirty, oak barn wood for a project and it could be so dirty and nasty and embedded with shit that it was killing blades instantly but... You should have heard the motor straining and stopped / done something different long before you actually burned the motor up. |
|
Originally Posted By Aaron56: Advertisements do tend to tell people stuff that is not always factually correct or at best 'misleading'. None of the stuff you said about the 735 jives with my experiences (or commonly heard complaints about them). A 'since new' 735 is not likely to be 'struggling' with a 1/32 bite on a 6" board and burning up motors. That sort of stuff should be considered way off into the 'not normal' category for that machine. Yeah you 'could' be trying to plane some old, hard ass, dirty, oak barn wood for a project and it could be so dirty and nasty and embedded with shit that it was killing blades instantly but... You should have heard the motor straining and stopped / done something different long before you actually burned the motor up. I've had the machine for probably 8 or 10 years and it always performed about the same. I'm not saying it was normal and all of my previous experiences were with larger, shop sized planers. Knife life was mediocre. I would change them when cut quality started dropping. Wood was generally all rough sawn purchased from reputable mills... again, a sample of 1. Whe it decided to take a dump it started to sound particularly strained on a 8" wide by 3' long piece of pecan. I shut it down and it was smoking. The armature and field showed a lot of signs of heat. I may have had a bad motor from day 1. None the less, I like my helical head. Cuts nice, I have absolutely no concerns with the size of bite I take now. It was a great investment. I can definitely concede that the difference could be the freshly rebuilt motor. |
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
487
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By Homesteader375: I've had the machine for probably 8 or 10 years and it always performed about the same. I'm not saying it was normal and all of my previous experiences were with larger, shop sized planers. Knife life was mediocre. I would change them when cut quality started dropping. Wood was generally all rough sawn purchased from reputable mills... again, a sample of 1. Whe it decided to take a dump it started to sound particularly strained on a 8" wide by 3' long piece of pecan. I shut it down and it was smoking. The armature and field showed a lot of signs of heat. I may have had a bad motor from day 1. None the less, I like my helical head. Cuts nice, I have absolutely no concerns with the size of bite I take now. It was a great investment. I can definitely concede that the difference could be the freshly rebuilt motor. The first 4 digits in the sn are the date it was made.  You got me beat on the years for sure but if yours was acting like that from day one of you owning it??? That doesn't sound right at all. Something was most definitely off if you saw any sort of smoke coming out of it.  I have zero experience with pecan in any way, shape or form.  |
|
So, I would have sworn I have had this longer than I have. Just went out and grabbed a pic of the date placard...Attached File Same age but, oddly, the tag is in a different location. Mine is on the lid. Also grabbed pics of the old armature and field.Attached File Attached File Clearly smoked. Pecan is hard but, I honestly had only run that piece and it's comparable to maybe hickory. I've run plenty of that, hard maple, beech, purple heart, ash, some oak, walnut. The occasional SYP, white pine, or cedar. Really nothing bizarre. ETA: in looking at your pic again I see the tag is in the same place. I just needed more coffee.
|
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
490
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By Homesteader375: Clearly smoked. Pecan is hard but, I honestly had only run that piece and it's comparable to maybe hickory. I've run plenty of that, hard maple, beech, purple heart, ash, some oak, walnut. The occasional SYP, white pine, or cedar. Really nothing bizarre. Yeah. That motor most absolutely, definitely took a dump. Would imagine it produced that 'special' smell of copper sheathing and wires burning. I had a project not too long back that was out of some 'special' oak barnwood. When I first looked at the materials I thought for sure it would not take more than a couple of hours to plane it all down to the thickness I needed to do what I wanted to do. Under a dozen 1x6ish boards about 10 to 12ft lengths. Should be easy as pie! Those demon boards killed 2 sets of NEW blades just getting to my thickness of about 1/4 less than what they started as. (not counting the pair of 'old / used' blades that got used for the initial skinning of said barn wood what also got completely ruined on that project and with that wood) (used my 'this is dirty / nasty material planer for this and not my Dewalt planer here but blade damage would have been the same regardless - The cheaper planer being used as the surfacing tool and using the better one as the finishing tool) If I pay attention to how I feed the boards and the grain I can usually get a finishing cut that is so good and so precise with my 735 that trips through the sander are shortened in a big way. Sometimes fewer than 4 passes? Even short boards... Those things tend to have not shit for snipe and if you half ass try to support the boards as they feed they tend to come out perfect from end to end like magic...  Still got a ways to go before this can be put into service but slowly getting there -     Notice how that Oliver is built to deal with stuff what might dull the knives... |
|
Originally Posted By Aaron56: Advertisements do tend to tell people stuff that is not always factually correct or at best 'misleading'. None of the stuff you said about the 735 jives with my experiences (or commonly heard complaints about them). A 'since new' 735 is not likely to be 'struggling' with a 1/32 bite on a 6" board and burning up motors. That sort of stuff should be considered way off into the 'not normal' category for that machine. Yeah you 'could' be trying to plane some old, hard ass, dirty, oak barn wood for a project and it could be so dirty and nasty and embedded with shit that it was killing blades instantly but... You should have heard the motor straining and stopped / done something different long before you actually burned the motor up. The OEM or DeWalt brand blades for the 735 planer are low quality I’m not going to upgrade mine to a helical cutter, so I have long ago switched over to using Infinity brand blades. They do last a lot longer When the blades on the 735 go dull, it really bogs down the planer, feeds slow. Painfully slow. So that should be the number one fix for a 735 I did have a drive chain gear fail (I think that is what it was?) and it was a bit of a pain to replace. Cheap replacement part, not machined , but cast or PM. That made the feed really tough too. |
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
497
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By JQ66: The OEM or DeWalt brand blades for the 735 planer are low quality I’m not going to upgrade mine to a helical cutter, so I have long ago switched over to using Infinity brand blades. They do last a lot longer When the blades on the 735 go dull, it really bogs down the planer, feeds slow. Painfully slow. So that should be the number one fix for a 735 I did have a drive chain gear fail (I think that is what it was?) and it was a bit of a pain to replace. Cheap replacement part, not machined , but cast or PM. That made the feed really tough too. Those Infinity blades are about the same as the Dewalt 'carbide' edge razor blade garbage. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074PBDS5R?tag=arfcom00-20 Twice as much cost for a tiny bit more life but certainly NOT lasting anywhere near 'multiple' times longer like their ads want consumers to believe with their marketing. There is nothing 'horrible' about the steel they use in the OEM 735 blades or the edge they put on them from the factory or the thickness of them when compared to all the other blades from all the other machines in that category of planers. Dewalt hit all the correct things for their disposable lunchbox planer blades in my opinion. Ease of installation (which means no adjustment needed up or down same as all of the other brands of lunchbox planer blades), some side to side adjustment (that even an idiot will have trouble screwing up), can be easily and quickly flipped around for a new cutting edge (like all the other lunchbox type planer blades)...  With the 735 it takes a simple handful of minutes to shift one or more blades to the left or right without ever having to think about or consider the blade height. Not that way on any bigger planers... Yes, thicker blades would be more gooder (longer lasting / more durable) but for keeping costs down and making things easy as heck for the user (install without needing to adjust anything) DeWalt hit it out of the park here with their blades. I want to say the last time I 'paid' to have blades on a bigger planer sharpened it cost me somewhere around 50 cents per inch / per blade. (probably more expensive now as I have not had to do so for the last 10 years or so since I bought the tools to sharpen my own planer blades myself (both a dry and water cooled setups). With the DeWalt blades being flippable and having two cutting edges per blade (essentially two sets of blades) - It is cheaper to just replace them than it would be to send them out and have them sharpened if you found a company that could do it (had the right tools) and would bother. Contrary to what some would have you believe those 'disposable' DeWalt blades can be touched up fairy quickly with the Tormek planer blade jig provide you are not trying to iron out missing chunks. Have never tried (and wouldn't because they are so thin) on my dry knife grinder as that machine (mine at lest) is not as precise and I can see it burning the crap out of those thin ass blades in a heart beat. Considering that there is NO up and down adjustment on those blades you are very much limited as to how much you can take off... The time it takes to touch up a set of DeWalt factory blades on a Tormek almost makes it not even worth it considering how inexpensive a set of new blades is. (even with everything already set up / adjusted properly and ready to go you are going to spend at least an hour taking those tiny, tiny cuts off of those 6 edges and they would need to be done one at a time...) |
|
Originally Posted By Aaron56: I have a 735 (with the regular straight blades) that I really, really like. Also have a much larger and more powerful American planer that was converted to the insert / helical crap and a similar sized / power level American planer with straight knives right next to it. Did you ever stop to notice how much LESS of a cut you can take now because you went to that helical cutterhead crap vs the straight knives that you had? Losing 40% of your cutting power is one thing when you got a big planer with lots of power to begin with (think 7.5hp and up). I can't imagine how tiny the bites you are limited to must be on a tiny, low HP lunchbox type planer like the 735 must be with that type cutterhead. The machine I converted literally went from being able to easily honk an 1/8th inch or more off of a 10" wide piece of hard maple in a single pass without the motor even thinking about bogging down to now barely being able to do half of that in a single pass with a same width piece of stock. You can hear the difference in the motor and tell how hard it is working now. That planer is more like a 1/16th of an inch off per pass max now thanks to the helical cutterhead 'upgrade'. Not a big deal if planing a single board down a tiny bit to smooth things out but that difference in time needed to get from A to B is going to noticed if you have a few hundred board feet of whatever to be surfacing. In my experience the helical crap costs a good bit of power for a slightly better cut (sometimes and on some woods more than others). A cut / blade angle that you can't change either... You are stuck with those cutting angles and that loss of power thanks to all the stuff you are spinning around now. The 735 is awesome for the fact it can slow down the feed and allow more cuts per inch. Even with straight knives that alone is going to give a better surface finish than most else in that category of higher feed rate planers. (also easier on the motor if one can slow down the feed) Ever notice how sometimes a particular piece of maple will just not be willing to go through a particular planer and pop out the other side 100% defect free? Then you stick the same piece through a helical and it comes out a little bit better (at the cost of power)... You can do the same with straight knives by tweaking the cutting angle to the particular wood you are working with. These would be what I call highly figured maple blades. https://i.imgur.com/hAwzhEo.jpg That reduced angle does not cut as fast and a crap ton of power went out the window but... The percentage of surface defects in the finish dropped noticeably. Err, no. The helical blades are better in almost every situation. Nevermind the durability improvement... if there is a throughput increase in conventional blades you're giving it up on surface finish and tearout correction. If you're just skip planing rough lumber or something, who cares? The ones that take a smaller cut are the undersized heads made to be simple drop in fits as opposed to the ones that you have to insert the cutters after you install the head. I don't know why the former exists but they are indeed slightly more limited in depth. Yes, they do draw a higher current in use. You can blow the fuse on a 735x with either style of blade without too much trouble if you try and overdo it. |
Joined:
Jul 2023
Posts:
517
EE: 0% (0)
MS, USA
|
Originally Posted By Echd: Err, no. The helical blades are better in almost every situation. Nevermind the durability improvement... if there is a throughput increase in conventional blades you're giving it up on surface finish and tearout correction. If you're just skip planing rough lumber or something, who cares? The only time anything you just said is 'almost' correct is if comparing a helical head to straight blades on a lunchbox type planer with lunchbox planer blades. (they (lunchbox blades) are pretty much all the same as far as the blade thickness and ease of installation over adjustability are concerned. slight side to side adjustment yes but otherwise no...) Once you get past the lunchbox planer size and price range the blades are not the same. The 'durability' is night and day different on those machines with straight knives almost always spanking the hell out of a helical.  Definitely not 'skinny' blades as compared to what is on a 735 (and all the others like it). And they usually start out life with enough blade height to last for a pile of grindings...  That is a new replacement set in that picture at about 1 1/8" blade height. The particular machine that they go on can use blades down to 5/8" and still maintain 100% gib surface contact on the blade while still maintaining the proper projection above the cutterhead. From 1 1/8" blade height down to 5/8" is a metric shit ton of available steel for sharpening purposes. Think in terms of years here for blade life while planing piles of wood that big trucks delivered to you every week. You can only turn those inserts so many times to get a fresh surface before you are needing to buy new shit. There is no 'touching up' any edges or resharpening of any of that stuff. Definitely no ability to change or alter any cutting angles with the inserts. Please post me some pictures of how you handle 'surface finish and tearout correction' with your tools.  |