Thickness Planer

[Ron Nossaman]

>Looking for recommendations for purchasing a thickness planer. I am in the
>midst of rebuilding a keybed on an old Knabe grand and the keybed ends were
>constructed like a sandwich - hardwoods on the top and bottom and softwood
>on the inside - and I gotta do some exacto planing on my replacement lumber.

I have an old 12" Parks that has served me adequately for a long time. I
don't think they are in business anymore, and I haven't used other planers
to be able to make a recommendation. Sorry, but I do have a couple of
suggestions. Snipe is minimized on this machine by keeping the bed rollers
adjusted to minimum height for the material I'm planing. Machine setup and
maintenance after purchase is as critical as machine quality before. For
softwoods, the knife angle of most planers is fine. For maple,  I recommend
back beveling the blades a millimeter or so to get about a 5° cutting angle
from perpendicular to the bed. Planing will be noisier, and you'll need to
sharpen blades more frequently, but you'll get a lot less chipping. 


Ron N