rgiglio Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 My husband and I are building a dining table out of reclaimed oak. We borrowed a portable planer and purchased new blades of the same manufacturer as the planer, put the blades in and went to work. We are fairly new at this and after a couple of boards I noticed that they all had a slight raised spot down the center. Opened up the safety to check the blades and sure enough they were all cracked and broken! We were a little shocked and more than a little disappointed. Can anyone tell us what went wrong? The borrowed planer is DeWalt brand and so were the blades. Do we need heavier blades for harder wood? HELP! We need a place to eat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 First post! Welcome to the forum! With reclaimed wood, it is possible for several things to happen. Many take a magnet to boards looking for iron bits. It is possible that it has case hardened or just that it has a super hard knot. It is also possible there is glue or some other hard contaminate. All of these can cause you trouble. Figuring that out is a great first step to planning a strategy. How confident are you that you got the blades installed properly? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgiglio Posted August 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 Thanks for the quick reply! We are pretty confident the blades are properly installed. The wood (though reclaimed) is really clean with no traces of nails or screws there were some stained spots but the planer didn't seem to have trouble with them. Is it common for blades to crack so easily? As it is oak there were several hard knots, but I feel like we were seeing the result of the cracked blade before we even hit the one particular knot I am thinking of. Any tips or suggestions for preventing this in the future (especially with regards to knots and whatever "case hardening" is) would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 Obviously the blades will have to be replaced again. Shaffer's advice is good! As well, think about lighter passes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 My Dewalt planer has a scale on the front to show how wide a board can be managed for any thickness of stock removed. With harder woods, I find that removing the least amount possible per pass makes everything work better. Most portable planers appear to be somewhat underpowered for taking heavy passes at the feed rates they use. Still, it seems odd that the blades cracked. Do you mean the edges were chipped, or did they actually break across the width of the blade? If they were broken across the width, I would tend to believe that they were installed incorrectly, or that some foreign matter got under the blades as they were tightened. Normally, only the cutting edge is unsupported during the cut, so chipping is not uncommon, but breaking the entire blade would be almost impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 Experience will teach you that taking off too much on one pass on just the wrong board at the wrong time can either stall the planer or possibly break a blade. This is especially important on the first pass. Either end of the board can be thinner and the middle can be thicker or have a bow which makes the cut suddenly too deep, hit a knot at that moment and something has got to give. Tightening the blade in the wrong sequence can introduce stress. Tight ends and a loose middle could be a disaster. A nick in a blade could be where a crack started. Sorry you have to buy another set of blades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barron Posted August 23, 2014 Report Share Posted August 23, 2014 If cracked, they need to be replaced, if nicked and it's a DeWalt 735, the blades can be flipped for a fresh edge-assuming they were on the first edge. By the way, minor ridges caused by a nicked blade can be sanded out fairly easily. Might get you eating faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdie Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 Also, if it's just a nick, the blades can be pushed toward opposite ends of the mounting slot so that the nicks don't align. This will stretch the life of the blades a *little bit before you have to flip them to use the opposite fresh edge. As mentioned by nearly everybody else, if the blades are truly cracked or broken rather than just chipped they will need to be replaced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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