We’ve been building some fences out of resawn western red cedar. It was custom ordered in 16-20 foot lengths. The last order had some inconsistencies in thickness so we had to plane down the back of those. A helper was doing the planing and after a while the machine was making an awful noise so we opened the blade cover to find blades badly dulled. I assumed the last user had been planing something hard so I flipped them over, but 30 minutes later the same thing was happening. In fact the blades had begun to turn blue and had been polished from the pounding. The helper says he was taking very light passes. The next day I put a new set of blades on and took a few light passes from a short piece opened the cover to find that they were already starting to dull. The machine is a year old and have recently (before this incident) used it with no problems. Any ideas why?
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which planer? Delta?
was the cedar dirty?
sorry missed that important info, yes 12 1/2" Delta. Wood wasnt dirty but did have stain on it.
My guess is that the stain is your culpritFinished wood is hard on blades
Barry E-Remodeler
Very small bites with the planer can also dull the blades prematurely. The knives bounce along the top of the stock, burnishing them. You are better to take off close to 1/16" at a time than 1/64".
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
be betting it is the combination. Oiled wood, light bite would cause the wood to more easily compress under the blade as the blades slip over the oily surface.
cedar is soft enough already that it wants to develop a planer sheen and burn with any oils present.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.