Thread: Ridges using T13S 'spiral' head thicknesser

My guess is dust or resin between the cutter and the surface of the cutter head. Did you thoroughly clean the head AND the bottom of the cutters?

Just a guess, but it would not take much to have some of them out of alignment I reckon. My process is brass wire brush and air to remove dust and crud. Remove the cutters. Clean the face on the head that engages the cutters. Clean each cutter and install.

If you go to the T13S page on their site, you can locate the replacement cutters in the accessories section and open the brochure for them. The HSS cutters W816 brochure states in the top RH corner that there are 2 edges per cutter.

I am wondering if you thought that all edges were cutting edges and rotated the cutters 90 deg instead of 180 deg. I recall some discussion somewhere that the cutters are rectangular rather than square, but with only a slight difference in side length. This difference however is enough to either prevent the cutter seating properly in the head when fitting or allow a slight gap between cutters in the overall scheme and leave ridges. I suggest that you check the cutter setup very carefully.

A forum member imports third party carbide cutters for the unit and I recall him recently reporting that his cutters have four edges rather than the two of the suppliers replacements.

Malb - you wouldn't be meaning me would you? My inserts definitely don't have 4 edges - there is some supplies out on the internet that proclaim they sell inserts with 4 cutting edges for the Accu-head - but they need to the 2 square edges to keep aligned. I tested some 4 edged inserts that I got made to the same dimensions as the 2 edge ones and they were basically impossible to keep square. Also I don't just "import" them so to speak - I have them produced to my specifications - splitting hair but importing makes it sound like I just buy whatever is knocking around!

As Enfield guy says cleaning out the head is important to ensure they seat well when turned - but the other thought is if as you seem to be saying they are the original HSS inserts it's quite possible the crappy timber has possibly damaged the corner of the insert (where the 2 cutting edges meet) and so when turned you are seeing ridges due to that.

A nice new set of carbide inserts will make it feel better (and won't dull without lots of abuse) ...

At our Men's Shed we have a Carbatec 13inch thicknesser which we bought around 12 months ago. Even when new the cutters were pretty average - lots of tear-out and extremely noisy. We replaced the cutters with carbide ones from Steve at SJE Tools and it is like an entirely different machine. Huge decrease in noise and vastly improved cutting. Wouldn't have believed it could make so much difference, but a big vote for SJE.

Thanks folks for your replies. I had come across SJE tools before and made a mental note than when it comes time to replace the factory HSS cutters that I'll get some from him. I just didn't want to purchase new cutters until I felt like the existing ones had been properly used. But maybe that needs reconsidering.

Having a closer look at the H&F website and the picture of the cutters it seems that yes, there are just two sharp edges on each cutter. I naively rotated them all 90 degrees as I had thought there were four edges. But looking at the picture I reckon maybe the two sharp edges are the ones on either side of the little dot, rather than opposite edges. Perhaps I rotated them 90 degrees the wrong way. Although you'd think that if I tried cutting on an edge that wasn't intended to be used for cutting then the results would be more disastrous than just a few ridges.

In any case, I'll take a closer look at the cutters, give it all a good clean, and report back.


Cheers

Finally got around to doing something about the issue above. In the end I just decided to buy some carbide cutters from SJE Tools.

I took the old cutters out and they definitely are only two sided, not four. I think it's just the picture on H&F website that confused me. So fortunately when I rotated the old cutters I just happened to rotate them the right way. Had I rotated them the other way I may have noticed that they weren't four sided. Or maybe not, in which case disaster would have ensued.

So anyway, I removed the old cutters, gave the surface a bit of a clean and installed the new carbide cutters. At first the result was much better - no ridges. But then after not too long I've noticed a ridge develop in one place. Not as bad as before (when there were ridges right across the piece) but still annoying. If I can figure out which cutter is causing the trouble then I'll take it out, give it a clean and put it back in. Perhaps it's come slightly loose? Whatever the case it's a bit disappointing.

Originally Posted by WoodyNZ

Finally got around to doing something about the issue above. In the end I just decided to buy some carbide cutters from SJE Tools.

I took the old cutters out and they definitely are only two sided, not four. I think it's just the picture on H&F website that confused me. So fortunately when I rotated the old cutters I just happened to rotate them the right way. Had I rotated them the other way I may have noticed that they weren't four sided. Or maybe not, in which case disaster would have ensued.

So anyway, I removed the old cutters, gave the surface a bit of a clean and installed the new carbide cutters. At first the result was much better - no ridges. But then after not too long I've noticed a ridge develop in one place. Not as bad as before (when there were ridges right across the piece) but still annoying. If I can figure out which cutter is causing the trouble then I'll take it out, give it a clean and put it back in. Perhaps it's come slightly loose? Whatever the case it's a bit disappointing.

Well - I've had a customer bring this up and also send me the following photo - as he was suffering from the same thing:


As you can see he discovered that the inserts don't always end up complete square against the head - so I would check through and ensure than you haven't any inserts that are in a similar situation.

The insert screws should be tight - as in a good solid turn tighten with the tools and if necessary push the insert so it butts up square against the aligning edge as you tighten. Alternative as this customer did after they were tighten down just tap them with a piece of wood to square them up (not exactly the preferred manner . . . but if it works!) - personally I've never had this issue on mine, it does seem that the tolerances on some heads are not as good as others ....

Hope that helps

Cheers

Steve