Thread: Thicknesser Troubles - Spiral head

Originally Posted by DaveTTC

I am interested as to how true these results are. Just saying because an 18v makita only has so much power. At full depth with my old blades it wiuld bog down in pine at 70mm wide.

By accident when teating the cutter i had it at full depth on KD Tassie Oak. It was laminated to 70mm. While it slowed it did not stop.

The question would have to be asked that although there is more contact with a spiral cutter if the blades are set up for a shear cut does this compensate for traditional straight blades?

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Wattage ratings on most power tools are the volts times the amps required under a specified load while looking at internal temperatures which must remain within a safe band. If amps are stated as Fla then it is tested under full load.

You can load power tools and draw more current than specified but there will be a rise in internal temperature above what the manufacturer considers safe. This is O/K for short periods.

It's an interesting exercise to measure current on electric motors, under varying conditions, and compare to specs.

Originally Posted by Damienol

Even though RDG says the heads weigh the same I can not think of any other reason as to why I had the problems I had.

Ok, here's the weight of my cutterhead for my thicknesser upgrade, bought at the TWWS in Melbourne a fortnight ago. see https://www.woodworkforums.com/f154/retrofitting-cts-spiral-cutterhead-carbatec-ctj-680-15-thicknesser-198524 for my retrofit.

Damien, I have weighed my cutterhead, and as it is identical to yours, yours will weigh 9kg too. Since you have removed your old cutterhead already you should hopefully be able to weigh it and post the result so we can all see the difference.

Originally Posted by Lappa

It's an interesting exercise to measure current on electric motors, under varying conditions, and compare to specs.

However finding the instruments to measure wht is happening on a 15 amp circuit can be a challenge. All the plug in meters are for 10 amp only. I thought I found some for 15 amp on ebay but they listed it incorrectly and had to refund my purchase price.

Hey Doug,

I thought you had a 15" thickie?

Mine is 20". AusPost had the parcel at 20kg. There was minimal packaging included

yes mine is 15", sorry , I thought yours was 15" too, since the other thread you have been posting in has 15" in the title , but who cares, size does not matter

But allowing for weight per inch based on mine and adding a kilo for luck, lets assume yours weighs 13 kg. Can you weigh the old head at all?

Cheers

Doug

EDIT: WTP? you are running a 20" thicky on a 10 amp circuit?????

Inductive amps clamp and a lead with the outer covering off the wires is how we do it. Clamp can read up to 700A AC or DC.

Originally Posted by Dengue

One of the key selling points of a spiral head cutter is that it requires less power than a straight bladed cutter

So they say, but the thicknesser and buzzer on Shelix heads at work both sound like they're working harder since the swap so I'll remain unconvinced until someone can show me hard evidence.

Nice outcome mate. Glad it is sorted.

John

Hi, and thanks for the suggestion(other harvey post).
I note in your(harvey) that you refer to THIS POST?? (is that the one I should be looking at?) that you were having issues achieving full RPM with the Helical Cutting head. Is that problem resolved?
There does not appear to be that many machines to be found on the net(my first place to look).
I found the Leda, Carbatec, Sherwood and now the Baileigh Industrial machine.
But that appears to be about it.
Now that I have been spoiled by owning a good quality (Harvey 10") I want the same quality in my Thicknesser.
Regards
Peter