Dust problem with planer

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lwhughes149

New User
Lorraine
I am making a oak tabletop cabinet and have had no problems with the planer, in fact I just put new blades into it. The oak planed just fine but when I tried to plane some poplar it stopped up the dust system. I remember a friend of mine use to have problems with his system when ever he would plane pine. I finally finished what I was planing and cleaned up the mess, never had that problem before. Five boards, four about 5 1/2 across and one about 8" across. Any thoughts. I even hooked the machine directly to the dust system and still had the problem. Poplar is over five years old so it is dry.
 

CDPeters

Master of None
Chris
I suspect the problem is chip size. The oak is going to produce much smaller chips vs. the poplar, which will be much more like shavings and will likely clog in a "blower" (vs. vacuum) collection.

I am assuming your setup uses a fan integral to the planer to blow the chips/shavings into a collection bag/barrel/canister. If you have some active dust collection drawing an airflow from the planer, you might double check and make any adjustments which would increase the airflow (close unused blast gates, clean filter etc.)

I don't experience this problem, but then I'm sucking the chips/shavings away from the planer outlet with a 6" hose / 900+ cfm airflow :embaresse.

C.
 

Canuck

Wayne
Corporate Member
I haven't really had a clogging issue but I did notice that the shavings from the poplar I just worked with were really light and fluffy compared to the red oak chips which were somewhat chunky and probably a little heavier.

I have a DW735 planer with the integrated blower in the planer and I think that this really helps out my old HF DC.

I would think that if the fluffy poplar shavings are not somewhat propelled or the DC was low in the CFM air movement that that would maybe lead to a clogging issue.:dontknow:

Wayne
 

DaveO

New User
DaveO
A lot has to do with the pore structure of the wood. Red Oak is very open pored so when planed thinly it tends to break up. Poplar, Pine and especially Maple have closed pores so they make longer strips which can clog and under powered DC. I have a really problem with this when planing soft Maple, although Red Oak doesn't give me any.

Dave:)
 

lwhughes149

New User
Lorraine
I have a one hp dust system which has worked well with everything else I have used. I hooked the planer directly to the dust system in order to by pass all other machines and it still stopped up. When I took to hose loose from the dust system the clog was there going into the dust system. The pieces were large. I don't know about a blower, of course the dust system has a blower if that is what you are talking about. I don't expect to use popular very often, this planing is completed, but I have a 1/2 hp dust system that I could connect directly to the planer and hope to eliminate the problem.
 

bluedawg76

New User
Sam
i have the same problems w/ pine and cypress but my chips clog coming through the planer side of the dust chute and typically are spit back at me. For me, I'm guessing this is b/c of the underpowered DC, i.e. a shopvac. Never considered how the grain structure would contribute, but that makes sense.
 

ehpoole

Administrator
Ethan
I have a DeWalt DW735 thickness planer (with its internal blower) which is hooked up to my 2HP cyclone and have never had any clog issues and I work with quite a lot of Poplar. I have planed up to 3/32" in a single pass (at the lower speed setting) for narrower boards and as much as 1/32" to 3/64" in a single pass (also at the lower speed setting) for boards up to 13" wide -- which should be close to the worst case scenerio -- without any issues. However, the Poplar chips are substantial compared to some other woods. Essentially you are making wide shavings if using straight or spiral (but not insert) knives -- just like the output of a straight-knife jointer when jointing wide boards. These wide shavings could clog a typical single-stage DC, especially if there is any sort of grate in front of the impeller that the shavings could get caught up on. If your planer lacks the internal blower of the DW735 then your chips may well be much larger than those produced by my planer since I'm sure the internal blower helps breakup chips as well as assisting in their removal.

If your DC has such a safety grate then you may either remove the grate (if it is an option) OR you may build a pre-seperator (the Thien seperators are quite popular) to capture all the larger shavings before they reach your DC. This allows your DC to focus on collecting the finer dust and chips. You might also be able to help the clogging issue by either lowering the feed speed (if your planer allows such) or by reducing the depth of cut with each pass (e.g. plan 1/32" per pass instead of 1/16").
 

ScottM

Scott
Staff member
Corporate Member
Lorraine did you try taking off less wood per pass? It takes longer but it might help.
 

CDPeters

Master of None
Chris
- "blower" - some planers are designed to "blow" the chips through a chip chute. Mine just spits them out the front.
- Alot of the "dust collection hoods" sold for lunch box style planers have the dust port at right angles to the trajectory of the shavings coming out of the machine, forcing the shaving stream into a hard right (or left) turn into the DC hose. This is a recipe for clogging. I threw my plastic hood out and shop-made a hood to have the 6" DC hose in line with the chip stream, with only a small change of direction into the hose.

Right above the jointer fence, you can see how I designed mine. Hope that helps some! :wsmile:

G0452_Jointer.jpg

View image in gallery

C.
 
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