HL 850 a little help

[Gipiv]

Hi,
a newbie here. I have an old HL 850 and I am just beginning to familiarize myself with this planer. On my first job I noticed a coouple of odd things.
1. When the blade is set in the P mode it seems that it protrudes a slight bit (img*0703 and*0847)
2. When I place a stright edge over the plane of the machine as you can see by the images img*0853 to 1054) it seems bowed.

Is all of this normal ?

I only checked this as I was have problems planing a surface that ended up not being uniform (img*1124, I know that the slanting was probably due to how I was holding the planer) and from that I noticed that the depths were different even the the measurment was blocked.
Thanks for your help

 

[luvmytoolz]

With the plane upside down, if you put pressure on the very front edge of the front plate does it tilt a little?

The front plate is attached by a rod with a bolt through it for the depth adjustment, and usually has a little bit of movement as a result.

With the slanted result on the timber, this could be technique, but also could be that the mylar anti-friction sleeve around the rod in the front plate has become worn/damaged and is allowing a bit extra flex as a result depending on where the pressure is applied. Opening the planer to inspect the mylar sleeve isn't trivial, and might actually cause further damage to it. Is there any noticeable play on the front plate in all directions?

 

[Gipiv]

Thanks so much for your reply,
I checked, it's rock solid. Only the back of the front plate has a little movement, tilting towards the cutting drum. In the picture I am actually squeezing the back end of the front plate.
Perhaps this is normal ?

 

[luvmytoolz]

I'm pretty sure mine has a little bit of play, but I know the mylar sleeve in mine is worn which may be the cause of that.

I can't recall how tight it was when I first bought it, but from memory it was pretty rigid. I'll have to pull mine apart again at some point and see what I can do about replacing the mylar sleeve.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Nearly all power planes compress the front bed/shoe against a block of foam to increase the cutting depth. Naturally there has to be some play in the mechanism and that can result in the front bed/shoe tilting or yawing relative to the blade and main shoe, which results in a cut being thicker on one side than the other.

I got frustrated by this and sought out the only plane I could find (nearly 20 years ago) that didn’t work that way. It’s a Bosch (don’t recall the model) and the front bed/shoe slides on a hard ramp so it doesn’t twist. I don’t know why all planes don’t work this way.

Surprisingly, given the above, I think the little Bosch 12v cordless planer also uses the ramp method.