HowardH
Member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2007
- Messages
- 1,573
Felder just put a new sales guy in Dallas ( uh oh... :
) and he was formerly a technician for them in Germany. Great kid, english is excellent for having only just learned it a couple of years ago. He came out to the house this morning and reset up my a3-31 and K3 Winner since I was having a few adjustment issues. He showed me tricks I would have never thought of. For example, although he uses a dial indicator as a starting point, he made his final adjustments by using wood and listening to the sound the blade made passing through the test piece. He demonstrated that when my K3 fence was toed in too much. Instead of the indicator, he got a scrap piece of ply and repeatedly cut, listened, loosened, moved and tightened the bolts to adjust the fence until the plywood just barely kissed the blade when he turned off the motor and there was almost no noise while leaving the end of the board in place next to the blade. The result was a cut so smooth it was glue ready. I had never had my machine adjusted that well. On the A3, he used a skinny board, only .75 wide, to run it over the out feed side of the A3 to see where it touched the cutter on both ends. It was also interesting that while he was running an actual test board across the cutter head with the machine running, he was listening to hear if the cutting noise was the same level. If one side was a bit low, it would take off a little more wood and was louder. Once the sound was the same, he used the dial indicator and it was dead on. He also said we get a bit too fixated on trying to dial in exact set up measurements. I mentioned my Kapex was only out of square by .019 deg and he laughed and said it makes no sense to even try to get it closer than that. From a technique perspective, he said to only use your palms to hold the wood down when face jointing. He was told by his WW'ing father, a long time Felder employee too, that fingers don't grow back so don't give them the opportunity of touching the cutter head. I never do anyway but I thought it was interesting to hear it that way. In Europe, when you order a machine, they will deliver it to your shop, bring it in, put it together and dial it in for you. Quite a difference than their model over here. They charge about $400 for that service and it would be well worth it to me. He did mention that Felder is having a price increase in about 2 weeks due to the strength of the dollar. If you are planning on ordering anything, now is the time. I may have a K3 for sale shortly as a KF500 is singing it's sweet siren song to me.
) and he was formerly a technician for them in Germany. Great kid, english is excellent for having only just learned it a couple of years ago. He came out to the house this morning and reset up my a3-31 and K3 Winner since I was having a few adjustment issues. He showed me tricks I would have never thought of. For example, although he uses a dial indicator as a starting point, he made his final adjustments by using wood and listening to the sound the blade made passing through the test piece. He demonstrated that when my K3 fence was toed in too much. Instead of the indicator, he got a scrap piece of ply and repeatedly cut, listened, loosened, moved and tightened the bolts to adjust the fence until the plywood just barely kissed the blade when he turned off the motor and there was almost no noise while leaving the end of the board in place next to the blade. The result was a cut so smooth it was glue ready. I had never had my machine adjusted that well. On the A3, he used a skinny board, only .75 wide, to run it over the out feed side of the A3 to see where it touched the cutter on both ends. It was also interesting that while he was running an actual test board across the cutter head with the machine running, he was listening to hear if the cutting noise was the same level. If one side was a bit low, it would take off a little more wood and was louder. Once the sound was the same, he used the dial indicator and it was dead on. He also said we get a bit too fixated on trying to dial in exact set up measurements. I mentioned my Kapex was only out of square by .019 deg and he laughed and said it makes no sense to even try to get it closer than that. From a technique perspective, he said to only use your palms to hold the wood down when face jointing. He was told by his WW'ing father, a long time Felder employee too, that fingers don't grow back so don't give them the opportunity of touching the cutter head. I never do anyway but I thought it was interesting to hear it that way. In Europe, when you order a machine, they will deliver it to your shop, bring it in, put it together and dial it in for you. Quite a difference than their model over here. They charge about $400 for that service and it would be well worth it to me. He did mention that Felder is having a price increase in about 2 weeks due to the strength of the dollar. If you are planning on ordering anything, now is the time. I may have a K3 for sale shortly as a KF500 is singing it's sweet siren song to me. 
