Thickness planer troubleshooting

[zootroy]

Today I used my Ryobi thickness planer for the first time. I ran some test 3" thick pine pieces through and it worked great. Moved onto a 10" thick poplar board and the result was less than stellar. Ripples along the entire length of the board. It was S2S, maybe a tiny bit cupped, and about 6' long. Much more prominant on the ends, but noticeable throughout. I was removing about 1/32". I want to get this resolved before I start running maple through it.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

TIA
Jason

[Jim Boyd]

I'm sure you meant wide not thick? I have seen the ripples sometimes using my Dewalt planer. Its usual cause is my lack of locking the head.

[zootroy]

Yeah, 10" wide, sorry. As for the locking head, the Ryobi has a lock, but i'm not sure how solid it is.

[Tom Hintz]

Jason,
Over the last few months we have been getting a slew of planer-related emails about performance issues. Many of them were resolved with support and waxing of the tables. Though I doubted either "fix" would help in some situations, one or both did. See the link below (scroll down to Planers) to see the stories we have on these issues.
The rippling could be caused by irregular feeding, which waxing the tables can cure easily. I know it could be other things, including a non-locking head that is supposed to be locking, but both of these fixes are easy and will eliminate more common issues with planer performance.

http://www.newwoodworker.com/tipstrksdir.html

[zootroy]

Thanks Tom,

Good information in those articles. Found some other good ones too. I'll paste wax my tables and make sure my supports are at the correct height.

[LCHIEN]

Thanks Tom,

Good information in those articles. Found some other good ones too. I'll paste wax my tables and make sure my supports are at the correct height.

You said the board was cupped. In a 10" wide board a little cuppin can mean a lot of height difference.

And you said you were taking off 1/32. If the board were cupped you could only take off 1/32 at the crown or edges. If you set it for 1/32 maybe it was much more where the board was cupped more. Too big a bite will cause the rippling.

If the board is cupped it really needs to be run across a jointer/planer first to make one side flat. (an you say yeah, where do I get a 10" jointer-planer - I don't have an sanswer for that!)