[ChuckBarnett]

I was given a 15 inch planer and have been working on it in hope of bringing it to usable condition. I have never messed with planers before. I have learned that there are differences in the way knives are attached and it appears that this particular cutter head requires a knife-setting gauge from the manufacturer. I cannot find the manufacturer and it seems this machine is no longer supported.
Prior to learning this, I spent $45 to have the three knives sharpened, I wire brushed and sanded and chemically removed rust and build up from the cutter head, the locking bar, its screws... By downloading a manual for a grizzly planer, I figured out how to make the table parallel to the cutter hand and made those adjustments. I installed the three knives fairly close to the cutter head using a dial indicator jig I made from the Bob Vaughan video on youtube.
Now I read in a handy book (I borrowed) by John White, that there is a pressure bar and chip breaker whose adjustments are to be within thousandths of the cutter head. That leads me full circle to my question, is there a way to properly adjust this machine without the knife setting gauge from the manufacturer?

Chuck Barnett

PS: If nothing else comes from this, I am sure learning a lot.

 

[ChuckBarnett]

...there is a pressure bar

I looked (lowered table and set phone's camera to snap a photo...) and this machine has no pressure bar. see pic
Is that chipbreaker chewed more than most? Does that make a difference?

 

[Fred Hargis]

I wouldn't worry about that edge on the chipbreaker, it has a fairly rough life in there (unless it leaves scratches on the wood, see below). I'll offer this about setting the rollers and chipbreaker: most of these planers are chiwanese, therefor about the same. With that in mind, here is what my Delta manual says about setting them: "The infeed roll should be set .040" below the cutting circle"; the roll is the wood they used for roller, and these same words are used for the outfeed roller. The cutting circle is the arc of the knives, so the knife setting is relative to all this. As for the chipbreaker it says: "the chipbreaker helps hold the stock flat" then goes on:"the bottom of the chipbreaker must be parallel to the knives and set .020" below the cutting circle". Having no idea whther this applies to your planer, it does seem to suggest that the "within thousandths" is a wee bit close. Check my offer on your other post about the gauge. BTW, as for the scratches the chipbreaker might leave...the cutters should remove any light ones, only if it scratches really deep would that be a problem.