Bursgreen FS2 Planer-jointer

[Sandyn]

The first time I created this post it went into a state of limbo and never actually appeared on the forum, or what's new, but it did exist in my content, so I will try again and forgive me if the post suddenly appears twice!

Does anyone have experience of the Bursgreen FS2 (pre Wadkin). I am refurbishing one and need to remove the tables. The rise/fall shafts are gummed up with years of rubbish and not moving as easily as they should. It looks fairly straightforward, just 4 bolts on each table. The planer has a parallelogram rise/fall design. There doesn't seem to be any method of adjusting the table alignment, apart from up and down, so I think the mating faces of the beds and parallelogram mechanism are just machined, hopefully no shims or anything like that. The tables are currently perfectly aligned along the length. If there were shims, I would not remove the tables, but find another way to lubricate all the parallelogram shafts.

Since originally writing this, I have cleaned inside the machine with a high pressure hose and couldn't believe how much old crap was inside the machine. It was packed around the parallelogram mechanism and that was responsible for some of the problem of it not moving well. It now moves freely oven a good few mm (~5mm height) of travel but still will not fall freely. I doubt I would ever be taking as much as that off, so probably OK now, but I do like to to fix things and have them working properly.

The blades are skewed with a spring on the gibb and blade, of course the planer didn't come with a setting tool. What is the best method for setting skewed blades? I have found some information on-line, some use Dial gauge, any other ways?

Thanks
Sandy

 

[Sandyn]

Setting the blades was much easier than I thought. I just got the tables level, but not at their highest position, then using a digital depth gauge I measured the high spot of the blade as I rotated it backward and repeated along the length of the blade.Doing that takes care of the skew on the blades. It was a bit of a faff moving the blades, but I got them reasonably accurate, within a few thou. Now I have a process, I'll probably do it again and see if I can do better.

 

[Vann]

I believe the skew knives give a cleaner cut. I have a Wadkin 9" RB with skewed knives - but it's not up and running yet.

I don't have an FS-2, but I know a bloke who does. I don't know that he's had the tables apart, but I could ask.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Sandyn]

I believe the skew knives give a cleaner cut. I have a Wadkin 9" RB with skewed knives - but it's not up and running yet.

I don't have an FS-2, but I know a bloke who does. I don't know that he's had the tables apart, but I could ask.

Cheers, Vann.

Yes please. I would really appreciate it. I also can't see how to adjust the belt tension. I can see that the motor is adjustable, but no idea how to do it. The planer weighs 160Kg, so makes it tricky to have a look from the bottom or lay it on its side to see what's in there.
The skew knife is a pretty good design considering the blade is still straight. I don't think they could easily do spiral machining in those days but it achieves a similar effect.

 

[Sandyn]

I now know how to adjust the belt tension. I managed to tilt the machine up and get a picture inside the base where I thought the adjustment should be.

The bit circled in blue shows the adjustment sector. There is a corresponding nut on the outside. I had to remove the belt and do a bit of work to free up the mounting shaft, so the motor platform moves freely. In future, belt tightening can be done just by slacking the nut and pushing down on the motor. The belt was so slack it was thrashing on the side of the belt guard which sounded like it was going to explode at any moment!