Hi -
I've been lurking for a while without posting, but I've now encountered a problem I can't solve, so I was hoping someone here might have some idea... (and I hope this is the right category!)
I bought an SIP 01497 planer-thicknesser second-hand a while back - so I could see if I really made enough use of such a machine before spending a lot of money on a better one - and I've been using it happily for thicknessing since, and it seems to work fine. However, if I try to use the top table to plane, the wood jams as it hits the outfeed table, which suggested to me that the blades weren't set high enough, so today I thought I'd have a go at getting them properly set. I hadn't had the courage to try before since it was working fine for my main use, so I didn't want to risk messing it up!
Unfortunately, out of the ten locking bolts - five on each blade - I've managed to loosen a grand total of one. I was a little worried at first that I might have misunderstood and be turning them the wrong way, but having got one out I'm happy with that part, at least.
The thing that worries me the most is that on a couple of the others, the (supplied!) spanner slipped and rounded off a bit of the bolt head! I've tried WD-40, and I've tried warming the cutter head up for ten minutes with my girlfriend's hairdryer in case the contraction in the cold made the screwthreads tighter, but neither made much difference.
The only thing I can think of now is cutting the tops of the bolts off to get the mounting block out and replacing all the bolts, but before I go for anything that drastic I figured I'd ask for help! I'm also a little wary that there may be a good reason why the bolts were made of such a soft metal that the spanner rounds them off so easily, in which case I'd need to be careful what I replaced them with...
Is there anything else I could try, or anything I'm possibly missing? Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.
I've been lurking for a while without posting, but I've now encountered a problem I can't solve, so I was hoping someone here might have some idea... (and I hope this is the right category!)
I bought an SIP 01497 planer-thicknesser second-hand a while back - so I could see if I really made enough use of such a machine before spending a lot of money on a better one - and I've been using it happily for thicknessing since, and it seems to work fine. However, if I try to use the top table to plane, the wood jams as it hits the outfeed table, which suggested to me that the blades weren't set high enough, so today I thought I'd have a go at getting them properly set. I hadn't had the courage to try before since it was working fine for my main use, so I didn't want to risk messing it up!
Unfortunately, out of the ten locking bolts - five on each blade - I've managed to loosen a grand total of one. I was a little worried at first that I might have misunderstood and be turning them the wrong way, but having got one out I'm happy with that part, at least.
The thing that worries me the most is that on a couple of the others, the (supplied!) spanner slipped and rounded off a bit of the bolt head! I've tried WD-40, and I've tried warming the cutter head up for ten minutes with my girlfriend's hairdryer in case the contraction in the cold made the screwthreads tighter, but neither made much difference.
The only thing I can think of now is cutting the tops of the bolts off to get the mounting block out and replacing all the bolts, but before I go for anything that drastic I figured I'd ask for help! I'm also a little wary that there may be a good reason why the bolts were made of such a soft metal that the spanner rounds them off so easily, in which case I'd need to be careful what I replaced them with...
Is there anything else I could try, or anything I'm possibly missing? Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.
