SIP 8 x 4 Planer Thicknesser - can anyone supply a manual?

[bigal]

Hi to all,

After 30 years being a sparky I have had to retire and now have some spare time to practice my first and long time hobby.

I have always loved working with wood and gathered quite a few tools and a little knowledge over the years. I have however never owned or indeed used a planer thicknesser, but always fancied one.

Today I acquired one, it is a SIP 8 x 4" model 01483 and thought that before I used it I should at least have some knowledge of its working. The machine is second hand and sadly came with no user manual so I can't read up on it.

The machine switches on ok and sounds reasonable motor wise but I believe I am missing the blade guard for planing. Other than that all I can see wrong is a couple of nicks in the blades where I assume someone has discovered a nail the hard way!

I have been on the SIP website but they do not show any manuals at all and there is not even a mention of my machine at all even though I have found it for sale currently on a good few places. It seems that it is a case of SIP only being concerned with selling new models and even then they don't seem to show much in the line of support for those.

Anyway if anyone has knowledge of this machine or has a manual they can scan, sell or even lend me I would be much more confident in using it.

Or if anyone is local to me and could give me pointers that would be fine too.

Anyway thanks for reading my long first post.

Al

 

[martinka]

You might be better posting this in the General Woodworking forum for more replies. If it's any use, there's a poor exploded diagram at http://www.sipuk.co.uk/parts/3. Workshop Catalogue/Wood Working/images/01497.jpg
I did find a post that said the manual expects you to know what you are doing with the machine, so I don't know how much use the manual will be if you never used one before.

Martin.

 

[bigal]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the diagram mate. Everything helps when you have nothing. At least now I know whats missing.

Also thanks for moving the post. To be honest I thought I was in general! Doh!

Al

 

[carlb40]

Hi Al welcome to the forum.

Manual is here
http://www.charnwood.net/files/files/W5 ... 20List.pdf

While it is for the charnwood version, all these machines are the same.

 

[JakeS]

For what it's worth, I have the smaller brother of that machine - the 6x4" model. If you have any questions which the manual doesn't answer, I can have a go?


In case you need any spares, I think these people were the only ones I could find who could sell them:

http://www.sipuk.co.uk/tools/START.htm

(It's a shopfront for WorldOfPower.co.uk - I believe they're a UK distributor for SIP.)

 

[bigal]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the manual Carl, it at least gives me something to work from now.

Jake, If your planer is similar then can you tell me how to set the blades and if they are reversible?

The manual just says set them using the guage, which I don't have.


Al

 

[carlb40]

From what i can see in the excellent pic in the manual :roll:

The setting tool is similar to this
http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-ax ... rod804558/

It might be worth giving SIP / charnwood a call to see if they sell them separately

 

[JakeS]

Jake, If your planer is similar then can you tell me how to set the blades and if they are reversible?

The manual just says set them using the guage, which I don't have.

The blades I have aren't reversible, but they're not official SIP ones either, since the model I have has been discontinued a while. I don't know whether the SIP ones are, I got mine second-hand so I don't know the provenance of the blades that came with it! I have a feeling they're probably not, since there's sets of springs behind the blades to push them out when you loosen the clamping bolts, so they'd probably damage the edge if they were reversible. (Be careful when removing the clamping bolts for exactly this reason. The blades are heavy enough that they won't fly out, but the springs might!)

As to setting them - I have the gauge for mine, but there's not much to it, and I didn't use it the last time I set the blades; you can get away with a straight edge and a bit of paper. Simply rotate the blade block so that the blade is vertical (the tip of the blade is at the highest point of its trajectory; obviously it should be disconnected from the power at this point), place the bit of paper on the outfeed table, the straight edge on the paper but projecting over the block, and undo the blade clamp bolts and allow the blade to raise until it touches the bottom of the straight edge. It can help if you have two straight edges (you can probably get away with one bit of paper! ;-) to ensure that the blade is the same height at both ends before tightening the clamping bolts again.

This will set the blade to be just a few microns (the thickness of the bit of paper) above the outfeed table, which should ensure that a) there's enough clearance for the wood to get onto the outfeed when you pass it over the top and b) there's not so much clearance that you get a chunk taken out the end of it. Read around on the Internet, there's lots of material on setting planer blades (or jointer blades, as the Americans call them) and it's more or less the same all over.

(Setting the blade for the thicknesser part isn't so important; the built-in height gauge is useless anyway so you'll have to measure the thickness as you go, so all that matters is that the blades are perfectly parallel to the thicknessing bed, which should be co-planar with the outfeed table.)

 

[bigal]

Hi Guys,

I have the machine working now, well to a degree anyway.

I made an adaptor to get the 4 inch pipe to fit my shop vac which is sadly only a household size.

Anyway I tried planing and thicknessing and both work as should except that the blades must be worse than I thought, I'm getting thin beads left unplaned. So I thought I would price some new blades up.

These are marked 210 x 14.5 x 1.5 and the only ones I can find on the net are from SIP themselves which are £39.60! Wow! I was shocked at that especially as many larger blades are much cheaper. So the next question is where is the best place for blades? These are single sided but are double sided available? Also can they be sharpened?

Thanks Guys, Al

 

[RogerP]

Try Woodford Tooling

[email protected],

 

[bigal]

Hi Guys,
ely
Well I tried Woodford and half a dozen more suppliers and drew blanks at all of them!

Absolutely the only place I can find them is at SIPs site and they are stupid money for disposable blades, £40 !

Just trying at the moment to grind the blades sharp again but a couple of the nicks are really deep and it could be a long job.

Wish I could convert the head to some other make of blades. Anyone got a spare 8" head assemble they don,t need?

Thanks, Al

 

[JakeS]

Well I tried Woodford and half a dozen more suppliers and drew blanks at all of them!

Absolutely the only place I can find them is at SIPs site and they are stupid money for disposable blades, £40 !

I don't know whether it's definitely a good hit, but have a look at this auction:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/210mm-8-Fox-2 ... 6b23ad3d28

They're 8" blades, they look similar to the ones in mine, and the brand is listed as SIP. If you look around for the Fox model number, you'll see a machine that looks suspiciously similar to the SIP P/Ts, so odds are that they're all rebadged versions of the same device. Equally importantly, it's a reputable seller (Woodford) and half the price you've been seeing!

If you contact them, they'll probably be able to tell you for sure if they'll fit your machine, but for what it's worth they certainly look similar to the ones I have in mine. They say they can cut blades to fit, so you may find they'd even be able to machine some holes in the right places for you if they don't have an exact match in stock.


Another one, along similar lines; this one's stated to fit the 8x8 P/T SIP do:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REPLACEMENT-S ... 337bd0ef6f

 

[carlb40]

Right after finding the blade number on the sip site and googling said number, this place pops up as stocking the blades you want.

http://www.midlandstoolsupplies.co.uk/b ... ip-planers
At just over half the price from sip themselves.

 

[bigal]

Hi Guys,

Jake, you nearly got them but sadly 22mm is too big for mine and the other from Woodford has got to be wrong in some way.

I actually posted a blade to them and a guy called Chris contacted me and said they had nothing that would fit.

Carl, Brilliant catch mate, they are the ones and they must be the only firm I didn't try

I will now send for some since I now don't feel like SIP are ripping me off and getting away with it.

Thanks again, Al

 

[SteveReynolds]

Hi to all,

After 30 years being a sparky I have had to retire and now have some spare time to practice my first and long time hobby.

I have always loved working with wood and gathered quite a few tools and a little knowledge over the years. I have however never owned or indeed used a planer thicknesser, but always fancied one.

Today I acquired one, it is a SIP 8 x 4" model 01483 and thought that before I used it I should at least have some knowledge of its working. The machine is second hand and sadly came with no user manual so I can't read up on it.

The machine switches on ok and sounds reasonable motor wise but I believe I am missing the blade guard for planing. Other than that all I can see wrong is a couple of nicks in the blades where I assume someone has discovered a nail the hard way!

I have been on the SIP website but they do not show any manuals at all and there is not even a mention of my machine at all even though I have found it for sale currently on a good few places. It seems that it is a case of SIP only being concerned with selling new models and even then they don't seem to show much in the line of support for those.

Anyway if anyone has knowledge of this machine or has a manual they can scan, sell or even lend me I would be much more confident in using it.

Or if anyone is local to me and could give me pointers that would be fine too.

Anyway thanks for reading my long first post.

Al

HI
I have this machine and purchased new blades from Woodford woodworking tools of Stockport from their eBay site (planer knives 570054)
I think I paid about £27 and they fitted and worked well.