Wagner Safety Planer problems

[David King]

The sharpening stone that came with the cutter needs to be dressed occasionally to maintain the proper radius. You do this with a dressing stick or a diamond point on a radius dressing tool. I'd try resharpening them but keep squirting them with water to keep them cool as you grind so as not to kill the cutter's hardness. Your holding jig is brilliant but it eliminates the nerve circuit between your fingers and your brain telling you that they are too hot to handle. I also deburr the cutters on a fine flat stone before mounting them. My disk was not well machined and the cutters are a few thousandths apart in height off the surface. These are crude tools at a crude low price. They work OK when they are really sharp and if you set the DP speed way up between 2500 and 3000 RPM. If you are getting burns the cutters are clearly dull. If you are getting circles then you need crank up the speed. You should be able to shim the low cutter(s) if they are at different heights.

Personally I would only use one of these "Saf-T-Planers" in a Mill/Drill or milling machine. It's too easy for a drill press chuck to fall off it's arbor or for the arbor to fall out of the spindle. With a Milling machine I would simply buy a facemill with indexable carbide cutters.

Another option would be a router sled with a wide cutter designed to flatten surfaces.