Planing Ipe(Ironwood) - Carbide cutter inserts to the rescue!

I just posted another thread talking about a not so great experience with my Byrd cutter head. (as seen here: http://lumberjocks.com/topics/160490) I thought about a good experience with it.

So a co-worker wanted to refinish her deck. About 800 linear feet of ~6” wide Ipe. Ironwood. So I show up with my Dewalt DW735 planer with the original cutterhead installed with genuine Dewalt blades. I planed ONE single 12’ long board and the blades were toast. “Hmm, those blades must have been almost ‘done’ anyways” So I flipped the blades to their new sharp side. I run one board through, OK. I run the next board through and it gets about 1/100000th of the way through and NOTHING. I ended up pushing the board through like a moron, just to get it done.

That’s 2 boards down, like 80 more to go. Some of them 14-16’ long.

I didn’t even bother opening the new pack of blades that I bought before heading over. I returned those $55 yucky blades and bought a majestic $400 Byrd cutter head from Holbren. Of course, being the over-doer, I also ordered an extra 1000 carbide inserts(1.for volume discount 2.I have other tools using carbide inserts 3.A buddy split it with me).

Holy moly. I knew it was an upgrade but I didn’t know it was THIS good!

I went back and ran every board through my planer without rotating the carbide inserts ONCE. In fact, I went back home and used it for a few months before I finally rotated them for the first time.

And this wasn’t just a light clean up of weathered boards. The homeowner before my co-worker PAINTED most of these beautiful boards.

I jammed it all into the planer and never once did it slow down or give up.

Then chased a router around the boards with a cheapo 1/4” roundover bit from Harbor Freight.

The outcome. Beautiful.

As stated in the other thread, if you need some carbide inserts I’m going to dump some of mine for what I paid. ~$19/10pack(I think). Don’t mean to sound sales pitchy. Just trying to share the deals.

-- Wood is awesome.