Let me fill everyone in on a conversation that I had with our fellow LumberJock “socalwood” who actually worked on the development of this product!!!
I sent this PM:
“I just read one of your posts on how you use a 20” jointer with power feeder. How does that work? I thought it might prevent you from ridding defects like bow, cup, and twist from boards by pressing them down to the table.
I’m really curious to know how the jointer w/ power feeder works….
Thanks!!
—Lane Custom Guitars and Basses”
The reply:
“Hi alanelane,
Several months ago we bought a Comatic joint-mate power feeder and totally destroyed it within 1 week. I called back to the co. and they had me test fly some new design pieces for them. We did, resulting in their new powerfeeder they debuted at AWFS. We ran boards as thin as 1/8” thick and 4” wide up to boards 6” thick and 10’ long and 36” wide, hardwoods, softwoods, etc. in our test for them, along with documentation. The feeder will easily pull out defects up to 1/4” rapidly and we ran boards with 3/4” of twist in multiple runs and in conjunction with a thickness planer. One man can easily reduce rough lumber for resawing or thicknessing in very quick order. It is probably one step slower than a double sided planer, but much more versatile, which is our goal.
Last week, we produced some wide plank oak flooring for a La Jolla house using this machine and it wasn’t too bad.
The trick to how it works is that little steel studs grab and pull the lumber over the cutter head with very little down pressure. On a 20” planer you can continuously have 2-3 boards simultaneously going at all times, basically as fast as a guy can throw them
We also modified the planer and the powerfeed mount to make it even quicker.
Let me know if this helps.
Rob”
I replied:
“Thanks for the detailed explanation. That sounds like a great product. When I first heard of it, I started this forum topic:
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/4259
But now it sounds like it works very well indeed.
Could you clarify whether the feeder contacts the wood before or after the cutterhead?
I’m really curious, because I’ve never had a jointer that could face joint long, wide lumber, and this feeder would make having a large jointer feasible.
Thanks again!!
—Lane Custom Guitars and Basses”
Rob replied:
“it contacts after the head. the picture in the sunhill ad is of the machine i had put a LOT of input and testing into. richard at comatic listened to my comments, and i think the machine now works very well.
—rob”
I THINK THAT PRETTY MUCH EXPLAINS IT. Now I think that this is a really awesome accessory for any face jointing operation!! I’d sure love to have one…
-- Lane Custom Guitars and Basses
