spiral planer blades

Spiral blades can sometimes be offset to cover any notches you might get in a blade. I have the DeWalt 735, and the second board I put through it had a loose knot that took a notch out of one of the blades. I can just switch them around and cover that notch now, if I ever get motivated to do it. It’s on the end so I just avoid that area.
What kind of wood do you plan to plane, and do you have a dust collector?

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

I read a post on another from a member who planed hardwood…in Peru, the really hard stuff. His testimony was that with straight knives he had to change them 3 times a day on the planer. He switched to the insert head, and rotates them (if I recall) about once a month. Now, if he gets that kind of service, I’ll never have to replace mine. That post was what cinched the deal for me. It’s very likely I’ll never have to replace all of them due to being dull.

-- I long for the days when Coke was a cola, and a joint was a bad place to be (Merle Haggard)

The spiral cutterhead on my jointer is supposed to be “self-indexing.” I bought the jointer used and the 4-sided cutters were on their “second” cutter surface. I used these cutters for another year or so, before switching to the “third” cutter surface. I tried to be very careful about seating each and every cutter and used a torque wrench to set them correctly.

All said and done, I am now getting some slight difference in height and thus some hairline ridges on/in a few places along the 8” cutting surface. I have tried to “re-seat” the errant cutters, but with little success. Let me point out that this is a MINOR ISSUE, but never the less noticeable. My planer, on the other hand, is a 3-blade cutterhead and leaves a cleaner surface. All I have to do is run my jointed pieces through the planer and all is well.

IMO

• they last a very long time.
• they are much quieter

• jointed surface often shows slight lines/ridges on jointed surface

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• much cleaner jointed surface
• easier to replace

• loud
• blades do not last as long
• still prone to nicks that can leave ridges/lines

-- HorizontalMike -- "Woodpeckers understand..."

Mike brought up a good point, and it’s a circumstance I have as well. My jointer leaves ridges down the length of the board. Like him, I cleaned the seats of the inserts and used a torque driver to tighten them. As he said, it’s minor, and takes only a few passes with an ROS to remove them, still….... In my case, the planer has the spiral head, but it leaves a really smooth surface. The results are the same, a pass through the planer solves everything (or the swipe with an ROS). Most guys report that these lines disappear if they clean the seats, and torque the inserts properly. Not so in my case, at least on the jointer.

-- I long for the days when Coke was a cola, and a joint was a bad place to be (Merle Haggard)

Your math is incorrect.
Carbide lasts 10 time longer than HSS
So on a 4 knife planer it costs $32 to sharpen 4 knives and say you sharpen them once a month your annual cost of sharpening is $436

A 24” Byrd head takes 250 inserts and the knives will cost $837 so it will cost approx $21 a month vs $32 a month for HSS. So figure 10 months of knife edge life times 4 edge so you should be good for 40 months before uou need to buy a new set of insert knives. I’m not even figuring in labor…

The saying is “stepping over the dollars to pick up the pennies”

-- Few folks really know how to maximize the potential of their tools!