Sheartak: Helical Cutter Head - SPONSORED

I love the benefits of having a helical cutter head with carbide inserts in a planar or a joiner. And if the machine you have in your shop right now isn't equipped with that, don't sweat it. Sheer tech can provide you with the cutter head so that you can do an upgrade. You can add it to your machine. I have already done that work on this DeWalt So let's have a look at what it took to do the head, swap. The instructions that come with the sheer tech cutter head are good. They come on a PDF with comprehensive color pictures of every step you need to follow in order to get the old cutter head out and the new cutter head in. I'm working on a DeWalt 735 Planar. First step with the machine unplugged is to remove the hood and get to the cutter head on this machine. You'll need to remove the cutter head, bolts, chip breaker and knives, disassembling the plan or to remove the old cutter head isn't difficult but be methodical about it. I kept another work table nearby and I set the components that I removed and their fasteners on that table, removing the drive chain and gear box from the other side of the plane or exposes the other end of the cutter head. This allows you to use a hardwood block and a mallet to drive the cutter head out and then remove it completely from the planar slide. The new cutter head in and tap it to seat the bearings with the cutter head in. You can install your carbide inserts, then do the disassembly process in reverse to reassemble your planar and you'll be back in business now that you've seen what it takes to do the swap for this DeWalt. Let's have a look at the planar head itself. And after we look at it, we're gonna cut some wood and we're gonna talk more about the benefits of why you would want to do this. It's such a cool looking cutter head. Lots going on here. Look at that carbide, insert the tip, the cutting edge of that insert is at an angle relative to the center axis of the entire cutter head. So that's given us really a true sheer cut. When we talk about shearing wood. When we talk about the benefits of that, it really requires that we attack the wood, we approach the wood at an angle like this. In addition, if you looked really close, you would be able to see this cutting edge isn't just straight, it's at a six inch radius. That's also part of the component that gives us really, really good cut quality off of this. Now, of course, with our cutter edge, one edge gets dull, we can turn to a new one and a new one and a new one and there's a little dot right there that's currently in a rear position on every one of these that's gonna help me keep track as I go. If I start rotating these to a fresh edge, now that you've seen the cutter, let's push some curly Maple through here and see the crazy good cut quality man. Just look at the cut quality on that maple. The quilt, the mirror smooth finish on that material is absolutely incredible. So a lot of stuff, a lot of benefits coming from this one thing we haven't talked about is noise. This cutter head is gonna run about 10 to 15 decibels less than a conventional knife cutter head in the same machine. So we're gaining a lot there when you look at the chips that are flying up, that chute, we're getting more shavings, less dust. So again, as a by product of the manner in which that cutter head cuts, which also lends itself to the really, really crazy good surface finish, we get off of that. So an upgrade like this is a very significant upgrade and a very significant improvement in the cut quality that you're gonna get off of your planar