How to Check for Worn Planer Blades on a Portable Thickness Planer

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Jon on behalf of expertvillage.com. In this video clip I’ll be talking about how to check for worn planer blades. By looking at the blades themselves, it is basically impossible to tell whether they’re worn or whether they’re still good. Now if they are worn, they’ll still feel very, very sharp. The best way to tell if your planer has dull blades is to go ahead and send a board through your planer and then feel how it feels when it comes out. On this particular board, as I ran it through the planer, it produced kind of a fuzzy feel and a fuzzy look to it. If you look real close, this is a good indication that your blades are dull; what it will do, it’ll tear the wood rather than cut it. Now on this board, when I sent it through, as you go across there’s small ridges in it, and this will also occur when your blades are dull."