WoW!
That pretty well sums up the performance of the Shelix cutterhead for the Dewalt planer DW735. As I mentioned previously I had a load of hardwood, hard maple, purpleheart, walnut, and sapele that needed to be planed down from 1-1/8" to 3/4". Instead of paying someone else to do this for me, I decided to upgrade my planer and attempt to do it myself.
Even after reading all the positive reviews on amazon, I still had reservations that this setup would be able to handle the amount of work I was about to feed it. Those reservations are gone. Not only can this Shelix cutterhead remove a ton of stock without dulling, it leaves behind a beautiful glue ready finish.
After a few passes of the 300 liner ft. of hardwood some of the boards began sticking under the rollers. A little hand pressure would get the boards moving again. The rollers and cutterhead were spinning, but the boards were sticking. With the stock blades, this was usually a sign the knives were getting dull. Changing the knives always solved this problem. I really didn't want to rotate all of the little shelix knives, so I stopped, and raised the planer. I noticed the base plate that the boards ride on was a bit sticky. I realized it had been quite some time since I had waxed the base plate. I found my tin of Minwax Finishing Paste and applied some as per the directions. The plate felt a little slicker and sure enough, the boards were flying through again.
With the old setup about 1/32" (half turn) was all I could ever take off on the slow feed setting. With the new shelix cutterhead 3/64" ( three-quarter turn) and even 1/16" (full turn) can be removed without too much load on the motor. And with No tearout.
The amount of work I rely on my drum sander for has been greatly reduced by this cutterhead. Thanks Shelix, I am very, very happy.
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