Planer Madness

Man... this is NOT a post about how I spent hours and hours modding my planer today. It could be, but it's not. Instead I hope it's a motivational read for you guys... read through and you'll see why. Up above is the main control lever of my 653. Without going too far into detail, it uses a small cam to raise and lower the depth adjustment on the planer. To the right it a simple mock-up that I did planning out my approach for altering the adjustment from 3/16 of and inch to 3/8. Doubling the size of the cam would basically double the depth the planer can cut. My kind of planer. Twice the depth equals half the passes. Mmm twice the speed. When Nick's downstairs at the shop cracking cold ones and I'm still treading circles around the racks... you can see why this kind of stuff circles around in my mind. 

     Only problem is, I've been dwelling on this modification for at least 5 years... maybe even 7. It's literally been popping into my head every single time I picked up my 653. Something that I needed to to do as soon as I got the time. Well, I finally got around to it. Here's how it unraveled. 

Firing up a little CAD/CAM/CNC action I redesigned that little cardboard cut out into an actual part (a few of them actually) and cut it out on my desktop mill I have setup for these kinds of little jobs. 

I could ramble on for hours about the whole setup, but take it as it is, it's just another tool in the arsenal. Perhaps a bit Ironic using CNC to make tools to hand shape with methinks. Every tool has its place though.

Ah here we go. Beautiful. The picture is a little skewed but here you have the old lever and the new one (Its made of wood, cheap and fast to prototype with) ...looks great but guess what... IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!
Man-O-man-O-man. Talk about 5 years of wasted thought. I should have mocked out the idea years ago when I had it. Then I would have simply noticed that there was a huge flaw involving other parts of the tool that prevents this idea from working.
The good news is, after one glance at the failed idea, my mind was free to come up with a better one. I decided that I wasn't going to sit on the idea for another 5 years. I got right to it, I had all my stuff strewn about already anyhow.

It looks similar but it's a totally new design... It's totally crude right now.... I had to hack at it with the dremel a bit to get it working. But it work it does. Extremely well too. Nick always says something like do it now, do it fast, do it dirty and sort the details out later. Annoying how right he can be sometimes.
So if you're sitting around on the couch with a great idea, best get to it now. It's probably not going to work, but at least you can get it out of the way and make room for a new one that might have potential. Don't waste the space in your head for the next 5 years. :) -C