In defense of straight blade thickness planers *LINK*

A choice of angles from Tersa

Mark Hennebury

FAQ

What is The Tersa™ Planer Knives System?

The Tersa™ system has been patented in 1984 in Switzerland. The system consists of the Tersa™ cutter head and the Tersa™ Planer Knives.

HSS Tersa™ Planer Knives are made of High Speed Steel; which is superior to the older carbon steel; it can endure much higher temperatures. This feature allows HSS to cut faster than the carbon knives, which has been a tremendous asset to the wood industry.

Because of their high quality, Tersa™ Planer Knives give your product an exceptional finish.

What wood can the Knives be used on?

The HSS knife has an angle of 40°, ideal for soft woods such as cedar, pine, fir, etc. The M+Tersa™ planer knife has an angel of 55°which makes it more durable, used on hardwood like maple, birch, oak and cherry wood. Tersa™ Planer Knives don’t need to be sharpened, the blades are two sided and can be recycled after use.

Re: Tear-out mitigation

Brian Holcombe

You're correct, I'm overstating the math in a review of my comparison. I use a 16" jointer planer and everyone who I've spoken to uses 20" (510mm) or 24" wide (630mm), the larger cutter blocks use 77 knives and 95 knives respectively and that costs $432 and $540 respectively.

You may cut harder woods than I do, but I'm receiving feedback from local shops that use these and many of them use exotic woods. Judging by the results I've received those knives need to be changed far more often than one annually and when dealing with 80 or 100 knives, that's an hour long process, compared to 3-4 minutes working with a coffee in one hand.

I'm attempting to work without bias given toward the chosen path, but I was set on a buying a spiral head until I used a Tersa.

I'm looking at 6-8 months on one set of knives, using them regularly (they can be resharpened once, I believe, but I will probably not bother).

The best of both worlds..

Mark Hennebury

there is always something new on the horizon.

SuperhelicTM Knives & Cutterheads

The Superhelic helical cutterhead is designed for a perfect finishing cut. It is ideal surfacing and planning of solid woods which demand a superior finishing surface, more details are as follows:

* Innovative design (patented).

* Replaceable non-segmented corrugated back twisted carbide blade.

* One continues smooth sharing cutting without interruption.

* Reduce tear-outs in hardwoods, cross-grained and knotty material greatly.

* Significant noise, downtime and spindle bearing wear reduction.

* CNC machined to exacting tolerances and balanced to run up to 9000 rpm.

* Cutting circle: 125mm and 160mm

* Cutting length: 60mm to 310mm.

* Hydro bore and straight bore are available.

Re: The best of both worlds..

Walt

Interesting idea but one would need confidence that the manufacturer would stay in business so there's a source for those knives. They're not exactly an industry standard at this point.

Remarkable also...

Ellis Walentine

... that they spelled planing, planning.

Ellis

PS sorry to be the editor here...

Re: Remarkable also...

Henry Higginbotham

Well, somebody needs to edit their stuff. While you're at it, throw in:

"continues smooth sharing cutting" for (apparently) "continuous smooth shearing cut"

"ideal surfacing" for "ideal for surfacing"

and a comma splice.

I have to wonder if they're any more careful about their manufacturing.

Good eye, Henry

And there i was....

Mark Hennebury

Getting all excited that someone might have appreciated the advance in cutting tools.

Leaving the cave takes courage

Mark Hennebury

People put a lot of effort into understanding a process, analyzing, experimenting, testing, prototyping, and producing a new better product, they do it because they believe that there is room for improvement.

They present a better product to us, all we have to do is say wow, and buy one.

That"s how how we progress.

Of course if nobody wants to take a chance, you guarantee that they will go out of business, and you will never benefit from their efforts to bring you a better product.

Progress, improvement is good for everyone, it is bought to us by the brave, the inquisitive, the people willing to put in the time and effort to question the status quo, to push to find a better way, a way that benefits all of us, and has given us all of the wonderful things that we have today, all we have to do is realize what they have offered us and support them; buy one.

Take a chance, they did.

Re: Leaving the cave takes courage

Don Orr

Looks like an excellent idea. The shearing effect should do a very nice job-like skewing a handplane. I'd like to see a video from them of it in action.

Re: Leaving the cave takes courage

Mark Hennebury

I agree, it looks like a good solution, and would be great to see the results, i seem to recall seeing a similar setup for a thickness planer head some years back, a Japanese planer if i recall.