Whats the consensus on planer blade height?

[Marc]

I searched for answers and I'm  liking "as long as all the blades are the exact same height...".  There must be a reason why different manufacturers call for different settings.
I have a 15" amt thickness planer, possibly made by King, and  need the blade height, or so i think.   One king manual gives, no reference,  another model says 0.059".  Grizzly has one at .070".....i find many different settings online.  The machine was totally taken apart due to a flood.
Any help is appreciated.

[JGrout]

This is just an observation based on setting knives in many 15 and 20" machines 

The back of the bevel is generally set in the same general plane as the cutter head I know that does not seem very scientific but it works 

IOW if you hit that general vicinity you should be good 

I would not make much more of it than that 

Joe

[stav]

Is that .059" or .070"? 

I doubt you would be able to really see the difference in these two settings.

[daddo]

A piece of paper is about .004" thick.

.074" is quite a chunk isn't it?

[Marc]

Thanks for the answers...im not good with decimals so to me, a jig is my best bet.
I saw a few jigs,,the type that has two ends with a long bar between them, you hold it on the cutterhead and the springs push the knives up to the jig setting. This would be ideal for me but when i saw that different machines had different settings i didnt want to order something wrong.

Stav : yes,, grizzly manual had .059" another had .070" another had millimeters

[rwe2156]

I agree with JGrout.  The most important thing is they are all the same height.

I think any height setting gauge will put you in the ballpark.

[Marc]

Yes...i was hoping it worked that way. I ordered a 15" knife setting jig for the diameter that i think my cutterhead is. I cant wait to try setting this tool up.

[Hokiemill]

Maybe I'm missing something here but I think the blade height is critical. The specific number isn't critical but it should be the same number as it was when the whole planer was set up, hence factory supplied blade jigs. If you change the height of the blades (even if you keep them all the same height) you no longer have the proper set up relative to the chip breaker, pressure bar, outfeed rollers, etc. If you don't have a factory supplied jig and don't have a blade height value for the current set up, then you can install the blades at whatever height makes sense but you'll need to go back and set up everything else relative to the new blade height.

[JGrout]

ergo my advice as to how I have seen knives set on all these generic planers 

I have dealt with enough to know they are all pretty much as I suggested and the height gauges that comes with these units also are all the same 

That is what you get with a popular planer configuration that make them all pretty much the same especially in parts like planer heads that are all mostly interchangeable 

Joe

[Marc]

Also, my planer was totally disassembled so im using a grizzly manual to follow which adjustments come in order. It seems that once the knives are set, the other pieces should be within a certain measurement in relation to the knives.