Thicknesser advise 15 in Vs 20 in

[Waldo]

G'day Pjt, having run spotted gum through the thicky with the shelix c/head you'd be aware of the normal tearout you are more than likely to encounter, did you have any issues with tearout with the shelix head installed on your 381?

[pjt]

Hi Waldo,
In this batch of reclaimed boards some 2000 lm approx. there was a mix of species 3 at a fair guess, I was told one of them was spotted gum a choclate brown in colour, fairly even grain, this one I had no trouble with at all if I remember correctly as was the ironbark (red/grey) the boards were fed thru on the 30ft/min speed and usually at least 2mm depth of cut until I was down to finish size and not a lot of regard for grain direction, if it came out smooth that's the direction it stayed, if it was a bit torn up I would look at it and make an evaluation as to whether I need to turn it round or reduce depth of cut or feed rate, or all three, at a guess maybe 10% needed this scrutiny and I suspect these were a different species or with interlocked wavy type of grain, u know the one that it doesn't matter which way it goes thru it tears up, looks brilliant when u get it right tho I certainly had less trouble with the shelix than with the straight blades and as I say I still had the option of slower feed and lighter cut.

Does this help?

I have some pics of one lot of the boards....I'll add them a bit later tonight, have to find and resize...
Peter.

There's a few with a look at the surface finish u might be able to zoom in, I didnt take any of the tearout.

[Waldo]

u know the one that it doesn't matter which way it goes thru it tears up, looks brilliant when u get it right tho I certainly had less trouble with the shelix than with the straight blades and as I say I still had the option of slower feed and lighter cut.
Does this help?
I have some pics of one lot of the boards....I'll add them a bit later tonight, have to find and resize...
Peter.

pjt, that does help a bit. The amount of s/gum that became useless due to tearout when I ran 1 cube through the thicky, is something I'm trying to work out if shelix c/heads are worth the $ so I don't waste good timber.

A pic of a board with bad tearout and then run through would be very handy to me right now, especially if it's s/gum.

I'm taking a piece with bad tearout tomorrow to the WWS in the hope that there is a display with a Shelix c/head so I can't work out do I save for one or not.