Felder AD941 vs SCM Fs41ES
开云体育I can second Netanel on finish from Tersa. It is smooth and in raking light you can see the blade mark lines but not feel them. I go to 180 (unless need lower grit finish) and do a few swipes to remove milling marks.It does bother me that the blades nick easily. I thought I was getting nicks due to not being careful about what I plan. So plan was to get a new set and use it judiciously on final planning. Well I did that but nicked blade on first pass on glue line. A huge benefit of a Dual 51 is to be able to joint plane glueups. One can shift blades but still annoying. Tersa finish is great. The chip volume is high which may be an issue for business but as David said, it makes lighter bags. I am not sure which way I will go if there is another planer in my life. FWIW, few yrs back I read on Sawmill Creek that dummy blades are available for purchase, not recommended to use older worn blades as dummy blades and surprisingly there is a place that sharpens Tersa carbide blades. Imran Malik IAM Wood Creations On Mar 27, 2025, at 1:16?AM, netanel.belgazal via groups.io <netanel.belgazal@...> wrote:
? Yes, you can see the difference between Tersa and spiral. You can easily go from planer directly to 150-180 (my final grit when using hardwax)
with spiral I had to go down to 80-100 to remove some minor milling marks.?
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60 gallon can handle it, it depends on how frequent you are willing to empty it. I can easily fill a 35 gallon in a single milling operation.
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开云体育I had a 30 gal drum on cyclone with 18” woodmaster planer and have RL125 since 2018 with Dual51 equipped with a Tersa head.I filled cyclone filter once maybe twice in 15-16 yrs but have filled RL125 with Tersa on Dual51 many times. According to the Felder site RL125 chip collection bag is 200 L (~53 Gal) but not sure how much one can practically fill, perhaps 40 to 45 gal.? It happens much less often now with RL compared to early on. I can see that 30 gal filling quickly with the fluffy chips created by the Tersa head. The 15 min timer I installed as a filter cleaning reminder also helps. Imran Malik IAM Wood Creations On Apr 1, 2025, at 1:44?AM, netanel.belgazal via groups.io <netanel.belgazal@...> wrote:
? Today I did the mistake of not looking at the dust collector fill indicator when I joint/plane a 18" glue up (I swapped a bag 2 days ago and did minimal milling since then)
The entire cyclone and filter were full of chips. I spent something like 2 hours cleaning everything. 35 gallons aren't enough for this machine. |
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I have stayed out of this conversation (maybe I still should!) but here are my observations:
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Spiral vs Tersa may not be as cut and dry as is being stated.
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I have had:
I would agree with everyone around the Byrd version of the spiral head.? I found it to be acceptable, but not impressive with its finish.? Some of this may be tied to the quality and design of the machine.? Vibration will not help in the production of a smooth surface IMHO.
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The Silent Power head was far better than the Byrd head.? Smoother and on the slower speed (AD-941 has 2 speeds) it was pretty glassy.? It was only a 4hp machine, so I assume a larger cut might have affected the quality.?
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The Tersa machine was a 9hp 3ph machine with 3 separate motors and should have made for the best possibility of a smooth surface.? This was a Griggio that was over 1600 pounds with a massive casting, two output feed rollers and variable speed feed rate.? The surface was very good but I would not say it was better than the Silent Power cutter block results.? The machine was a beast for sure and the knives were easy to change- unlock the head, rotate to index it to the whole in the casting, pop the wedges and slide it out.
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The Xylent head on my SCM L'invincible FS 7 is similar to the Silent Power on the AD-941.? The difference is that I now have four speeds.? On the slowest speed, I am not sure you need to sand the wood.? Under an inspection lamp with mahogany you can only see the grain with no machine marks at all!? ?I have had several people to the shop that would agree with me and all of them were blown away at the surface with zero snipe.? This is the heaviest machine by far at 2350 pounds and it is a 15hp machine with almost no sheet steel.? There is very little vibration an very little compromise in design.
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Comparing a machine that has a Byrd, or converted to Byrd (there are other like brands that look similar as a 'basic' insert cutter) to a machine that is of superior design and construction would not be an apples for apples comparison IMHO.? Moving from that style, or a straight cutter, to Tersa on a better machine would be light years better.
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Am I biased because of what I have, maybe, but I have owned all five types in different levels of quality so I feel like I have a good basis to judge them all.
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To really judge the two options would require two exact machines, one with Tersa and one with a Silent Power or Xylent or Xplane to truly compare them.? I have yet to see the results of THAT test.? I only hear word of mouth.? I am a data guy, so it is hard for me to believe without experiencing the actual results.
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As far as the chips that come off the planer, agreed that the index cutterheads have smaller chips.
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PK?
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I have a Hammer a3-31 with the silent power spiral head. It is probably the only thing I really like about the machine. My boards come out glassy smooth and I can go right to higher grit finish sanding.
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I have never used tera knives so I can't compare, but I personally don't feel like the spiral head leaves anything more to be desired from a finish standpoint. Whenever I eventually replace the hammer with a better machine, I will be sticking to a spiral head.
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Larry Long NeckJust a noob trying to learn the ways of wood > Making youtube videos now! ??? - |
imran
PK
Larry Long Neck