A planer machine comprises of different components that makes its working effective. The machine was explained to function similarly to shaper machines but still have some differences. It was explained to be a machine tool that is designed primarily for producing planes and flat surfaces using a single-point cutting tool.
Today we’ll look into the different component of a planer machine and their functions.
Contents
Planer machine parts:
The following stated below are the planer machine parts:
Bed:
The bed is like a box made of cast iron with a cross ribs. The cast iron offers compressive strength to the part, it is very heavy in weight and very large. All other component of the machine is mounted like column and all moving parts are supported by the bed.
This bed is provided with accurately machine v-type or flat type guideways for smooth sliding of the table. The bed house the driving mechanism for the table, this bed is twice the length of the table which makes the table to slide on it.
Read: Everything you need to know about a planer machine
Table:
The table is a rectangular material made of cast iron having a machined top surface to locate the work accurately. A t-slot is also provided on the entire length of the table to properly hold the workpiece. Some holes are drilled on its surface at regular intervals for supporting the poppets and stop pins.
A hollowed space is provided to collect the chips and a groove is cut on its side for clamping planer reversing dogs at different positions. This is seen at each end of the table.
Planer tables are available in either single or two separate tables which is mounted on guideways and can reciprocates separately or together. The bed contains hydraulic bumpers at the end to stop the table from overrunning and giving cushioning effect.
Housing or Column:
The housing is also like a box vertically structured and fastened on each side of the bed. They are also known as uprights. This planer machine part is heavily ribbed to bear heavy load during the cutting operations. The front face of each housing is design in precision ways to slide a cross rail up and down and also contains a two side tool head to slide upon it.
This column houses the cross-rail elevating screw, vertical and cross feed screws for tool heads. These screws are controlled by power or hand.
Cross Rail:
A cross rail is a rigid cast-iron that connects the two housings, which provides additional rigidity to the machine. It designed to move up and down on the face of the housing by means of elevating screw. This planer machine part can be clamped at any position and it is parallel to the top surface to the table.
The cross rail is provided with an accurately machined guideways at its surface. It allows cross-feeding the tool head saddle using a screw.
Tool head:
This planer machine part is similar to that of shaper machine in terms of construction and operation. This tool head is mounted on the cross rail by a saddle, which allows it to move crosswise to offers cross feed. The swivel base is positioned on the saddles and it is graduated to 60-degrees on each side. Due to this, the swivel can be tilted at any desired angle for machining angular surfaces by rotating down feed screw.
An apron is fixed on the face of the vertical slide which may be swiveled up to 20 degrees on each side for giving the tool clearance while working a vertical surface.
The clapper block is hinged that allows the clapper box to hold the tool post in which cutting tool in which the cutting tool is held firmly.
Read: The various parts of a shaping machine and their functions
Finally, a clipper block lifts the tool head upward during return stroke to avoid the cutting edge of the tool from dragging on the work. The tool heads can move up and down by moving the cross rail up and down.
That’s it for this article, planer machine parts. I hope you enjoyed the reading, if so, kindly comment and share. Thank!
