Operating instructions

Carefully study all of the options and adjustments for the depth adjustment mechanism. You
need to be an expert! This mechanism may take frequent maintenance, as very slight wear
will cause a significant change in performance. This mechanism can be adjusted to provide
very high performance. It can also be poorly adjusted making the planer very difficult to use!
Carefully evaluate custom modifications to the depth adjustment mechanism to fit your style
or prior experience.
Once you have the planer depth adjustment mechanism set up try to avoid changes in settings.
It will take time to adapt to a new setting.
Shapers may encounter a floating or lifting problem with the 2003 Model. This is because the
angle of the rear handle favors forward motion and provides little down pressure. This is a
radical departure from the prior planers sold by Clark Foam. They had a rear handle angle
that favored down pressure. The rear handle angle of the Skil 100 planer provides slightly
more downward pressure than the 2003 Model, but the Skil 100 is a lot heavier. The weight of
the Skil 100 helps hold the planer down on the blank. The result will be that the 2003 Model
will tend to lift up on its own and fail to cut to full depth. Therefore the shaper will have to
learn to exert more downward pressure when using the 2003 Model. The downward pres-
sure must also be properly focused.
A vacuum will increase the downward pressure.
During the adjustment process it may help to focus on the forward part of the rear base plate.
This is the area that makes a cut straight. Whether or not they are conscious of it all experi-
enced shapers are focusing their main pressure on the rear base plate.
PLANER LENGTH AND WIDTH THEORY
When developing or analyzing shaping technique it is helpful to understand the basic length
and width geometry of power planer shaping.
Our experience is that this is a difficult subject to understand, even for very experienced shapers.
It is, however, helpful for any shaper to understand this subject.
There is a universal base plate width of approximately 3". On early models sold by Clark
Foam we made an error and rounded the rear base plates making them about 3/8" narrower.
This has been corrected with the 2003 Model.