PLANER MACHINE

Like a shaper, planer is used primarily to produce horizontal, vertical or inclined flat surfaces by a single point cutting tool. But it is used for machining large and heavy workpieces that cannot be accommodated on the table of a shaper. In addition to machining large work, the planer is frequently used to machine multiple small parts held in line on the platen.

Planer is mainly of two kinds namely open housing planer and double housing planer. The principle parts of the open housing planer are shown in Fig. The principle parts of the double housing planer are shown in Fig. The bigger job is fixed with help of the grooves on the base of the planer and is accurately guided as it travels back and forth. Cutting tools are held in tool heads of double housing planer and the work piece is clamped onto the worktable as shown in Fig. The worktable rides on the gin tool heads that can travel from side to side i.e., in a direction at right angle to the direction of motion of the worktable.

Tool heads are mounted on a horizontal cross rail that can be moved up and down. Cutting is achieved by applying the linear primary motion to the work piece (motion X) and feeding the tool at right angles to this motion (motion Y and Z). The primary motion of the worktable is normally accomplished by a rack and pinion drive using a variable speed motor. As with the shaper, the tool posts are mounted on clapper boxes to prevent interference between the tools and work-piece on the return stroke and the feed motion is intermittent. The size of a standard planer is specified by the size of the largest solid that can reciprocate under the tool. In addition to this, some other parameters such as table size (length and width), type of drive, number of speeds and feeds available, power input, weight of the machine, floor space required etc. may be required to specify a planer completely.

Source A Textbook of Basic Manufacturing Processes and Workshop Technology by Rajender Singh.