A planer is a type of metalworking machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the

workpiece and a single-point cutting tool to machine a linear toolpath. Its cut is analogous to that
of a lathe, except that it is (archetypally) linear instead of helical. (Adding axes of motion can yield
helical toolpaths; see "Helical planing" below.) A planer is analogous to a shaper, but larger, and
with the entire workpiece moving on a table beneath the cutter, instead of the cutter riding a ram
that moves above a stationary workpiece. The table is moved back and forth on the bed beneath
the cutting head either by mechanical means, such as a rack and pinion drive or a leadscrew, or
by a hydraulic cylinder.

Applications
[edit]Linear planing
The most common applications of planers and shapers are linear-toolpath ones, such as:

 Generating accurate flat surfaces. (While not as precise as grinding, a planer can remove
a tremendous amount of material in one pass with high accuracy.)
 Cutting slots (such as keyways).
 It is even possible to obviate wire EDM work in some cases. Starting from a drilled or
cored hole, a planer with a boring-bar type tool can cut internal features that don't lend
themselves to milling or boring (such as irregularly shaped holes with tight corners).

[edit]Helical planing
Although the archetypal toolpath of a planer is linear, helical toolpaths can be accomplished via
features that correlate the tool's linear advancement to simultaneous workpiece rotation (for
example, an indexing head with linkage to the main motion of the planer). To use today's
terminology, one can give the machine other axes in addition to the main axis. The helical planing
idea shares close analogy with both helical milling and single-point screw cutting. Although this
capability existed from almost the very beginning of planers (circa 1820),[1]the machining of helical
features (other than screw threads themselves) remained a hand-filing affair in most machine
shops until the 1860s, and such hand-filing did not become rare until another several decades
had passed.

[edit]Prevalence of current use

Planers and shapers are now obsolescent, because other machine tools (such as milling
machines, broaching machines, and grinding machines) have eclipsed them as the tools of
choice for doing such work. However, they have not yet disappeared from the metalworking
world. Planers are used by smaller tool and die shops within larger production facilities to
maintain and repair large stamping dies and plastic injection molds. Additional uses include any
other task where an abnormally large (usually in the range of 4'×8' or more) block of metal must
be squared when a (quite massive) horizontal grinder or floor mill is unavailable, too expensive,
or otherwise impractical in a given situation. As usual in the selection of machine tools, an old
machine that is in hand, still works, and is long since paid-for has substantial cost advantage over
a newer machine that would need to be purchased. This principle easily explains why "old-
fashioned" techniques often have a long period of gradual obsolescence in industrial contexts,
rather than a sharp drop-off of prevalence such as is seen in mass-consumer technology
fashions.

[edit]Configurations and sizes

There are two types of planers for metal: double-housing and open-side. The double-housing
variety has vertical supports on both sides of its long bed; the open-side variety has a vertical
support on only one side, allowing the workpiece to extend beyond the bed. Metal planers can
vary in size from a table size of 30"×72" to 20'×62', and in weight from around 20,000 lbs to over
1,000,000 lbs.

[edit]History

Early planing ideas are known to have been underway in France in the 1750s.[2] In the late 1810s,
a variety of pioneers in various British shops (including James Fox, George Rennie, Matthew
Murray, Joseph Clement, and Richard Roberts) developed the planer into what we today would
call a machine tool. The exact details have been contentious and will probably never be known,
because the development work being done in various shops was undocumented for various
reasons (partially because of proprietary secrecy, and also simply because no one was taking
down records for posterity). Roe (1916) provides a short chapter that tells the story as thoroughly
as he was able to discover it.[3]

It consists in producing a plane by the aid of a machine, in addition to employing some of the
means adopted for hand-planing. Strictly speaking, a machine for planing is any machine which
produces plane surfaces; but, in this place, the term planing-machine is meant to signify one of a
large class that produce planes by means of a horizontal to-and-fro motion, termed, in lengthy
language, a horizontal reciprocating rectilineal movement. Small planing-machines, for planing
surfaces of only a few inches area, are named shaping-machines, and most of them are actuated
by a crank-pin and aconnecting-rod which moves the sliding head or tool-head to and fro in the
desired path. To this head the cutting-tool is attached, and is moved while the work being cut
remains comparatively stationary. This class of machines is represented by the one in the middle
of Plate 35.

Large planing-machines are so made that the piece of work to be planed shall move to and fro,
but not the cutting-tool. The piece is thus moved by means of a moving table, to which the article
is fastened with screw-bolts and plates. The table is provided with planed vee-slides or ridges,
that slide to and fro while in vee-grooves of similar shapes, the vee-grooves being formed in the
upper part of the bed, which is a heavy fundamental portion of the machine.
Plate 48

Large planing-machines have no motion produced with a crank-pin and connecting-rod, and are
represented in Plate 48, which shows all their ordinary arrangements. Of the two machines in this
Plate, the one shown by Fig. 653 is the simplest, because it has only one slide-rest; and this
portion, together with all the other portions, are named in the Figure. Such machines are of a
great variety of sizes, that they may be suitable for planing an area of only about one foot, and for
planing one of three or four hundred feet. They are distinguished into sizes by the length, width,
and height of the articles that may be planed with them; and if the extreme length of the table's
travel in one direction is twenty feet, the machine is said to have a twenty-feet travel. In the Figure
the heaviest portion, termed the bed, is seen by its name, and the vee-grooves belonging to it are
shown by V G. The vee-slides which fit the grooves are not seen, being under the table, and
usually solid with it. In order to move such tables to and fro, several means are adopted. The
most general of these consists in employing a step-rack and a step-pinion. This rack is either
solid with the under side of the table, or firmly fastened to it, and the teeth of the rack are
engaged with the teeth of the pinion, the pinion being in the intermediate space of the bed. To
rotate the step-teeth pinion, it is provided with a spindle which is rotated by teeth-wheels,
connected to the band-pulleys seen in the Figure at the further side of the machine. Another
mode of moving a planing-table consists in using a screw and nut, the nut being firmly attached to
the under side of the table, instead of a step-teeth rack, that the screw may be made to rotate in
the nut while extending along the intermediate space or gap of the bed. This is the principal or
main screw of the machine, and has but one sort of motion, which is a rotary movement around
its major axis; consequently, the screw-nut on the screw must move in a path which is parallel to
the length of the screw, and the screw is so placed that it is parallel to the planes of the table and
its vee-slides. Whatever small quantity of motion the main screw may have in the direction of its
length results merely from the small amount of wear of the shoulders.

By whichever of these means the table is moved, the band-pulleys are required to impart the
motion; these are worked with leather bands which are driven by the shaft of the factory, and if a
main screw is employed to move the table, the pulleys may be at one end of the bed, instead of
at the back of the machine. The leather bands are, in many cases, actuated by a power shaft
situated above the machine; but the preferable plan consists in providing a shaft beneath the
machine, and placing the machine pulleys as low as possible. Such an arrangement involves less
danger to workmen, if the pulleys are incased with sheet iron, and the conveyance of heavy
pieces to and from the machine-table, is also greatly facilitated.

The to-and-fro motion of the table with the work fixed thereto, and the movement of a cutting tool,
in contact with the work, together effect the planing; therefore the means of obtaining this result
must be described. Through a planing-machine being required to produce a plane, either of three
plans may be adopted ; the piece to be planed may move and generate a plane by its movement,
while the tool for cutting remains a fixed point; or the point represented by the tool may move and
generate a straight line while the piece of work moves at right angles to the line; or both the tool-
point and the piece of work may move, and both generate planes by the movement, the two
planes coinciding with each other. Of these three arrangements, the one belonging to the
machines here mentioned, is that by which the tool-point is made to generate a straight line
across the direction of the table's motion to and fro. This rectilineal motion of the tool is its
horizontal traverse or travel, and is obtained by the tool being fixed in a tool-holder and slide-rest
which are moved across the table by means of the traverse screw and carriage. Through this
screw being supported with shouldered bearings at each end of the carriage, the screw has but
one sort of movement, which is a rotary motion around its major axis, similar to the motion of a
main screw for moving a planing table. The travel of the slide-rest and tool is therefore effected by
rotating the screw in its nut, which is fastened in the slide-rest, the rotation being done by an
operator with the handle shown by H. By reference to the Figure it will be seen that the
twostandards of the machine are those portions to which the carriage is fixed, and this fixing is
effected by screw-bolts and nuts situated at the further side of the carriage.