# Hitachi P12R Planer Guages, Do I Need them?



## mstang1988 (Aug 6, 2012)

Ok, I recently bought a P12R off craigslist in ok condition for $100 bucks. I pulled the blades out as they need sharpening but noticed I don't have the Setting Gauges shown in the manual. Does anybody with one of these units know if I need them or can I get by without them? I really don't feel like spending $30 on something if I can avoid it, especially while trying to pay for a wedding. 

Instructions read "... press the provided Setting Gauges to the Cutter Head surface"..."ensuring the Blade evenly contacts the setting gauges use the provided Wrench to...".

I'm wondering if I can just use a hard wood block or something else. Manual is located here. Pg. 10 and 11 have the procedure to change the blades. 

http://www.hitachipowertools.ca/upload/fmproduct_filep/P12RA_OM_6768.pdf


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I'm not familiar with that model planer. In order for all the blades to cut in unison you would need the gauge to set all the blades to where all of them would cut. If one blade was sticking out more than the other you would have the one blade doing all the cutting so it wouldn't surface as smooth. In my opinion it's worth the expense.


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

Looking at the manual, the knives need to be set at the height of the flat surface of the drum.

You can make your own version of the setting gauge with a block of wood with a rare earth magnet to hold the wood to the flat drum section. This is important. As Steve N. mentioned the knives have to both be set to the same height.

I would make two of these, one for each side.









If you do not have a source of rare earth magnets locally, Lee Valley is a good internet source.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=42348&cat=1,42363


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## mstang1988 (Aug 6, 2012)

Dave Paine said:


> Looking at the manual, the knives need to be set at the height of the flat surface of the drum.
> 
> You can make your own version of the setting gauge with a block of wood with a rare earth magnet to hold the wood to the flat drum section. This is important. As Steve N. mentioned the knives have to both be set to the same height.
> 
> ...


That's exactly what I was thinking and more so what I was thinking then just guessing! Using just a flat piece of wood/aluminum/plastic it would be set correctly. This Video show the head and gauges on a different planer (F1000A). They look extremely basic (flat block with magnet) to me. The spring mechanism looks like it would help a lot.


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