I have been meaning for a year or two to repair my planer. The height adjustment comes from turning a screw-threaded shaft on the one side which then goes to a bevel gearset/cross-shaft/second bevel gearset to another vertical threaded shaft on the other side.
The craftsman part has been discontinued for years... nor would I want a failure-prone plastic replacement. The aftermarket made gears for a while that were steel, but alas, no longer.
So I plan on measuring the stock gears and seeing if I can find some. I tried Grainger, McMaster, and Fastenal but no dice.
Is there a WalMart for gears and such? I'm not against using a chain and a couple cogs either.
315.271580 is the planer. 24786.00 is the part number.
In reply to Curtis73 :
Boston Gear? I don't know if they are still around, but they used to have a lot of universal industrial gears.
Mr_Asa
HalfDork
3/19/20 7:52 p.m.
I know that McMaster has sprockets and chains. What exactly doesn't work for them?
If its just turned by hand, you could probably get away with a system cobbled together with bike chain parts
Mr_Asa
HalfDork
3/19/20 7:54 p.m.
Mr_Asa said:
I know that McMaster has sprockets and chains. What exactly doesn't work for them?
If its just turned by hand, you could probably get away with a system cobbled together with bike chain parts
A sprocket and chain would work fine with some modification. The bottom of this planer would have to be modified for a chain to have clearance. Basically, I would have to cut off the bosses for the mounts for the cross shaft. The existing underside has a single clear-path channel in which the cross shaft sits. A chain would need two clear paths.. which can be done, just not as easy as finding the right bevel gears.
TurnerX19 said:
In reply to Curtis73 :
Boston Gear? I don't know if they are still around, but they used to have a lot of universal industrial gears.
They are still around. From what I found, they don't stock much in the way of gears. It seems like they have now gone more toward industrial-sized quantities of spec gears... as in - if I were Craftsman and needed 64,000 gears for a production run of 16,000 planers, that's who I'd send the DXF file to. Still worth a call. Can't hurt.
