Characteristics of sugar maple wood surfaces produced by helical planing

In real helical planing, the knives form a continuous oblique cutting edge with ail angle to the cutterhead rotation axis. Tool manufacturers affirm that the helical cutterheads produce superior quality surfaces. However. literature oil the effect of this cutting geometry oil the surface quality of planed wood is scarce. The surface quality of helical-planed Sugar maple was evaluated as a function of two planing modes, four feed speeds, and three cutting depths. The helical planing across the grain produced surfaces with higher roughness and improved wetting properties. A slight torn grain was observed in some samples that were helical-planed obliquely to the grain. As feed speed increased, surfaces became rougher and wetting was accelerated. Increasing cutting depth reduced surface roughness, mainly when planing across the grain. Cross-grain helical planing appears to have a good potential to reduce dependence on sanding to improve surface adhesion properties and enhance performance of coatings.