The term planing should properly be applied only to machines that produce planes or flat surfaces, but the technical use of the term includes all cutting performed in right lines, or by what may be called a straight movement of tools.
As no motion except rotary can be continuous, and as rotary movement of tools is almost exclusively confined to shaping cylindrical pieces, a proper distinction between machine tools which operate in straight lines, and those which operate with circular movement, will be to call them by the names of rotary and reciprocating.
It may be noticed that all machines, except milling machines, which act in straight lines and produce plane surfaces have reciprocating movement; the class includes planing, slotting and shaping machines; these, with lathes, constitute nearly the whole equipment of an ordinary fitting shop.
It is strange, considering the simplicity of construction and the very important office filled by machines for cutting on plane surfaces, that they were not sooner invented and applied in metal work. Many men yet working at finishing, can remember when all flat surfaces were chipped and filed, and that long after engine lathes had reached a state of efficiency and were generally employed, planing machines were not known. This is no doubt to be accounted for in the fact that reciprocal movement, except that produced by cranks or eccentrics, was unknown or regarded as impracticable for useful purposes until late years, and when finally applied it was thought impracticable to have such movements operate automatically. This may seem quite absurd to even an apprentice of the present time, yet such reciprocating movement, as a mechanical problem, is by no means so simple as it may at first appear.
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A planing machine platen, for instance, moves at a uniform rate of speed each way, and by its own motion shifts or reverses the driving power at each extreme of the stroke. Presuming that there were no examples to be examined, an apprentice would find many easier problems to explain than how a planing machine can shift its own belts. If a platen or table disengages the power that is moving it, the platen stops; if the momentum carries it enough farther to engage or connect other mechanism to drive the platen in the opposite direction, the moment such mechanism comes into gear the platen must stop, and no movement can take place to completely engage clutches or shift belts. This is a curious problem that will be referred to again.
Reciprocating tools are divided into those wherein the cutting movement is given to the tools, as in shaping and slotting machines, and machines wherein the cutting movement is given to the material to be planed, as in a common planing machine. Very strangely we find in general practice that machine tools for both the heaviest and the lightest class of work, such as shaping, and butting, operate upon the first principle, while pieces of a medium size are generally planed by being moved in contact with stationary tools.
This problem of whether to move the material or to move the tools in planing, is an old one; both opinion and practice vary to some extent, yet practice is fast settling down into constant rules.
Judged upon theoretical grounds, and leaving out the mechanical conditions of operation, it would at once be conceded that a proper plan would be to move the lightest body; that is, if the tools and their attachments were heavier than the material to be acted upon, then the material should be moved for the cutting action, and vice versa. But in practice there are other conditions to be considered more important than a question of the relative weight of reciprocating parts; and it must be remembered that in solving any problem pertaining to machine action, the conditions of operation are to be considered first and have precedence over problems of strain, arrangement, or even the general principles of construction; that is, the conditions of operating must form a base from which proportions, arrangements, and so on, must be deduced. A standard planing machine, such as is employed for most kinds of work, is arranged with a running platen or carriage upon which the material is fastened and traversed beneath the cutting tools. [130] The uniformity of arrangement and design in machines of this kind in all countries wherever they are made, must lead to the conclusion that there are substantial reasons for employing running platens instead of giving a cutting movement to the tools.
A planing machine with a running platen occupies nearly twice as much floor space, and requires a frame at least one-third longer than if the platen were fixed and the tools performed the cutting movement. The weight which has to be traversed, including the carriage, will in nearly all cases exceed what it would be with a tool movement; so that there must exist some very strong reasons in favour of a moving platen, which I will now attempt to explain, or at least point out some of the more prominent causes which have led to the common arrangement of planing machines.
Strains caused by cutting action, in planing or other machines, fall within and are resisted by the framing; even when the tools are supported by one frame and the material by another, such frames have to be connected by means of foundations which become a constituent part of the framing in such cases.
Direct action and reaction are equal; if a force is exerted in any direction there must be an equal force acting in the opposite direction; a machine must absorb its own strains.
Keeping this in view, and referring to an ordinary planing machine with which the reader is presumed to be familiar, the focal point of the cutting strain is at the edge of the tools, and radiates from this point as from a centre to the various parts of the machine frame, and through the joints fixed and movable between the tools and the frame; to follow back from this cutting point through the mechanism to the frame proper; first starting with the tool and its supports and going to the main frame; then starting from the material to be planed, and following back in the other direction, until we reach the point where the strains are absorbed by the main frame, examining the joints which intervene in the two cases, there will appear some reasons for running carriages.
Beginning at the tool there is, first, a clamped joint between the tool and the swing block; second, a movable pivoted joint between the block and shoe piece; third, a clamped joint between the shoe piece and the front saddle; fourth, a moving joint [131] where the front saddle is gibed to the swing or quadrant plate; fifth, a clamp joint between the quadrant plate and the main saddle; sixth, a moving joint between the main saddle and the cross head; seventh, a clamp joint between the cross head and standards; and eighth, bolted joints between the standards and the main frame; making in all eight distinct joints between the tool and the frame proper, three moving, four clamped, and one bolted joint.
Starting again from the cutting point, and going the other way from the tool to the frame, there is, first, a clamped and stayed joint between the material and platen, next, a running joint between the platen and frame; this is all; one joint that is firm beyond any chance of movement, and a moving joint that is not held by adjustable gibs, but by gravity; a force which acts equally at all times, and is the most reliable means of maintaining a steady contact between moving parts.
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