We checked everything about the ph360. The feeding system is much more robust on the ph360, so it was a mystery why this might be happening. After our discussion about what it could be and after I left, Rusty, the ph360 owner, took some time to test what it could be. The material he was planing, longleaf pine, is very pitchy, and pitch can build up quickly on the feed rollers in the planer. These feed rollers are very important as their function is not only to push the material through the planer, they also hold the material firmly, so the board cannot move or vibrate as it goes through the planer. These rollers had a lot of pitch built up on them and apparently this buildup was causing the problem. Rusty cleaned one side of each of them and watched the result on the board. The chatter changed. Part of it cleared up. He cleaned the rest of them and the chatter went completely away! Apparently, though the pitch appeared hard, it allowed that board to vibrate enough to cause this chatter on the finished product.
So, keep your feed rollers clean when working with pitchy material. We have used a mixture of soap and water to put on these rollers to keep the pitch buildup to a minimum, and have even resorted to turpentine or paint thinner to help reduce the buildup when in very pitchy wood. Apparently, it is worth the effort to keep these rollers cleaned.
