Am I crap? or is it my planer?

[markwm]

I have an Erbauer electric planer. The problem is, if say I'm planing down a door edge, it never produces a straight edge, it's always slanted off to one side as if I were planing an an angle.

I've tried over and over again taking care to make sure the planer is totally flat against the surface but the wonky edge still occurs.

Crappy planer? or crappy operator?

 

[big-all]

could be you the planer or both

un plug turn up side down take a plastic ruler draw a line accross the base plate where the front of the ruler is positioned 5mm from the side in front of the cutter block
rotate the cutter block with your fingers untill the blade lifts the ruler let the ruler move with the blade mark where the front of the ruler touches the base plate
repeat with the second blade on that side

cross to the opposit edge and repeat on each blade that side

if one or more blades proppels the ruler further then that blade will cut the most and needs to be adjusted back into line
you can do a1mm"v" nick in the ruler to make shure the ruler and blade move as one

other cause can be the base plate is twisted or not in line with the "nose" plate so imposible to get right

 

[noseall]

all humans are 'handed' and tend to have a stronger and a weaker side, or have a tendency to put pressure on the side that falls away from the body.

i always plane in one direction and then return the plane in the opposite direction.

this usually balances things out.

 

[gregers]

nah,just get your jack plane out and give that a go.

do you use the guide when you plane?if not give that ago,that way once you have checked that the cutters and level and square it will tell you whether your pushing down on one side more then the other.