Ok, first off, Why spend close to $500 upgrading a $200 planer? Because I want to. Actually, I had a TP1300 for many years then sold it when I picked up a 15" planer. Realized that the 15"er was taking up too much space and a pain to move around (even with the mobile base) I further realized that I missed that TP1300, and that it has always done what was required. Came across a TP1300 last year and snatched it up fast and sold the 15" planer. This was a newer-old TP1300 and was not used much, but I don't think it was ever used with a dust collection system as it was full of sawdust.
Shelix Head. They are about a 45 min drive from me. The ladies in the front office could not have been nicer.
Top and side covers come off with 4 screws.
Gears and gear box come out. You have to remove the bolts holding the feed rollers and pull them out to get the gear box out.
I had to turn the planer upside down. Here, the new head is in place. The center rod that controls the height, I had to remove that. Prop the 4 columns on wood blocks to get the head to come off that rod so I could remove it. There are flats on both rods so it is easy to adjust for parallel. I also had to remove the depth of cut bolt and that will need adjusting as it is now a little more then 1/32 to deep.
The bolt that holds the puller on the old head striped and I had to use a Dremel with cutter to remove it, and that was the major crux of the whole operation. Once I got the pulley off and on the new head, everything went smooth.
I have this planer mounted on a flip stand which saves on space since I use both the planer and sander often. No more heavy lifting.
I would have took more pics, but that bolt for the pulley did get me a bit flustered
Did some test cuts and it works great, except I forgot to turn on the dust collector for the first pass. This is one tool that I plan on keeping for a long while. The TP1300 is a beast of a machine. The original cutter heads are solid steel with beefy gibs exactly like the bigger brothers. Problem is they no longer make blades for them, and the aftermarket blades get mixed reviews, but I will not have to worry about that.