Wondering if anyone has had any experience using the SCM/Minimax Xylent spiral cutter block on a jointer/planer?  Not much info available on the web. Ideally, I'd like to see direct comparison of this head to the Felder and/or Byrd.

Interesting observations, but of course the proof of performance will be in the pudding, i.e., the quality of cut judged by those that have actually used these.  The SCM xylent head has been available in Europe, but I get the impression that its not in wide use (yet) here in the US.

Good article: too bad they left out the Felder head (and the article does pre-date the availability of the SCM Xylent head). 

@J0hn

For one thing, judging by the pictures you posted, the SCM cutters look like they are square to the board while the Felder cutters are set at an angle, giving a shearing cut.  The shearing cut gives less tear out, little to no scalloping and a smoother finish, almost like a card scraper.

Not sure what you mean by 'fake spiral block'?  They look almost identical to me, what am I missing?

As Rob mentioned, on the Felder you can clearly see that the cutters are placed at an angle, while on the SCM they look almost parallel to the block.
They don't look perfectly parallel but the angle is clearly lesser than the Felder, the close up also shows that the cutters appear rounded like on the Felder. Those cutters are expensive, I would certainly try to find out how much there are on the block and how much they cost.

Also note the carbide inserts on the Bryd heads are curved slightly, almost like how you camber the edges on a hand plane blade.  My suspicion is that this reduces 'track marks' left on the surface.  I have a Shelix head on for my Dewalt 735 but haven't installed it yet.  I just picked up a new old stock 1991 Delta DC-33 13" planer and want to run that through it's paces before I commit to the 735.  I'm kind of hoping I prefer the 735 just because a Shelix head on the Delta is more than 2x the cost of the 735 at ~$900. 

If it were me I'd take a closer look at the Bryd heads. 

Michael: So would I, which is why I posted this inquiry.  It would appear that there are not many users of the Xylent (or I've also seen it as Xilent) cutter head yet in the US.  It would be nice to see some positive press on this: all that I've been able to find are reports of how quiet it is: that is nice, but it has to plane beautifully as well.  Marlow

Exactly.  Xilent/Xylent.  Maybe its a translation thing, but I've seen it in SCM documentation both ways???

I believe both cutterheads are very similar and perform well. Regardless, the advantages of the helical cutterhead are noise reduction, carbide material, possibility to replace individual damaged knives, and greatly reduced tear-outs with a much smoother finish on difficult wood. The true comparison to be made would be to plane similar boards in both machines and identify the small differences in finishing and chips if any.

The SCM Xylent cutterhead knives are set at an angle and not parallel with the blade. Without a direct picture of the cutterhead it is hard to judge which cutterhead has more or less of an angle. I would imagine the optimal knife degree/angle would be dependent on the curvature of the spiral around the cutterhead and number of knives. The SCM Xylent cutterhead appears to spiral around the cutterhead more and have less knive overlap.

The 410mm (16") Xylent cutterhead has 66 knives total.
The 520mm (20") Xylent cutterhead has 84 knives total.
The 630mm (24") Xylent cutterhead has 105 knives total.

Videos of these cutterheads
SCM Xylent Cutterhead Video where several knives are removed.
https://youtu.be/jk6rSzC9n5Q?t=339

Below are the noise comparisons between the Machines
SCM Xylent Cutterhead DB Noise Comparison (88db standard to 75db with Xylent Cutterhead)
https://youtu.be/yTpQkpbuKXM?t=55

Felder Noise Comparison (90db Standard to 80db with Silent cutterhead)
https://youtu.be/JZxY76Y92CQ?t=109

Since this old post has re-surfaced, I will take the opportunity to sing the praises of the SCM Minimax Xylent Cutterblock. I've been using if for a few weeks now and it provides superb results: as good or better than the Byrd head, which I thought was fantastic.

Hi Marlow,

First post on the FOG!

I've got a SCM FS41 Elite with a standard cutterblock and was thinking of upgrading to a spiral block. I have a choice of either retrofitting the SCM Xylent cutterblock (kit available from SCM $$$!) or the Byrd Shelix cutterblock.
My main reason for wanting to swap is NOISE. Of course I'll appreciate the other benefits as well
From your experience, which cutterblock would give the best noise reduction?

Any other observed performance differences between the two cutterblocks would be appreciated as well.

Thanks!
Kwai

FWIW...I put a Byrd Shelix on a Dewalt 735 and it reduced the noise level by 10-12 dB. 

Hi Cheese.
Wow, a 10-12dB real-world reduction is very impressive for the Shelix!
The SCM Xylent company video is claiming 13dB for their spiral block... pretty close (if you can fully believe promo material).

I noticed that the Shelix 16" cutterblock has 8 wings of knives with a total of 128 knives.
The Xylent 16"/410mm has only 66 knives as mentioned earlier by AtlantaWood.
Not sure what having twice/half as many knives means performance-wise, but that's a big difference in block design.

Cheers, Kwai

Hi Cheese.
Wow, a 10-12dB real-world reduction is very impressive for the Shelix!
The SCM Xylent company video is claiming 13dB for their spiral block... pretty close (if you can fully believe promo material).

I noticed that the Shelix 16" cutterblock has 8 wings of knives with a total of 128 knives.
The Xylent 16"/410mm has only 66 knives as mentioned earlier by AtlantaWood.
Not sure what having twice/half as many knives means performance-wise, but that's a big difference in block design.

to the FOG Kwai.

I performed a before and after test using a 5 buck app on an iPhone so I wouldn’t necessarily call it using scientific method. But there is a very discernable difference in sound pressure levels between the different planer options. So from my experience I’d say that the 13 dB claim from SCM is probably very realistic.

There’s just no way I’d go back to straight blades. I also have a Delta jointer and will add a Shelix/multiple carbide inserts head to that machine.

to the FOG Kwai.

Thanks for the warm welcome Cheese! Looking forward to learning and sharing

Quote from: online421 on January 14, 2019, 09:26 PM

for 410mm wide, Felder has 63 knives. almost same number of knives but Felder only has 2 rows, where SCM is 3 rows.

before I purchased my AD951 I asked my Felder agent and was told it is not the more knives the better.

Kwai, coming back to your question, if I were in your position, I will get the Xylent cutter block, yes it is more costly but spreading out 10-15 years, the differences is minimum, It is almost like you drive a Porsche and you want to swap out an engine, do you put in a better Porsche engine or an aftermarket engine? I know what I will do...

Thanks for the information and advice online421.
Your AD951 looks awesome, what a beast!

The 128 knives on the 16" Shelix does sound like a lot, I'd imagine that they might generate additional resistance when pushing a board over the planer with 8 wings of cutters. I wonder if that's why Felder went with just 2 rows of spirals?

Have you seen any direct comparisons between the Felder Silent-Power two-spiral and the SCM Xylent three-spiral cutterblocks?
The SCM rep has told me that the Xylent does require more power than their straight cutterblocks for the same depth of cut. Felder seems to have addressed the cutting efficiency with their Silent-Power...

I tend to agree with you about sticking with the Xylent. Good advice for the long run.

Cheers!

My Felder agent told me that as well, 3 rows of knife will generate more resistance. and maybe thats why Felder went with 2 rows? in the old days planer/jointer only had 2 straight knives anyway.

I havnt had any comparison between SCM Xylent and Felder's Silent power.  When I was in the market for a 510mm wide JP combo with spiral head I wanted a SCM, at least a Nova or a FS7.  But the closest machine to me at the time was in Italy.  It would take at least 3-4 months to get them here in NZ.

Compare to Felder, the NZ agent is 2.5km ( about 1.5mile) from where I live, they have 2 x AD951 with Silent power, the agent gave me a good deal (they knew I am a SCM man and have a couple of SCM machines in my workshop already), and I reluctantly purchased the AD951.

To date the Felder has been great, only regret is that I should have bought them earlier.