Thicknessing thin pieces?

[Doug71]

I have owned an old Sedgwick MB planer/thicknesser for a few months, I'm loving it apart from the minimum you can set the thicknesser to is 10mm. I haven't got round to selling my old Axminster PT yet which goes down to (I think) 5mm so I still use that for thin stuff.

I have seen a couple of ways of thicknessing thin bits on Youtube etc by using a sled or false table, just wondered what works for people, especially what anyone has done with the Sedgwick?

If it's a faff I'll just keep the little Axminster.

Thanks in advance, Doug

 

[9fingers]

Sleds work well for me. A batten on the underside to catch on the infeed edge of the table keeps it from being dragged in through the thicknesser.
Wax the surface or use engineering plastic sheet (ebay suppliers will do cut to size HDPE)

Bob

 

[Jonathan]

I do the same as Bob, just make sure the sled is held down well !

Sent from my Redmi Note 9S using Tapatalk

 

[DaveL]

And me! I have a section of laminate flooring with a batten to hold it on the bed.

 

[Mike G]

Et moi aussie. It's worth writing down its thickness on the board in permanent marker so that you can still use the depth gauge of the machine.

 

[Doug]

Thicknessed some 4mm stock a while back, I found the only way I could do it without the thicknesser eating it was to stick the timber to some 12mm MDF with double sided tape, worked a treat.

 

[9fingers]

Its possibly only the leading edge that needs taping?

Bob

 

[Mike G]

Well, I'd certainly want enough tape at the front end such that the workpiece was taped 100% until it had reached the second feed roller. After that, if it's straight grained, then maybe not so important. Funny things can happen between the first and second rollers.

 

[Malc2098]

I just bought a drum sander for my 2.5mm guitar sides.

 

[9fingers]

I just bought a drum sander for my 2.5mm guitar sides.

Yes far better for the job. I'd say anything below 4mm on a thicknesser has a fair probability of a problem. Certainly start with stock a good bit longer than you need.

Bob

 

[RogerS]

Lucky wotsit, Doug. I had to sell mine when we moved.

Have you fitted Barke Turnblades from Doug at Cutting Solutions? Adjust and fit the carrier once. Never again. Just slide the blades in. Job done.

 

[Robert]

Never occurred to me to have a fixed piece on the bed as described above. I've just put two pieces through together if I want thinner than the minimum of the machine. No double sided tape or anything but then again I've not tried for thinner than about 6mm.

 

[Woodbloke]

On my Jet 260 I can get down to 4mm provided the wood is fairly straight grained; less than 4mm and it'll shatter. As others have said, just use a dedicated mdf sled with a wee upstand at one end to support the job as it goes though.
I had some highly figured 6mm thick Birds Eye Maple to thickness this afternoon but I decided not to risk it so passed them through the drum sander instead. Perfick - Rob

 

[Doug]

Its possibly only the leading edge that needs taping?

Bob

I tried that Bob to save on tape, (tight moi :lol, but with limited success, I’m guessing if I’d altered the setting on the infeed & outfeed rollers it would have helped but it wasn’t worth the faff.

 

[Malc2098]

I've stuck sandpaper to my sled with success in holding the workpiece through the planer.

The same system is sort of employed on my drum sander with a 100 grit conveyor belt.

 

[Doug71]

Thanks for all the feedback chaps.

I was just a bit concerned about putting a false table on as at 10mm the anti kick back finger things are just about touching the bed but I presume they will just lift up as I wind the table up.

I will have a play with both methods after the weekend, if successful I can sell the little old Axminster PT. I am terrible for not getting rid of old machines, until a few weeks ago I had 2 morticers, 2 PT's and 2 spindle moulders :lol:

RogerS, yes I have fitted replaceable type blades, I went for the ETSA system, think it's the same as you mention but not sure. I will be getting my next lot of knives from Cutting Solutions, I got the last ones from elsewhere, won't go into details but the customer service I received was terrible.

 

[Doug71]

Just an update, I screwed a lath on to the end of a piece of 18mm MDF today to experiment with the false table method and it worked fine, planed a piece of pine down to about 5mm with no problems.

One bonus I never thought of is that I have a Wixey digital gauge on the planer, it's dead easy to set the readout to allow for the extra table thickness so I don't have to confuse myself with the maths

 

[Phil]

Sleds work well for me. A batten on the underside to catch on the infeed edge of the table keeps it from being dragged in through the thicknesser.
Wax the surface or use engineering plastic sheet (ebay suppliers will do cut to size HDPE)

Bob

:text-+1:

 

[Custard]

This is an interesting one.

I have a drum sander, but the general rule is you can't remove more in a single pass than the size of the grit particles, so for the 60 or 80 grit that most people use the absolute limit for timber removal is 0.25mm on each pass. To take a board down with a drum sander from say 5mm to 3mm would therefore take eight passes.

But with a thicknesser the limits per pass are much higher, so there's a significant time saving incentive in using a sled to process thinner boards. I do a fair bit of lamination work, and my typical lamina are generally in the range 1-3mm, consequently I've tried pretty hard to make this work.

The frustrating thing is that the results are a bit random and success is never guaranteed. Using double sided tape to secure the workpiece helps improve the odds, but if you use too much tape then that can add so much time that it negates the benefit of using a thicknesser sled in the first place. Sharp planer knives, a waxed table, quarter or rift sawn workpieces, straight grained workpieces, a slow feed speed, and a maximum of 0.5 to 0.75mm stock removal per pass all help, but I still find that some batches work and others don't, without ever completely understanding why.

 

[Trevanion]

I still find that some batches work and others don't, without ever completely understanding why.

I think it's just simply some pieces do not like being planed thinly, especially with the whack of two or more full-width cuts every rotation. I wonder if those fandangled helical heads are superior to straight knives for planing at that sort of thickness because they A: Cut on a helical and B: Take smaller bites. The stiffness of the timber probably contributes too, you can get some timber that can bend easily while other pieces of the same timber that also looks identical would rather snap than bend, perhaps this stiffness helps prevent any pull-up into the cutterblock between the feed rollers.

Me? I drill holes with the thicknesser.

 

[sunnybob]

Have any of you luthier /veneer types ever seen this?

https://www.byrnesmodelmachines.com/sander.html

 

[billw]

I ran some 4mm stock through my thicknesser earlier and it was OK, although the planer says the minimum is 5mm so I doubt I'd try any thinner than I did.

A sled and double-sided tape would be my next-in-line method, would love a drum sander but as Custard says it's a bit laborious to use for thicknessing, or rather thinnessing.

 

[Cabinetman]

It looks to me Trevanian as if that went through the wrong way! Mind you it’s quite possible that it was bad going in the other direction a bit further along in which case there was no way you could you could win.
I re-saw on the bandsaw and then plane them by hand to remove the saw marks, it does mean you need the pieces a few inches longer than required of course. Ian

 

[billw]

Have any of you luthier /veneer types ever seen this?

https://www.byrnesmodelmachines.com/sander.html

For the price that's quite tempting. Home made ones also seem like a potential solution.