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Thread: How best to thin these boards?

  1. #1

    How best to thin these boards?

    I have hardwood boards 1" thick 6" wide and 24" long. I need them reduced in thickness from 1" to about 19mm.

    Currently I am using a thicknesser/planer like this;
    planer.jpg
    And it's doing the job well. As it's a hardwood I am having to do very small cuts, about a quarter of a mm at a time. So it's very time consuming and making a lot of sawdust.

    I am fairly new to woodworking so wanted to put it out there and ask is there a quicker method to reduce the thickness of a board this size? At a reasonable cost!
    thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    I don't know that specific planer, but most will take a pass that is substantially deeper than 10 thousandths of an inch. Try taking off a whole millimeter, or even more. If you get to the point that the machine bogs down, back off.

  3. #3
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    According to the manual, the max cut you can take with your boards is 1.6 mm. Since you are trying to take off approx 6 mm, you should be able to do it very conservatively in 4 passes.
    Last edited by Grant Wilkinson; 06-04-2017 at 7:43 PM.
    Grant
    Ottawa ON

  4. #4
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    Two additional things to consider. To minimize the chances of your boards warping you should take equal passes off each side rather than taking it all off one side. If the final finish is critical you might want to take one thicker pass on each side then a final thinner pass on each side. You can judge for yourself if the quality of the finish meets your approval with the thicker pass then no need to make the final pass thinner and you can take four 6mm passes as Grant suggests.

  5. #5
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    Re-saw this on a band saw or a table saw and then plane to the exact thickness necessary.
    No PHD, but I have a DD 214

  6. #6
    The planer/thicknesser I have works well, but as its a hardwood I'm cutting then the passes i take need to be shallow. If I try to take lets say two thirds of a mm the machine sounds unhappy, is clearly working very hard, the board slows down and fairly often gets stuck part way through the machine

    The bandsaw occurred to me too. Getting one that can cut the depth needed isn't a basic model though, talking £400 to £500

    Looked into hand planing too but quickly convinced myself it may be slower still.

    Any other thoughts?

  7. #7
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    What kind of wood are you planing?

    Lets see 1/4 mm = .0154 inch -- I can easily take off 1/32 - .03125 of white oak which is fairly hard material. Your planer should easily be able to handle a deeper cut.
    George

    Making sawdust regularly, occasionally a project is completed.

  8. #8
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    Experiment with a scrap and see what works for you.

  9. #9
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    Have you sharpened the blades recently? What is the hardwood you are planing?
    Grant
    Ottawa ON

  10. #10
    I plane 2mm at a time until I'm within 1/4" and then it's 1mm passes. Going from 25 to 19 can be done conservatively in 5 passes. 2 or three on each side

  11. #11
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    "1/4 mm = .0154 inch"

    1/4 mm = ~ 0.010".
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

  12. #12
    Sounds like you are pushing the machine to its limits.

    As said, you could resaw the boards but be aware this may result in warping. Of course, you could resaw an equal amount off each side may not be any quicker than just planing.

    I would buy a spare set of knives (you'll need them anyway when you're done) and see if that helps.

  13. #13
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    "you could resaw an equal amount off each side"

    That's not how you do it.
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by andy bessette View Post
    "you could resaw an equal amount off each side"

    That's not how you do it.
    Why not Andy?

  15. #15
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    "Why not Andy?"

    Because you would need to resaw much less than 1/8" off each side (including the saw kerf!) to leave material for planing. The band saw blade would simply wander away from the cut.
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

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