Anyone ever plane oak to .078?

[Steven J Corpstein]

I have a need for a 6" x 48" piece of red oak that is .078 (3/32" max) thick. Most edge banding is only .062 if that. Has anyone ever double-back taped wood to another thickness and run it through a planer? Seems rather risky in some respects.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

You can place a none moving board on your planer table, better with melamine cover and use it as a support for your 3/32" oak.

[Brian Peters]

Planer no, wide belt sander yes. Why the need for this specific thickness?

[Rob Russell]

If your thickness requirements are that strict, why not plane the piece down to close to what you need and sand it down to final thickness with a belt sander?

[Mike Cutler]

Steven.
I think a drum sander is your best bet here. 3/32'' is awfully thin to put through a planer, even backed.
I'm sure it could be done using a planer with enough setup, but with a drum sander it would be no sweat.

[Peter Quinn]

6"X48" is a bit beyond what I think of as edge banding, more like veneer at that point. My planer wont go below 1/8" and most oak I have sent through at that thickness starts to blow up. I have never used a bed board to push the limits as the wood itself is usually the restriction anyway. The tape thing might work, tricky part will be getting the veneer off the tape at that thickness in one piece.

With a band saw and a drum sander this is a pretty simple affair, sort of hit and miss with a planer, no guarantees it will or wont work. If you try it DO NOT STAND AT THE INFEED END OF THE PLANER!:D PDAMHIK

[Myk Rian]

I've gotten walnut down to 1/16" by using a router sled. Made a vacuum plate for my router table and glued some sand paper to that to help hold it down. The router took it right down easily.

[Ryan Baker]

I've done maple on my planer down to somewhere between 3/32 and 1/8. Red Oak may not work as well. If you have the option of a drum sander, that would definitely be a better way to do it.

[Casey Gooding]

Another option is to resaw the thickness you need and then sand (or better yet) hand plane smooth.

[Chip Lindley]

Bandsawing YES! Drum sanding YES! Surface planing NO! The chance of pulling that one off would be negligible at most. All would depend on how securely you adhere the *veneer* to a backer board. Double-sided tape would be too *cushy* IMO. Any other method would already have your *veneer* glued to a substrate, which you may not wish.

Pleeeze tell us why .078"???? We wait with baited breath!

[Mike Wellner]

Another option is to resaw the thickness you need and then sand (or better yet) hand plane smooth.

I think this is the safest way to do it.

[Tom Veatch]

I agree with the many other posts that recommend against. My planer's owners manual says to not thickness plane thinner than 1/2". That's probably "lawyer-speak". I've successfully planed walnut, maple and both red and white oak to 1/4" but I wouldn't go thinner. If there's any grain reversals at all, I've had 1/4" stock get very loud and exciting with little pieces flying out the infeed side. I'll almost guarantee that it will come apart at less than 1/8". Find another way!

[Steven J Corpstein]

I need to edge a panel but not get beyond the 2mm of face frame sticking past the panel. It's a fix for a screw up, the wall is bowed more than I allowed for when I scribed the edge of the panel. :)

[Frank Hagan]

I've done 1/4" with red oak on my DeWalt 735, but even at that thickness, some of the oak starts to turn to tatters. I wasn't successful at 3/16". It blows apart and makes an awful racket.

I didn't glue it or tape it to a carrier board; I have found that a "regular" surface carrier board does fine (i.e., another piece of red oak). I think the pressure of the rollers keeps the thinner board in place on the carrier board. I was using rift sawn red oak; I don't know if quarter sawn might do better.

The drum sander sounds like the way to go. Wish I had one! ;)

[john bateman]

I think I'd get some raw, thick sliced veneer and glue two thicknesses of it together.

[John Thompson]

Re-saw and then another drum sander advocate. I ran 3/8" through my 20" planer yesterday but that is about as thin as I will put through. Here is where a drum sander shines.

Sarge..

[Lee Schierer]

I have used my planer (lunch box type) to plane wood down to 3/32" - 1/8" thick with a backer board. I used double sided tape (not the foam kind) to attach the pieces to the substrate. Getting thinner than that may prove risky as the wood may shatter (I was planning maple). It will also be difficult to separate from the backer due to the double sided tape. I use an acrylic based double sided tape that I picked up at Lowes or Home Depot. It is about the thickness of scotch tape and has a liner material like mylar that makes it easier to peel off for removal. This tape is very sticky and has a good bond, so I generally use small strips or pieces of tape. Coating the entire surface would make the parts very difficult to separate.

[Mike Spanbauer]

If you're not stuck with grain and color matching (red oak is pretty easy though) AND do not have a drum sander... I would recommend a completely different route given limited options.

Adhesive backed commercial veneer is 1/42 and you can get paper backed / adhesive commercial veneer too. Simply apply 2 or even 3 layers to achieve the desired thickness. It'll stain and finish like the rest of the piece if you desire.

cheap enough and certainly safer than the alternatives.

mike

[Rick Fisher]

This may be a goofy idea but could you buy a piece of 1/8" oak ply, flip it over and plane the back off?

The veneer wouldnt be effected by any chipping or tear-out on veneers.

[Andrew Joiner]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven J Corpstein http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1009951#post1009951)
I need to edge a panel but not get beyond the 2mm of face frame sticking past the panel. It's a fix for a screw up, the wall is bowed more than I allowed for when I scribed the edge of the panel. :)

So is it a 6" thick panel? Why do you need 6" wide?

I have sawn many pieces of edge banding 1/32" to 1/16" thick by up to 3" wide on a table saw. I've made lot's of 3/4" wide veneer edge banding on a table saw. With a decent blade and feather boards you get a surface ready for glue or 100 grit RO sander.

[Lloyd James]

Hi, I have planned to 1/8", and recently planned Bloodwood to .080".
The piece was only 4" x 12", and I did have to scrap the 1st 2" due to my usual snipe. I do use two sided tape from McMaster Carr, that is located in Chicage. Their whole catalgue in on their web site and is user friendly.
I get orders the next day usually with normal shipping. I bought the thinner tape of two choices. I didn't have to put strips all the way down the board, but put two rows of segments. I started with a piece of wood that was about .19+ and clamped the two pieces lightly for only 10 min. It is amazing how tight the two pieces of wood stick together. I will have to be honest with you.
One end of the finished piece cracked, trying to divide the 2 pieces. I had to use two putty knives that had a sharp ground finish and to do it slowly.
I would suggest to do a few trial runs to learn the best way to do this technique. I did have some two sided tape with a cloth backing, and I can't locate the mfg. Even a 3M rep. never saw this type. The cloth is easier to peal off than the thin plastic backing. I make intricate toys, like Bull dozers that you can actuate the Bucket and lift the arms with separate levers. Good Luck
Is there a magnetic wood out there?

[Chris Padilla]

I think you have lottsa ideas here so I guess it depends on time and the equipment you have.

For slicing veneers (essentially what you're doing): bandsaw something close, drum/belt sand it down to what you need. I've been doing a lot of this on my recent project with walnut.

I've tried planing some walnut to thinner than 1/8". You ever send wood into a planer and seen nothing come out the other side?! ;) :D It all depends on the wood, your planer, planer knife sharpness, some luck, etc.

[Doug Shepard]

I haven't done this with anything as big as 6x48 but it's also possible to plane this flat with a hand plane. I did some 1/16" 3" x maybe 14" pieces of ebony and holly to use as inlay. After bandsawing, I used double stick tape to hold the wood down and had 2 wide "rails" of 1/16" plastic laminate on either side. Then kept the handplane riding the rails with skewed cuts until I wasn't making shavings any more. If you have access to a belt or drum sander, I'd use it but you can plane it without shards and power if you need to.

[Rich Enders]

Yes, with some success. I used an MDF carrier board on a MiniMax 300. I resawed the stock to about 1/8 inch thick , and then planed them down to 3/32. I needed about 60 of these for bentwood laminated legs.

I used air dried oak at about 7%-8% moisture, and had about a 75% success rate. The failures were blowouts at what I thought were minor defects. The blowouts are pretty exciting, so I switched halfway through to resawing to final thickness.

I mounted a Wood Slicer blade on the band saw, and cut to 3/32 as best I could. I then planed the main board so the finished plys would have one "good" side, and then one resawn side.

These all went together perfectly in the glue up with very little visual gluelines.

I have since heard (at SMC) that wetting the surface before planing helps. It may have upped my success rate, but I doubt it would completely eliminate the excitement.