Best way to plane thin stock?

[Victor Robinson]

I'm familiar with a variety of ways one might do this but I've never really tried.

I was considering just carpet-taping the stock (about 1/4 to 3/8" thick) to a plywood sled and running it through the planer. But I really hate carpet tape...at least the stuff I use has a labor-intensive and messy cleanup. Not to mention it can be sort of bulky in some places. Perhaps there's a better double-stick tape I could use? I'm a little scared off the planer chewing up the thin stock and spitting it back out...

I realize a drum sander would be ideal here but that's not happening anytime soon.

Taking light passes with jointer is one option I suppose, but I'd like to get all my pieces to uniform thickness in one pass.

[Doug Hepler]

Victor,

How thin is the stock? How thin do you want it to be? Do you like handplanes?

I know its not nice to answer a question with a question, but think of this as a workup.

Doug

[Victor Robinson]

The stock tends to be around 3/8" thick and I want it to stay as close to that as possible. It usually comes from resawing a board (for box sides) where I'm slightly off resulting in two boards with slightly different thickness, which I want to match of course.

I hate handplanes. Well, I only have one - a cheap block plane that doesn't perform how I think it's supposed to no matter how much elbow grease I've put in. I know this would be a tiny task for someone with one or two properly tuned handplanes, but that ain't me!

[Doug Hepler]

Victor,

I understand your attitude about hand planes.

Consider trying something like this: Make a sled consisting of a piece of 3/4" MDF or something else dead flat and stiff, e.g., 3/4" Baltic Birch. If the pieces are very long, you might need to stiffen the sled.

Glue a fence about 3/8" thick at one end of the sled for the work pieces to rest against. Use double sided fabric tape (carpet tape made of woven fabric) to hold the workpiece against the sled and take light, slow passes on your jointer. Use pushers, hold-downs, etc as needed to be safe.

The work piece should be trapped between the sled and the jointer table and unable to slip backwards because of the fence. The fence will get planed, too, perhaps just on the first pass, so no metal.

If you are not re-surfacing the cut edge after each re-sawing pass you should consider doing that, so that you need only plane the one side of each piece after you resaw it.

Hope this helps

Doug Hepler

[Bob Abbott]

At 1/4 to 3/8" you should be able to just plane it. Just take very slow steps (~1/256" to 1/64" per pass). I have planed below 3/16" without self destruction. At about 1/8" or less I've had to go to a sled to avoid spectacular results.

[Carroll Courtney]

I recently had to do the same thing,laminating several pieces of maple down to 1/4 then to the drum sander to 1/8.I had no problems doing the same as you describe,but I just glued on a very small ledge or shoulder at the end of the sliding table,watch out for grain that alittle crazy.Of course,make sure that the blades are sharp and as others said take lite passes.-----Carroll

[Jamie Buxton]

If you just feed thin stock into a planer, the leading edge of the stock gets sucked up into the knives, and the stock explodes. If you can get the stock to the point that the outfeed roller bears on the stock, you don't get the explosion. One way to do this is to use a sled -- plywood, lumber, whatever -- and glue just the leading edge of the stock to the sled. After you thickness the stock, you cut the "keeper" part away from the glued-down part.

[Will Overton]

I've recently gone from using a planer and sled, to using a bandsaw and 16-32 drum sander. On some jewelry boxes I'm working on now is was nice to get 1/2" and 1/8" parts needed, from the same piece of wood. Also didn't fill the dust collector. :)

[Joe Chritz]

A lunchbox planer should be able to go to 1/4" or a little less without to much trouble. A big stationary may have a little more trouble getting that thin.

I would try to just run it through first and see how it works. New blades wouldn't hurt either.

Joe

[Eiji Fuller]

If you just feed thin stock into a planer, the leading edge of the stock gets sucked up into the knives, and the stock explodes. If you can get the stock to the point that the outfeed roller bears on the stock, you don't get the explosion. One way to do this is to use a sled -- plywood, lumber, whatever -- and glue just the leading edge of the stock to the sled. After you thickness the stock, you cut the "keeper" part away from the glued-down part.


now thats a keeper tip.

[Randy Gazda]

I plane down to 1/8" with my Delta 12.5" planer all the time. with fairly straight grain wood it is no problem.

[Lee Schierer]

I have planed thin stock on carrier boards in my planer using double sided tape. I use http://www.duckbrand.com/~/media/Images/Products/Medium%20300%20X%20280/Double%20Sided%20Acrylic%20Flooring%20Tape%20-%2000-07202.ashx which sticks pretty well and removes fairly easily. I use small 1 x 2 or 3/4 x 2" strips in several locations (it doesn't take much). You don't want to stick down the entire surface as you will destroy the thin stock getting it loose. You also don't want to leave the pieces stuck together longer than absolutely necessary as the bond in creases with contact time. The longer the parts are stuck together the tighter the grip the tape makes.If residue is left behind, it clean up with lacquer thinner. The two BORGs used to carry it, but I haven't seen any lately.