Need Help With 3mm Baltic Birch that is to thick.

[Craig Matheny]

I got some 3mm / .118" Baltic Birch that is to thick it is 3.4mm / .134" thick i need it to be 1.3" 3.3 max what can I use to fix this I have 700+ 12" x 24"pieces to correct. I am wondering if I can plane the long grain cuts and drum sand the balance?

[Todd Burch]

I plane plywood all the time. I sand it too.

However, for 700+ pieces, I would return it and order anew, unless you got it for a stinking lower than normal price.

[Steve Jenkins]

If you decide to try and surface it yourself I'd try to take some off both faces because it may unbalance the panel if one face is thinner than the other, although you are only taking off .004" which may not hurt. I'm with Todd though and that quantity wouild be much easier to replace.

[Mike Heidrick]

If your math is right, even sanding 1/250" of an inch will be hard to do. You will not need to plane so little. For comparison that is a little less than half as thick as a thick piece of hair (.0071" = thick hair). Swelling wood fibers will move more than this.

[Thomas S Stockton]

Short of sending it back I would send it through a Timesaver type sander or a drum sander. Timesaver would be fastest and in the long run cheapest. Call around to some cabinet shops most are more than willing to do it for cash
Tom

[John Downey]

What are you up to that requires such precision? You're talking about 0.004" between what the wood is now and your maximum acceptable thickness. I'm a hack when it comes to machining, I'm doing well if I can make aluminum parts to within +/- 0.002" :D Wouldn't even dream of trying it with wood! :D

Another question - what is your acceptable minimum thickness? These guys are right that you will have trouble taking off just 0.1mm, but if you can take it from 3.4mm to 3.0mm, that's an entirely different matter.

[Craig Matheny]

It is not that the wood needs to be an exact width it just has a max thickness do to tabs and plugs the wood goes into and all our wood uses .13 x ? holes so the wood has ma max thickness.

[Jeff Duncan]

Send it through a wide belt sander….anything else is a waste of time and money;)

good luck,
Jeffd

[glenn bradley]

IMHO, wide belt if you've got one otherwise, return and re-order. If you ordered 3mm you should get 3mm.

[Craig Matheny]

This is what has happened got a hold of the yard and they are going to run it through here sander and fix the issue so a win win for booth parties.
Thanks for all the advise

[Ken Krawford]

Glad you solved the problem but I think you meant cm, not mm. 2.54cm = 1 inch.