How best to thin these boards?

[paul simonson]

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;
361388
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!

[Jamie Buxton]

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.

[Grant Wilkinson]

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.

[Doug Garson]

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.

[Jim Finn]

Re-saw this on a band saw or a table saw and then plane to the exact thickness necessary.

[paul simonson]

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?

[George Bokros]

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.

[lowell holmes]

Experiment with a scrap and see what works for you. :)

[Grant Wilkinson]

Have you sharpened the blades recently? What is the hardwood you are planing?

[Prashun Patel]

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

[andy bessette]

"1/4 mm = .0154 inch"

1/4 mm = ~ 0.010".

[Robert Engel]

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.

[andy bessette]

"you could resaw an equal amount off each side"

That's not how you do it.

[John Lanciani]

"you could resaw an equal amount off each side"

That's not how you do it.

Why not Andy?

[andy bessette]

"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.

[Nick Decker]

Paul, how many amps is that planer rated at? My guess is that it's either under-powered or your knives are dull.

Also, are you running it with an extension cord? If so, what gauge wire?

[Davis Young]

A scrub plane works well to hog off a lot of material in a hurry. It'll leave a rough finish, which you can clean up with the thicknesser. Be sure to mark the boards so that you don't plane beyond the line. If you don't have a scrub plane available, you could possibly convert an old plane into one by grinding a camber on the blade and opening the throat as much as possible.

[Chris True]

#1, it should sound like it is working hard :).

#2, you say the board gets 'stuck', does it blow the breaker? If not then clean your rubber rollers with alcohol to increase the traction ;)

[andy bessette]

On my old Delta 13" thickness plane feeding problems begin when the steel table needs cleaning. I clean with acetone and then coat with Bostik Top-Cote.

[Doug Bowman]

A scrub plane works well to hog off a lot of material in a hurry. It'll leave a rough finish, which you can clean up with the thicknesser. Be sure to mark the boards so that you don't plane beyond the line. If you don't have a scrub plane available, you could possibly convert an old plane into one by grinding a camber on the blade and opening the throat as much as possible.

Yep if you only have 2 boards I would use my trusty $25 #5 with a nice camber on the blade - just did it last night more then 2 and I start thinking about getting the lunchbox planer out.

[Steve Jenkins]

On my old Delta 13" thickness plane feeding problems begin when the steel table needs cleaning. I clean with acetone and then coat with Bostik Top-Cote.

A good cleaning and waxing solves a lot of feeding problems

[Rich Engelhardt]

If not then clean your rubber rollers with alcohol to increase the tractionAlcohol is really, really, really bad for rubber. It dries it out & causes it to crack. You're killing your rollers with kindness!
There are several commercial rubber cleaners on the market - - Fedron being the best - -that work wonders on rubber rollers & on rubber platens of any kind.
Fedron in really expensive - - like $24.00 for an 8 ounce bottle - but, it's the best there is.

Staples sells an aerosol rubber cleaner also for about $10 less. I never used it though, so, I can't say what it's like.

I used to use Fedron years ago to clean the rollers & platens in printers.
A quick wipe makes them new again.

[Frankie Hunt]

We used to use MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) to clean printer platens. It got them really clean! Looking at this chart it doesn't look good for lots of stuff! http://mykin.com/rubber-chemical-resistance-chart-4

[lowell holmes]

If your wood chips out, keep a spray bottle handy and spray the wood. It will minimize chip out.

[Matt Day]

This is one of the more odd threads I've seen in a while. Your planer clearly isn't operating properly. Softwood, hardwood, shouldn't matter if you have a properly adjusted lunchbox planer. Are the knives sharp? Beds lubed? That's about all there is to do on that little thing.
It should be able to take off 1/16" no problem on a SIX INCH wide board.

[Doug Garson]

If your wood chips out, keep a spray bottle handy and spray the wood. It will minimize chip out.
Would this work with a router? I'm using a pattern bit on some hardwood and sometimes can't read the grain and get some tearout. I minimize it by taking smaller passes and sometime climb cutting, would be nice to have a third way to combat this.

[andy bessette]

DG--I would just take thinner cuts.