Thicknesser Confusion

[E. maculata]

My lovely Minister of Finance has decided that the pathetic sight of me hand planing carcass timber to the same dimensions just must stop. In her wisdom has decided I need a thicknesser, now being a agreeable sort of chap I begrudgingly agreed with her ;) .
Now while in Brissy last week she demanded we visit Carbatec :) where upon we spied within our budget the CT-340 and the CT-317. remembering vaguely some controversy about the 340, I deftly steered her to the 317($399) which to my untrained eye looks almost identical to the GMC and the Sherwood MB-1931(currently $299).
Now I know Echnidna luvs his GMC which is pretty well good enough for me, I still would like to do the comparison before ordering.
So who has any of these or other current similar versions and what do you think of them?

[chook]

Hello again,

I have not posted for some time as I have been busy and besides I have had nothing interesting to say. BUT this business of thicknessers has woken me from my sleep. I am the owner of a carbatec CTJ 340 thicknesser. Now I very seldom purchase timber from saw mills as it is too expensive and I find that if you kep an eye out that you can often get logs and bits and pieces that the general public think are fire wood. SO my thicknesser gets a bit of work now and then.

The bottom line with the CTJ 340 that I own is this. When it works it does a brilliant job. It has heaps of power. The cutter head locks and I get zero snipe. When attached to a dust extractor it give a clean work area.The cost was good and the prices now are even cheaper. But the machine that I purchased has had its fair share of problems.

1. The metal casting that holds the winding handle cracked.
2. The drive belt disintegrated after very little use. I replaced it with a delta belt at 4 times the cost.
3. The main shaft of the motor bent (which required a $160 new motor)
4. One of the feed roller bearings seezed up. The motor continued to run and drive chains to the roller snapped.
5. It makes enough noise to wake the dead.
6. The depth indicator is a waste of space. It is scaled in inches on one side and mm on the other. A thick red indicator line stretches halfway across the inch scale. It is so wide that it cannot be used and it does not reach to the mm scale. I made my own.

Currently it is working well. Last weekend it had a fair work out cutting a large stack of timber for some doors and if it gives me trouble free service for a good while then I may forgive it.

So while it is working it is great and I could not ask for better. Would I recommend one. NO WAY. In hindsight I would have purchased the Delta thicknesser. The CTJ 340 is merely a cheap clone of the Delta. My machine has not yet proven to be a good buy. Others may have had better success but that is my experience. But then when I bought it I violated a long held principle. You get what you pay for. I had the money for a better thicknesser and did not spend it. My opinion about tools is that if you cannot afford a quality tool then you cannot afford the tool. But then as I say I have proven not to be as good as my principles.

CHOOK

[routermaniac]

geez chook your thicknesser sounds lika a PITA :D . Get the GMC, mine has had a lot of use and abuse and is still going strong. Also the two year warranty seems very handy.

regards

marios

[Ross]

Chook

Sounds like you got a lemon. I purchased a Ryobi 3 years ago and the only money I have spent on it was to add the dust extraction shute.

I know I bought at the cheap end of the market but I don't expect it to plane off any more than 1-3mm per pass. It has more than paid for itself.

Ross

[graemet]

Bruce,
I bought the Delta some years ago and have been very happy with it. The blades are reversable but not sharpenable (?) but replacements about half the price of Carbatec from Timbecon. I was having some problems with the infeed roller ( the rubber developed a longitudinal split ) and spare parts were quite expensive, but by keeping the table and platen well polished with paste wax, it still works well with the damaged roller. No snipe and the noise level is low, although I don't use it for long stretches at night in case the neighbours complain.
Cheers,
Graeme

[E. maculata]

G'day Graeme,
Looked at the delta, nice machine, very tidy and obviously much better build quality than the others, and while I fervently believe in you get what you pay for and mostly try to buy for life, cannot justify a $1000 thicknesser for the little bit of work it would get at my place, as most of my timber acquisions are DAR or better :) .

[echnidna]

There was a poll on thicknessers (planers) not so long ago.
None of the various brands were rubbished so it seems everyone was more or less happy with what was available. Chooks problems with his CT40 made me wary of that model and Carbatec moving to Bayswater made it impractical for me to go look there anyway, so I thought what the heck GMC didn't get rubbished in the poll and has a 2 year guarantee so thats why I went that way. I was pleasantly surprised how well it works and the fact that snipe is uncommon. The blades seem to be holding their edge as well as the high quality hss blades in my old CT318.

[chook]

I am sure that I got a lemon. I only ever take off a small amount of timber at a time. I have a band saw set up to resaw timber back to nearly the correct size so the ticknesser has merely to skim the surface at the end. So the machine was never abused. But it is working now and I hope that it will continue to do so into the distant future.

As for GMC my experience is that they will honor their warranty. I bought a GMC biscuit joiner about 15 months ago. Last week a small problem developed in the fence system. I mean a very small problem. A piece of metal worth about 50 cents which acts as a guide for a screw broke. I rang them asking for some advice and was very surprised to hear them say that all I had to do was to take it back to the place of purchase and it would be replaced by a new machine! As the problem was small I rang the store who confirmed that this was the process and so I have a new and upgraded version of the joiner waiting to be picked up. Oh that Carbatec was so enlightened.

A friend of mine has a Ryobi thicknesser and he is very happy with it.

Chook