Thicknessing thin material

[michael_h]

I have the need to thickness timber (usually radiata pine) in the range 2 ~ 6mm thick by 50mm wide. Could anyone tell me whether this can be successfully achieved on a portable thicknesser e.g Ryobi or similar, or are the thin sections likely to cause problems?

[jacko]

As you get thinner the chance of the piece "blowing up" increases. In fact many thicknessers will not let you go below 6 mm. However there are ways around this limitation. The one i like to use is to tape the flat side to a piece of MFD faced with melamine. Use a good amount of carpet tape. Make sure that it is well set. You can do pieces side by side as well. Another is to use a sacrificial frame around your workpiece that is hot glued to your piece of MDF. Worthwhile if you have a few of the same size to do.
Jacko

[alf t]

Why not find someone with a sander thicknesser. I use one quite often and there is really no practical minimum thickness that they can't handle.

Alf

[michael_h]

Actually Alf a thickness sander is probably my preferred option but other than the Preac available from the States (which seems fairly expensive) I am not aware of any commercially available units in Australia - can anyone help?

[alf t]

There are some in the latest Carba-tec Dogalogue,
Alf

[echnidna]

Jacko's method works well but if you are considering thicknessing radiata pine make sure none of the timber has any knots or pith at all as they will cause problems

[John Saxton]

Hi Michael,I find the 16"(Performax) Drum Sander ideal for getting stock fairly quickly down to the dimensions you stated but of course you need to have access to one of these.
These produce a lot of dust so dust extraction is an absolute necessity.If you can do this then infeed your timber on the platen at about 60 degrees for better and even removal of fibre.
If you cannot get on to one of these( WDS-400 @ $1089)different & cheaper version from Carba-Tec and perhaps more than you want to pay then could you not re-saw the timber on a bandsaw particularly pine which could be cut to just above your dimension and finish sanded to
size?
Cheers:)

[Dan]

I haven't tried to thickness 2~6mm with a thicknesser myself but Roger Gifkins reckons you can stack your work piece on top of another board and feed them through as one.

http://www.gifkins.com.au/FramePanel.pdf

Look for his tip about half way down the second page.

[Dan]

Michael,

Just had another thought. If the material is only 50mm wide like you say, then a drum sander for your drill press may be all you require. This one I have tried and while it is a bit slower than a thicknesser, it gives pretty good results. Just chuck a sanding drum in the drill, clamp a fence to the table and feed the material through the gap between fence/drum. Work out the correct side to feed from before turning the drill on (try it both ways while turning the drum by hand and it will be obvious) and mark it with a big arrow. All this has probably been explained better elsewhere so it may pay to have a bit of a search.

Dan

[journeyman Mick]

How about a "safe T planer" attachment in a drill press? If you want to get really fancy you can make a vacuum hold down table as well. Try to get a hold of "Shop Accessories You Can Build" from Fine Woodworking, Taunton Press. It shows a setup which would be perfect for your needs.

Mick

[soundman]

an other aproach would be to accurately cut the strips of a 50mm thick board on a table saw.

I often end up with waste of similar dimensions when ripping down pine studs.

to me its well dimensioned waste.

A fine cut of blade leaves a reasonable finish, & no snipe .

follow with a "light sand"!!!

[xron]

Dear michael = re thin material- sanding of. For the last few years I've been using a a doiuble sided adhesive tape to hold pieces for routing. Damned if I can recall the name of the stuff - I found it by using the Yellow Pages under adhesives. It's about 1/2 mm thick and looks like a gauze bandage. I believe that it's used in the construction of bus bodies. This I can believe as it's useable for about sixty seconds - after that I break the wood - not the tape. However it should be superb for sanding thin pieces by attaching them to a piece of 19mm laminated board.

Kind regards - xron