Using drum sander as Thicknesser

**ian** · 19th May 2014, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by John Samuel

So, the boards that are already pretty flat will almost certainly be attached to an MDF sled (with a lip at the back) and passed through the sander ... taking only a poofteenth off at a time. Won't take long as they are already pretty good. Looks like they may have moved just a little after being thicknessed ... common enough.

For the more convoluted boards, I will run some experiments and see what happens. If Pete's (pjt) idea about planing 260 mm of the board will work on my jointer, that's a likely route. Why, in the name of all that which is holy, did I not think of that? The entire board does not need to be flat ... only the part that rides on the fence. Thanks for the slap to the side of the head, Pete.

Hi John

don't forget that your sander can be fitted with 60 or 40 grit abrasive.
with a grit that coarse, you'll be able to take a lot more than a "poofteenth" off with each pass.

However, I'd swap to a 120 or 180 abrasive belt before the sander is doing a full width sand.

of course if there's a lot of warp and twist to remove perhaps start with a #5 hand plane (with a severely curved blade) or rip the slab into one or more strips. Better to have narrow veneer strips than to turn a 1/3 of the slab into dust.

**John Samuel** · 19th May 2014, 10:53 PM

Originally Posted by ian

Hi John

don't forget that your sander can be fitted with 60 or 40 grit abrasive.
with a grit that coarse, you'll be able to take a lot more than a "poofteenth" off with each pass.

However, I'd swap to a 120 or 180 abrasive belt before the sander is doing a full width sand.

of course if there's a lot of warp and twist to remove perhaps start with a #5 hand plane (with a severely curved blade) or rip the slab into one or more strips. Better to have narrow veneer strips than to turn a 1/3 of the slab into dust.

Ian,

That's exactly what I did.

I took off a biggish warp on one corner with a plane after gluing the slab to the MDF. The sander has 80 grit on at the moment, but I still took it reasonably slowly so I did not test the hot melt glue too severely.

In the end, it was all very simple and easy.

Cheerio!

John

**pjt** · 20th May 2014, 01:51 AM

Originally Posted by John Samuel

And now we have veneers ...

Attachment 314067

And with end-to-end book-matching we get something like this ...

Attachment 314068

A good result John

**Rod Gilbert** · 20th May 2014, 08:46 AM

Hi John and all,
You are getting real good at this aren't you, those veneers are looking fantastic and the coffee table came up a treat.
Regards Rod.

**John Samuel** · 20th May 2014, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Rod Gilbert

Hi John and all,
You are getting real good at this aren't you, those veneers are looking fantastic and the coffee table came up a treat.
Regards Rod.

Tahnks Rod.

The truth is that Ian (the one from Sydney who encouraged me to give veneering a go and who gave me the tips needed to make a start) was right. It is nowhere as difficult as I had imagined. Even on my old Trade Tools saw I managed to cut veneers and laminate successfully ... and I do love my vacuum presses. They make gluing the veneers to a substrate a piece of cake. I cannot even begin to understand why anyone would still use clamps and cauls when we can pull at least 25" of Hg pressure (a bit over 13 PSI) with a lump of clear vinyl and a pump designed to extract air from wine bottles. Still ... different strokes, I suppose. Others like their clamps and cauls ... I choose not to use them.

Cheerio!

John

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