Thread: Surfacer/Thicknesser

Tonight I got around to modifying the Y carriage and drilling/tapping the bolts for the bearing mounts. The chatter you can hear is wax on the X rail from when I was originally using wood for the temporary slides. That'll be cleaned up soon enough. You can see the Y carriage lift off the X rail - this is caused by three things:

1 - the fact the whole assembly is resting at an angle on top of my scrap wood pile.
2 - the fact that the assembly usually is clamped to a torsion box glue up table
3 - the fact that there is no bearing running on the underside of the X rail. Which will happen in due course.

It is very smooth and works well. Enjoy the video.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3g69EuoZtU]YouTube - DIY Router surfacer / planer[/ame]

Here's some pics of the finished bearing carriages. I still want to beef things up a bit but it'll be accurate enough for my immediate needs.

I was looking for something similar and found this thread.
How has it worked for you now that it is a few months down the track?
What would you do differently if you were doing it again?
Do you kinow what the aluminium sections are that you used?

if I wasn't already making a CNC I would do the following:
- use v-groove bearings
- have upper and lower linear rails for all axis'
- use a thicker ally for each axis
- make it much larger and possibly integrate the rails into an existing workbench or similar.

so far it has worked really well, especially with a 2" surfacing bit. the ally used was easily sourced stuff from bunnings which I had laying about from another project.

I have the Woodhaven planer that looks quite similar to yours even though it is a bit more complicated. They (Woodhaven) sell bits in a couple of different diameters and arbors made just for planning and they do an excellent job in all types of wood.

I am by no means downgrading your jig, but only pointing out the Woodhaven jig for those that are not familiar and might be interested the jig or the cutters.

Very timely. I was just looking at Shop Notes #21 earlier tonight with a view to making one to dress rough, uneven timber to get a flat surface for dressing with jointer, thicknesser and table saw

carbi-i-tool make a facing cutter with 3 replaceable cutters which are square,so you get4 cutting edges each tip. replacement tip set of 10 tips is about $50 1/2 inch shank.about 50mm dia. does a great job.

I'm going to drag this thread out of retirement because I think it's awesome

I've been on the lookout for a cheapish decent thicknesser for quite a while, but I'm really not having much luck- they don't come up locally very often, and when they do, they end up selling for quite high prices.

However, I'm starting to wonder if a thicknesser is actually the best tool for what I want it for, and whether a sled like this wouldn't have some very, very significant advantages.

I have quite a volume of 50mm thick american oak in varying widths from 180mm to 360mm. Most pieces have some minor bowing and/or cupping, which isn't a huge problem but does add some extra work in preparing boards. I've done some using a borrowed thicknesser, but it was really hard work for longer bits - they weigh a ton, and need to be on a MDF sled in order to flatten the first side, making them tricky to handle.

Given that I handplane my boards anyway, I can't think of a single reason why a router sled like this wouldn't be better for initial flattening and thicknessing.

Is there a catch here?

The sled setup has worked really well for me. I use the smaller one in the video for small more intricate pieces. It has skate bearings which makes it really easy to use. I have also used this setup for free hand engraving/carving.

I've also adapted the sled idea for a recent client project to surface their table top. Its 1m x 3m and was heavily cupped. I initially started with an electric surface planer but found it to be very inconsistent (probably user error). So I ripped up some pine stock, put a slot in it big enough for the router base and then sat it on 1m rails. It's all wooden, but straight enough to do the initial surfacing. I just worked at it 1m at a time for a few hours, adjusting the depth of cut as I went, until I was happy that the top was flat. I ended up with a nominal thickness of 40mm (down from 50mm).

Here's some pics of the work in progress and installed at the client's house.

Nice work nf and a great idea. I am certainly thinking along those lines to flatten some warped timber I have in my stash.

Thanks Munruben.

I work almost exclusively with recycled materials so its rare that something is straight and will usually required some sort of surfacing/dressing before I can do anything with it.

I might post up some pics of the re-usable table saw jig I made for cutting the 45 + 7 degree compound cuts in the table legs.

The legs are 90x90 and there was no way the table saw would have cut it straight through in one cut. The jig solved any alignment and accuracy issues that would have been present using a normal table saw taper jig.