Thread: Thicknesser in Sydney?

Is anyone building timber boats/ships near Sydney anymore? Even repair yards for timber boats would have a thicknesser that could do your job i reckon. And they would be friendly people and if you took beer with you, the only cost might well be your afternoon. That's where I'd start anyway.

cheers

Originally Posted by contrebasse

Hi boys and girls

I have about 3m of 300 x 18 tassy oak I need to thickness down to about 8mm for my next double bass back, and another 3m of 250 x 18 to thickness down to about 4mm for the sides.

Although I'll finish the boards with a hand plane, I don't have a thicknesser and don't fancy doing the whole thing by hand!

Can anyone help me out, or point me to a place where I could get this done??

Matthew

Give DIY Dan a call or PM. He's a board member and has a complete WW workshop that he hires out. He's up at MT Kuringai.

BTW, you'd really want to resaw your boards before thicknessing wouldn't you? Otherwise you are going to waste a lot of timber as shavings.

Matthew,

Craig's right, if your boards are 18mm thick and you want go down to 4mm then why not resaw them and get a second side/back set. Resaw them on a bandsaw and then drum sand them to final thickness. I suspect Gerard Gilet will have the necessary machinery or will know of some who can do it for you. Even if theres a cost involved getting the second set will make it economical.



Cheers Martin

The trouble is resawing a 300mm wide and 3m long tas oak board is not an easy task.

too right Wongo. I just wonder how effective it is going to be to re-saw a 300mm board. I can shorten the board but I'd still need to find one heck of a setup to keep that straight and useable. If I ripped it exactly down the centre that would leave each side about 8mm which is perilously close to my final thickness for the belly. More likely the blade will wander and ruin one side. Great if i could achieve it, making bookmatching possible, but it'd take a real expert.

Or I could rip the board about 2/3 across, leaving about 10mm sawn on one side and 5mm sawn on the other, and use the thinner side for the ribs. sheesh.

But hey, I'll take what you said on board. It would be a waste to just plane it all off and make woodchips. I'll give Gerard a call first.

I was under the impression that instrument backs are bookmatched as a matter of course?

Yes it would be tricky. I would dock it into manageable lengths first. The bandsaw would need to be set up well. What is the finished size of the required panels? Do you need the full 300 + 300?

I would definately resaw the 250's. Maybe it's worth seeing if you can get someone to do it for you.

What you can do is to rip it on a tablesaw on both edges. (Be very careful) Let say your table saw has 70mm capacity. You then use the bandsaw to rip the 160mm in the middle.

Also, I don’t think passing a wide thin board through a thicknesser is a good idea. Thin boards like that should be done with a drum sander.

And of course you need a big bandsaw which has at 300 cutting height. DIY DAN may have one.

If DIY DAN can't help then try

Try Tracy Gumm, she also won a prize at the show this year.
http://www.irminsul.com.au

Workshop
P: (02) 9516 0380
146 Edinburgh Rd
Marrickville NSW 2204

DIY Dan has a 17" carbatec BS I think. A nice unit but I dont know if he has it setup for resawing. When I tried to resaw a bit of NG rosewood it wandered straight away... It would probably need some tuning. (Sorry Dan). As an alternative I know that Anagote in petersham has a HUGE BS with a mighty resaw blade on it that would eat your timber perfectly...

Anagote timber are not into small jobs. They are not exactly woodworking shop, so they won't do detail work (sorry Anagote timber )

All DIY DAN needs is a new sharp blade and little tune up.

Originally Posted by silentC

I was under the impression that instrument backs are bookmatched as a matter of course?

Yes it would be tricky. I would dock it into manageable lengths first. The bandsaw would need to be set up well. What is the finished size of the required panels? Do you need the full 300 + 300?

I would definately resaw the 250's. Maybe it's worth seeing if you can get someone to do it for you.

I'm making another double bass here, not a guitar, so backs are around 650mm-700mm wide at widest point. Backs also need to be about 1200mm long. I'll need to cut the boards down, yes, and add "wings" at the widest point. And yes, bookmatching is best, but getting affordable wood that size is tricky, so many fine instrument backs are made from 3-4 pieces. I have a nice wide bit of tas oak with nice figure so I want to try to use as much of the width as I can.

I'm considering trying a rare cornerless model, so the ribs will be like huge guitar ribs about 230 wide and around 1600 long that are planed down to about 2.3mm.

Thinks. Hmmm. I suppose I could rip the plank down the middle, resaw on my 14" bandsaw and glue the back panels together again. That might work well. I'll have a look at how the grain runs tonight.

But the ribs need to be in one width.

(edit) I just looked at my max rib depth again, it's actually only 200mm. I think I can try to resaw this myself with my murderous 1", 1.3tpi blade. I'll need the full width of the 300mm planks, but if I'm smart I can cut them down and reassemble again as I mentioned above.

Matthew,

Not much help I guess but Tim Spittle at Australian Tonewoods in Perth and Jim Redgate here in Adelaide both have Hitachi bandsaws that are set up for wood your size. Im sure theyres someone in Sydney whos resawing tonewoods. Gerard Gilet would certainly know of someone.

Gilets have one of the Hitachi bandsaws, and a big thickness sander. They'd be my first choice.

I'd help you out, I've got a bandsaw with 300mm resaw capacity (Jet 18"). But I don't have a suitable blade or suitable experience.