Sanding thin wood strips?

[drynetnick]

Hi all,

I'm preparing some long, thin wood strips (3mm - 4mm thick) in order to steam bend, then glue 3 strips together around a form.

My problem is, When I sand the edge I plan to glue after cutting on my table saw, I always end up with gaps in the laminations when I place the strips together. I need the strips to be really tight to eachother without any gaps throughout the strips.

I'm using a small hand sander as it's the only sander I have.

Does anyone have any advice regarding keeping the wood completely flat when sanding out saw marks. As it's only 3mm thick running it through a plainer/jointer isn't really an option.

Any methods, jigs or tools that would help my problem?

Thanks in advance.

[les88]

If you can not get the results you need by sanding. try planing with a razor sharp plane
I would plane one side before ripping to width
les

[Paulphot]

What if you cut all your strips together and then lie them all down side by side with an extra two sacrificial strips on either side. Then sand them all together like a wider board, using the two sacrificial pieces as support for the sander so you don't get rounded edges?

[Rattrap]

Double sided tape would come in real handy if u do as Paulphot suggests.
Also i've run timber that thin thru a thicknesser by sticking the thin panels down to a sheet of MDF with double sided tape. You need to use some good quality tape so it doesn't lift as it passes thru - you then end up with a problem getting the panels unstuck from the MDF afterward cuse good quality double sided taps stick like sh*t to the proverbial blanket. It's do-able you just gotta be gentle.

[AlexS]

You can run them through a thicknesser using double-sided tape as Rattrap says, or glue two thin stops to the MDF, slightly (say 1mm) closer together than the length of the strips, so the strips have to be bent upwards slightly to sit between them. Undercut the stops slightly, and put a slight upward bevel on the ends of strips. Make sure the grain on the stops runs lengthways. You can thickness down to about 1mm like this.

[whitewood]

I produce strips for surfboards and strip planked kayaks out of paulownia. These are either 20 mm wide for kayaks or 50 mm for surfboards and 6 mm thick all on my thicknesser. At times I'm asked for strips to skin foam surfboards 50 x 2 mm. I just put a packer under the bed of my 15" thicknesser and run the timber through it. As I get closer to the 2 mm I take less off. I do make the planks longer in case the blades chip the ends as they start the feed. The ease will depend on the specifications of your thicknesser. Smaller machines are easier as they mostly have rubber feed rollers and you can take even half a mm off at a time and not leave feed marks on the dressed timber.

John

[cultana]

drynetnick,

As you are going to get saw cut marks in the wood it pays to cut 0.5 mm thicker than needed. This allows for the sanding process to clean it up.

If your strips are long enough to have sacrificial ends clamp the ends down and find, borrow etc a belt sander. This won't get to the ends but they are sacrificial so they can be chopped off.

Also what type of wood and how tight are your bends?

You did not suggest why they have to be a super close fit.

[joe greiner]

+1 for the belt sander with its large platen. I've used it to make strips very thin and very flat for celtic-knot turning blanks (critical thickness to match saw kerf). Set the belt sander face-up, and drag the strips along. Flip over occasionally, and check thickness frequently with a vernier caliper.

Cheers,
Joe

[drynetnick]

Thanks for the replys people.

Cultana - I'm ripping the strips to make trout fishing nets from Ash, Padauk and Sapele. Hopefully, I'll end up with something like this...
http://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/0/3/1/8/6/webimg/1650784.jpg

You can see why the strips have to have such a tight bond; any gaps would look pretty bad. Luckily, the bends aren't too sharp.

I don't have a belt sander, but I have just tried the 'lay 3 strips on a board and sand all together' method, this worked well as it's stops the edges getting rounded off by my hand sander. I think a belt sander or drum sander may have to be my next purchase!

Now that you've seen the project, if you can think of anything else that would help, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Thanks,

Nick.

[Fencepost2]

I've thicknessed down to 3mm on strips for laminations for chair back rails. I discovered several things. (1) you need a backing board say 12mm thick and longer than the pieces. (2) the pieces need to be a bit longer than the finished length so you can trim off any snipes (3) I didn't need to fasten the strips down. (4) take small cuts (5) make sure you present the strips with the grain in the right direction, the same as you would do if you were hand planing. If the strips are bowed a bit, put them onto the backing board so that the ends are touching the board so that the feed roller will press them down onto the board rather than curl them up and make a lot of snipe (6) take light cuts.(7) only put one strip through at a time because if multiple strips have slightly different thicknesses you run the risk of having one speared back at you. AlexS' idea (above) of creating a slight upward bow along the length of the strip by positioning it between two stops is an idea that I will try out myself next time because you can't always position the bow upwards for the side you want to plane.

[George_N]

It is fairly easy to make a little thickness sander using a drill press, a sanding drum and fence parallel to axis of the sanding drum. I set the gap between the drum and fence (final thickness of the workpiece) using one of the many different sizes of twist drill in my tool box. This solution is safer than trying to use a thickness planer on thin stock and is ideal for the narrow stock you are talking about. You can even get mounts for hand held power drills that could be made to work with a few pieces from the scrap bin and a bit of imagination.