Thread: A little odd but here goes

Normally it would be easier to dress down a long length and then dock the shorts from that. assuming you already have a multitude of small pieces, it may make things easier if you build a dressing box. The box sides would be the required height and would be attached on edge to the base. The overall size of the box would be to suit your plane but tightly fit several pieces snugly. Once the box is loaded, dress down almost to the top edge of the box sides. Turn the pieces over and dress down to flush with the top edge of box. Make sure grain direction is the same for all the pieces when putting them in the box. Be careful not to plane the box sides.
Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by rustynail

Normally it would be easier to dress down a long length and then dock the shorts from that. assuming you already have a multitude of small pieces, it may make things easier if you build a dressing box. The box sides would be the required height and would be attached on edge to the base. The overall size of the box would be to suit your plane but tightly fit several pieces snugly. Once the box is loaded, dress down almost to the top edge of the box sides. Turn the pieces over and dress down to flush with the top edge of box. Make sure grain direction is the same for all the pieces when putting them in the box. Be careful not to plane the box sides.
Hope this helps.

If the box has the sides slightly narrower than the sole of the plane with a rebate edge so the plane runs between the rebates, then you just plane down until the plane bottoms out on the rebate. The ends of the box can be 1mm below finished thickness if you want.

I do miniature 'parquetry' quite often. What I do is use veneer, cutting it on a guilotine. I have a small jig that fits alongside the guilotine to give me perfectly repeatable cut-offs. Then I buld up the pattern on a piece of upside down contact paper. Then I glue it to plywood, in a press, overnight.

Obviously, once the job is finished the viewer cannot distinguish veneer from soild timber.

Just finished one with 600 squares each 3mm x 3mm, in 4 different timbers. its accurate to the millimetre across the whole thing, so its easily achievable.

Cheers
Arron

Originally Posted by Arron

I do miniature 'parquetry' quite often. What I do is use veneer, cutting it on a guilotine. I have a small jig that fits alongside the guilotine to give me perfectly repeatable cut-offs. Then I buld up the pattern on a piece of upside down contact paper. Then I glue it to plywood, in a press, overnight.

Obviously, once the job is finished the viewer cannot distinguish veneer from soild timber.

Just finished one with 600 squares each 3mm x 3mm, in 4 different timbers. its accurate to the millimetre across the whole thing, so its easily achievable.

Cheers
Arron

Thanks for the speedy replies I think Aaron is the nearest to what I am after but I wanted to use wood about 5mm thick as that is the thinnest my planer will cope with

Pass the timber through your planer with a flat piece of backing board underneath (pref mdf because its guaranteed flat). You should be able to get down to 1mm thick easily that way - unless there is something badly wrong with your planer. I have done down to 0.6mm thick using non-splitty timbers (eg beech).
Arron