Thread: Newbie advice. Looking for thicknesser service

Have you considered joining a woodworking club or mens shed? because i would be willing to bet this won't be your last project, so having a place to go and use machinery and equipment you don't currently own will make things easy for you. you will ideally need a thicknesser, to get all the boards the same thickness. and a surface planar (jointer/buzzer) to straighten all of the boards for the perfect edge to edge glueup.

if you dont own a biscuit joiner, I would just edge to edge joint without any biscuits or dowels or dominoe's etc etc. with a ~45mm thick top, biscuits wont be adding much to the strength of the joint (nothing if the biscuit grain is parallel to the boards grain direction). also adding biscuits its just another process that takes time, and when using biscuits its wise to dryfit everything beforehand (more time), because it really sucks to find out a biscuit or two is stepped up high or low AFTER the boards are covered in glue.

Originally Posted by Danster

So I thought I'd whip up a coffee table and although I am not a complete newbie (I've made a few nice things with my Triton sawbench) I need someone to assist me to get the recycled timber I bought trimmed and consistently thick. Is that called dressing the timber?
I went to a demolition yard and have some kind of hardwood approx 50mm thick x 120mm x 1400mm. I have 8 pieces all basically the same.

Question/advice. Does anyone know of someone on the Central Coast NSW where I can put it through a thicknesser and also get the edges really smooth so I can butt them together? I plan on biscuit joining or dowel joining the strips. Any better or other suggestions considering I actually don't own a biscuit joiner?

Try s local Mens Shed - http://kincumbermensshed.blogspot.co...ast-sheds.html

Originally Posted by Danster

I plan on biscuit joining or dowel joining the strips. Any better or other suggestions considering I actually don't own a biscuit joiner?

If you don't have them don't worry, they're only to help with alignment and offer practically zero extra strength.
Just butt-join it all and clamp some straight bits of timber to the ends on the top and bottom (put some plastic between them and your job so they don't stick to the glue squeeze-out) to keep it all nice and level.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

Have you considered joining a woodworking club or mens shed? because i would be willing to bet this won't be your last project, so having a place to go and use machinery and equipment you don't currently own will make things easy for you. you will ideally need a thicknesser, to get all the boards the same thickness. and a surface planar (jointer/buzzer) to straighten all of the boards for the perfect edge to edge glueup.

Ideally you'd get two adjacent faces straight and at 90º to each other with a jointer/planer first, and then put them through the thicknesser.

Or if you realy want to get to know timber you could use a hand plane

Originally Posted by China

Or if you realy want to get to know timber you could use a hand plane

Hand planing recycled timber? Someone's a sucker for punishment

Thanks all. I was thinking about joining the local Mens Shed, and the link to Kincumber shed is pretty good coz Kincumber is very close to me.
My only hesitation about the mens shed is I get the vibe they make stuff for charity and community projects. Mine is a tad more selfish!
And I wonder if they have a planer and thicknesser - but no harm in visiting and having a chat to the fellas.

Thanks for the other suggestions about just gluing it all together. That makes it a bit easier. The shed would likely have some nice big clamps too I could use.

Cheers all

Danster

I believe that a lot of Men's Sheds will not allow recycled and treated timber to go through their thickys,the danger of nails etc. in recycled and heath issues with treated,sorry to put a danpener on that,lets hope a local formite can help.