Thread: Thickness

To give you a quality answer, I need to know a bit more.
What timber species?
How long is it?
What size are you trying to achieve?

Pete.

plane

Originally Posted by phaser

How do I thickness a piece of timber if I don't own a thicknesser ?
The board I want to trim down is about 170 x 350mm.

Join a Men's Shed and use their thicknesser, planer, table saw, bandsaw,etc...
or as Sawdust said - that is what I used to do before joining Woodworkers NSW and using their great workshop

Learn how to use a hand plane it will give you a invaluable understanding of the timber

Originally Posted by phaser

How do I thickness a piece of timber if I don't own a thicknesser ?
The board I want to trim down is about 170 x 350mm.

What tools do you own? And do you have a workshop?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by phaser

How do I thickness a piece of timber if I don't own a thicknesser ?
The board I want to trim down is about 170 x 350mm.

look around your workspace and tools

Do you own, or can you access, a fairly solid work bench?
do you own a hand plane?
do you know how to use it? -- tune the plane and sharpen the blade, holding the plane as you planer a surface, etc
is one face of the board already flat and true?
do you own a marking or cutting gauge?

If the answers to all of the above questions is yes ...
first read this article from Lee Valley then read this article from Lee Valley http://www.leevalley.com/en/newslett...5/article1.htm

The steps are
1. referencing off the true face, use the marking gauge to mark the thickness you want.
2. clamp the board to your bench with the reference face down.
3. chamfer the edges of the board.
4. set your hand plane so that one corner of the blade is significantly lower than the other.
5. plane across the board working at an angle of between 30 and 60° -- a process known as traversing -- to bring the board close to final thickness as indicated by your gauge line. You will need to rotate your board as you go so that the diagonal strokes cross each other. Check to make sure you don't blow out the grain on the far side of the board.
6. reset your hand plane so that the blade is square to the sole.
7. plane with the grain to bring the board to final thickness.

Let us know how you go

The piece is about 35mm thick but I need a piece ending up at 15mm for a part on my clock.
I had to get a matching piece of timber from a local kitchen joint. I think they said it is American mahogany.
I have a pretty comprehensive workshop for metal and wood working but no thicknesser yet.

At 170 wide and 35 thick you could take it down to nearly 15mm on a table saw or bandsaw (I'm guessing you have 1 of those) then finish with a hand plane.

Before we can confirm that you can do it on a table saw, I need to know how long the piece of timber is. If it is only a short piece, as I suspect it may be as it's for a clock, then it could be quite dangerous to do without some experience. If it is a long piece, then sawing it is reasonably safe, but be careful. You would be cutting it to half way for he first cut then flipping it and cutting again because your saw blade will not cut it in one go. You need to keep the same side to the fence each time.

A couple of things; Is the saw bade suitable for cutting timber i.e does it have fewer teeth than a blade that you would usually use for composite board (particleboard or MDF). If the blade is not suitable it could quickly grab and you'd be in trouble if it wanted to kick back.
Timber can twist, cup and close in on the blade whilst you cut it. This can happen on the first or second cut.

Hope this helps. If you decide to cut it on the saw and don't have experience, find someone to help and teach you.

Pete.

Originally Posted by phaser

The piece is about 35mm thick but I need a piece ending up at 15mm for a part on my clock.

if you have a band saw - flatten one face and then slice off a piece about about 17mm thick

If you don't have a band saw you can kerf all 4 edges of the board about 50mm deep and then use the kerfs as a guide for a hand saw.

It's 350mm long.
I do have a woodwork band saw but it's not cutting too straight at the moment, I think a new blade is in order.
I also have a small table saw (GMC)

without knowing your level of skill, I think using the table saw to making 25mm deep kerfs on all 4 edges and then finish off the slice with a hand saw is the way to go

I started thinking perhaps I could use one of my routers so I went youtubing and found a couple of ideas worth trying.
I like the idea of kerfing too so I think I will route one side flat, then kerf on my table saw and cut through with a hand saw. Finally finish at the required thickness by routing the other side.
Sounds good.
Got a bit on at the moment but when I do the job I'll take some photos and put them here.

Thanks guys.

The two hand planes which would be most ideal for this are a scrub plane or a jack plane which is set up properly for stock removal.

Depending on size, you may also be able to resaw the board with a bandsaw or an appropriate hand saw.

Aside from resawing or using hand planes or a power thicknesser, you're likely to be in a situation where you're using a tool in an application for which it was not intended.

Nonetheless, good luck.

Luke