Thread: New Toy - Hafco helical thicknesser

Bit the bullet last week, and put my money down on a new thicknesser from Hare & Forbes / MachineryHouse, the Hafco T-13S, for $649, plus another $43 for freight to Adelaide. Separately I bought a set of tungsten carbide cutters from SJE Tools, for $108 delivered, about a third of the cost of buying the same from H&F. So all up about $800.
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I have used a Ryobi thicknesser for about 4 or 5 years, which has been an excellent machine, but I was always aware of the limitations of tackling wide timber with it, let alone wide hardwoods, where I had to do minute passes or not at all. And it is noisy when that 318mm blade hits the timber.

What a different kettle of fish this Hafco is. It comes with 26 small HSS blades, each spirally offset from the one ahead of it, with 2 rows of 5 blades, and 4 rows of 4.
The first thing I noticed is how little different in the sound pitch it makes between timber and no timber passing through. It basically makes the same volume of sound as the Ryobi when running without any timber passing through, but unlike the Ryobi, or any traditional 300mm blade I suspect, the sound volume makes very little increase, even though there is a pile of wood chips flying out the back. When I ran a 150mm wide chunk of old jarrah through it, it went through very easily, but I could tell it was working at it, not a struggle, but slower than the 90mm pine I ran before it.

I stopped for an hour to fit the new tungsten carbide blades, which was a lot easier than fitting the 318mm blades in the Ryobi.

Then holy crap, it went through the jarrah like it wasn't there! I'm impressed! Very! I've stored the HSS blades away, but doubt I'll ever use them again. I'd rather buy a spare set of the carbides and replace individual blades as required, a much easier process than it ever could be with the old style wide blades.

As for the standard of construction, again I'm very impressed. Solid, all metal sides, cast base, the winding handle is well made, and unlike the Ryobi, the raising/lowering mechanism is chain driven rather than drive shafts with plastic bevel gears, and turns very easily. I don't have an extractor, so I've left the chute off, letting the sawdust drop on to the floor. The Ryobi's exit port always blocked, whereas I can't see this happening with the Hafco, which exits very freely.

So all in all, on day 1, I'm really happy with it, money well spent.