Thread: thicknesser for river oak?

Is there a way that you could try taking smaller cuts? Perhaps have the knives sharpened with less of a cutting angle so they aren't quite as fragile....

Another option is a drum or wide belt thickness sander. Your cabinet maker friend may have one..... Those things generally have no trouble with Hard wood - but Resinous woods are trouble... Luckily Casuarina isn't one of those.... Just gotta be careful about too much heat changing the color of the wood... Casuarina is particularly bad about darkening when machine sanding.. The general track when knocking down saw marks is to use the coarsest grit you can, take very light passes and move quickly.... They do sell 24 grit for most thickness sanders... and it works very quickly....

Thanks

If you can find someone with a Woodwizz, or similar, in your area, it will do the job well.

I use a similar machine to thickness and flatten my Cooktown Ironwood slabs. Does a great job with no tearout, just needs a sand to take the machining marks out.

Google woodwizz in Australia and then ring and have a chat to Les who would know the closest person who has one near you. After browsing his site i think you will be impressed with possible end results etc.

If the thicknessers not up to it, you could use a sled setup with a router and straight bit. Just two solid strips of timber (like 4x2's) setup either side fixed in parallel, then affix the router to something fixed and straight (like a thick piece of ply. And just slide the ply ontop the strips of timber......running on top.

IMO, with riveroak it would be a better option anyway despite the time lost building it and doing it, because your going to get tearout with the thicknesser. The router will leave a better result.

would you get the same problem with a carbide tipped spiral thicky?

thanks for your responses. I went and had a look at the timber again today, and the offending thiscknesser blade(s) which are torn, one with a piece missing, they were 3mm (or so) thick blades, and sharp. The operator looks to have been trying to take too much and hit a major knot/limb fault which has done the damge. I took a couple of the better pieces to another thicknesser, an old HAFCO and they went through OK, some minor tear out as has been suggested above, but OK. I may just have to grab a mate tomorrow and spend a few hours putting these boards back and forth through the machine to get them down.

I'll also chase up the Wood Whizz which looks great!

many thanks,

joe