Thread: Hammer brand thickies etc - excellent news

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

That makes the hammer fairly attractive IMHO, considering what hammer owners have said about the excellent build quality and fabulous service. It's 500kg of 4hp brute strength, and sounds fantastic for difficult mongrel timbers like spotted gum.



Regards, Brett

i like the idea of that machine and will save assiduously for it .... would that still have the quick change arrangement which is, i think, another attraction for it?

regards david

I've been hoping to somehow somewhere put a bit of s/gum with fiddleback through and see how it would come out of a thicky with a helix head on it, so I would be very interested to see pics - if able.

A thicky with normal blades stuffs up f/back s/gum, that's why I've opted instead to get those pieces run through a drum sander.

David: it would then become an even quicker change - unscrew an individual cutter, turn 90 degrees, re-screw for perfect registration. I would think that's all of ten seconds.

Waldo: they've only done one so far and that went to the land of the long (and broad) white cloud. The tests I'll be doing on Monday will with normal blades on SGum. BTW, in my experience SG doesn't need fiddleback to be stuffed up. Recently I had my bench plane set to about 1 thou shavings and it tore out a 2mm crater from straight grained SG (at VERY gentle pressure and speed - coz i Knew the bastard was trying to tear out. I'm surprised you didn't hear me.

Regards, Brett

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

David: it would then become an even quicker change - unscrew an individual cutter, turn 90 degrees, re-screw for perfect registration. I would think that's all of ten seconds.


Regards, Brett

thanks for the response

regards david

Ok, visited the hammer-felder premises in Emu Plains yesterday and I took three 600mm lengths of 150x45mm spotted gum (mostly with straightish grain). We did several passes over the jointer (fitted with quick change normal blades that were not new) and quite a few passes through the thicknesser.

Only once was there any evidence of tear out, and that was because the piece was fed against the grain. The next pass removed it completely.

One pass through the thicky was set to take off 2mm and that too resulted in nil tear out.

At six metres per minute feed rate though the thicky there was evidence of chatter lines about 1.5mm apart, and a very small amount of snipe at both ends. All were easily removed with a light sanding of 180 grit paper. The chatter lines were so fine that they came off as dust when a 2" chisel was passed over them across the grain in a circular motion.

My verdict: it should be noted that there wasn't any particularly nasty grain in these pieces, however when using a hand plane on the edges (I forgot to get the edges jointed) there was the usual tear out problems that we get with spotted gum. The Hammer A3 31 is a superb machine and initially I will NOT be fitting a Shellix head. I can have one retro fitted if need be, but this is viable for me because I live so close to their premises and their tekky can get here in an hour to change the head.

I have not taken pictures to post - just imagine a very smooth surface that needs a light sanding to produce a bairn's bum finish.

Regards, Brett

Enjoy the Hammer, it's a real nice piece of machinery.

Do you really think the combo machine with the flip tables are the way to go?? You don't feel there is misalignment probs each time you open the close the tables??
I bought a Felder for the guys at work and after using for a couple or years they said it had issues with alignment. I myself bought a 20" Carbatec thicknesser and 8' jointer with Byrd head. I know it takes up way more space but i know its accurate. Anyway no big deal whatever works i suppose