Thread: Need to hire Thicknesser etc West suburbs of Melbourne

Originally Posted by Anna N

Hi all,

I had this idea to build some wooden sun lounges and have purchased unseasoned sawn golden cypress.
.

Perhaps you have the terminology wrong, but if it is indeed unseasoned, it really should be dried prior to being worked.

Wet timber through a thicknesser is not fun. A big enough machine will do it, but it doesn't feed well and needs a lot of wax on the table and a lot of shoving to get it through. Not sure how well a little benchtop machine would handle the job, if at all.

Also, regarding your cut list, anything under 300 long will not go through a thicknesser

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

anything under 300 long will not go through a thicknesser

… without making a sled of some form, right?

Originally Posted by poundy

… without making a sled of some form, right?

Depends on the thicknesser I guess. I can put 300mm through mine (Jet JPT310HH) ok.

Cheers, Dom

Originally Posted by DomAU

Depends on the thicknesser I guess. I can put 300mm through mine (Jet JPT310HH) ok.

Some of the cut-list items were 150 and 200 long, they're way undersize. Especially since there were 30 of those leg pieces. A sled would let that work though, but might need some finagling to get accurately thickness matched to the longer pieces that went straight thru.

Even with a sled, there's no guarantee they won't jump up and snipe at the end. Personally, I wouldn't try it.

I think that this may be a job for a wide belt sander, but not if it is green.

If I concentrated on the
200 x 50, the 100 x 50 and the 90 x 19
maybe also 30x50

and/or the pieces over300 long

Thoughts and does someone have a machine i can use or can someone help??

Unfortunately, I suspect that the OP has just bought themself some very expensive firewood.

If the wood is straight from a mill -- rough sawn and unseasoned -- I strongly suspect they are on a hiding to nothing.
Even if were possible to kiln dry the wood within the end-of-October time frame, once dry what they have will no longer be straight nor of the dimensions (e.g. 19 x 19) they purchased.

Perhaps best to accept the "Oh Sh t" now and start again with kiln dried wood.

Hi Ian,
Sadly can’t quit paid over $1k for the wood.
I was told by the mill guy that the wood won’t warp or shrink, it doesn’t feel wet or moist, so not sure.
He said that with a sand it will be great, it’s just that I have so many pieces....
note to self, don’t get it docked to required lengths 😊

Just for fun, I've run the numbers on your cut list.

All up you have around 50 square metres of wood to sand. I suggest that a belt sander is probably the appropriate tool for that quantity of timber.
For scale, 50 sq.m is around 1/4 the floor area of a typical 200 sq.m (20 square) home. You would be well advised to purchase an industrial rated belt sander -- Makita or Bosch Blue not Ryobi or Ozito -- and quality belts. I'm not sure if the belts Bunnings and Mitre10 sell would be rated "quality".


In terms of passing the wood through a thicknesser, you have around 900 lineal metres to process -- not counting the short bits -- at a typical machine feed rate of 4 lin.m per minute, that's around 4 hours of machine time -- assuming one person feeding, and a second person on the out feed side. A bench top machine will need both dust extraction and a solid base. Plus you may need to factor in a knife change at around the 600 lin.m mark.

best wishes

Ian is right. Unfortunately there aren’t any shortcuts here and if you’ve seen ‘commercial/bespoke’ sun lounges for sale at eye watering prices you now how they arrive at that figure. It’s a lot harder than better homes and gardens make it look !

A thicknesser will be cheaper than having a company (if you can find anyone) do it for you and most of us here are hobbiests without the time or inclination to take on other peoples projects. A power planer is an option for the longer pieces but I’d buy a hand plane and tell the people they’ll get their gift for next years birthday......now which plane ? Oh and I need a workbench....so many designs....damn how do I sharpen this plane....another chisel ? It goes on forever. Good luck.

Originally Posted by Anna N

Hi Ian,
Sadly can’t quit paid over $1k for the wood.
I was told by the mill guy that the wood won’t warp or shrink, it doesn’t feel wet or moist, so not sure.

if you just concentrate on the cut ends of the pieces, do any feel noticeably cooler (or warmer) than others?
If yes, this is an indication that some pieces are dryer than others.

Hi Ian and Sam,
Thanks for all the information..... in hindsight I should have now purchased dressed timber and docked it myself..... but we live and learn and what I have saved on wood I am now going to spend on tools
So in light of that information..... any suggestion on brands of any of the items....
I have seen in Bunnings and online a thicknessers:
Triton for $475
Ryobi $595
or on ebay an old GMC I think it was or GNC for $275

an electric planer?? or hand planer what brand is best or good?
Can you advise what i may have to pay roughly for a Makita or Bosch industrial rated best sander and how much for the quality beltss cost??
Just so i can work out what I need to add to my costings now and budget.
Also I can have 2 of us working the thicknesser?
So my question is how difficult are these items to use?
I am female... but i am a quick learner and can be quite handy

thanks