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When I first looked at it I thought this was going to be a sticking point too.
Upon advice from the forum, I had my kids drink 4 cans of soft drink this arvo. I'm a good dad!
Cut them up with scissors and measured the thickness. 0.1mm. Perfect! I cut a piece of MDF to 400x150. Drew on both sides vigorously with a carpenters pencil, cranked down the winder until I only just *barely* touched the MDF. Then I fired it up and ran it through once. Measured it with the micrometers, turned it directly over and ran it again. Remeasured it.
It was out 2mm across the length to the non-motor end. Easy peasy. Carefully used two steel rulers to fold each can length wise 5 times then flattened them. It effectively made, after trimming and using a hole punch, 4 more shims that were exactly 0.5mm each.
Undid the bolts, tightened every other bold up nice and hard, slid in the shims, tightened it all back down, made up a new test piece with pencil and ran it through. Set for only the tiniest hair to take off. Absolutely perfect. Flip, wind it down a fifth of a turn, did it again. Perfect across the the entire 400mm.
Grabbed the micrometer and checked it. Now, this is going to sound like bragging, but it was out from back/front/left/right by less than 0.03mm. It was stupid stupid accurate.
So, I grabbed a bit of ply and did the same. Same results. Amazing.
So, double so, those who suggested coke cans are spot on. They are uniformly 0.1mm thickness. And make very reliable shims. Once cut open, folded carefully to the right width (of a steel ruler) they make extremely predictable packers. Plus they are as long as the underside of the bed, so support is very good.
For a real world action, I had a return on a chop board for repair. #Doofus who bought it left a big greasy roast on it overnight and thought it would be smart to soak it in hot water for several hours....submerged.
Needless to say, the carefully glued up timbers decided to test their glue and water absorbancy limits. #
Let it dry right out for 2 weeks and ran it through, both sides. #It's amazing. #The timber is too knotty and gnarly for the thicknesser so I did it previously with the Festool belt sander.... Well, won't be using that too much after today's experience.
It flattened the board on both sides parallel in under 5 minutes. Grabbed the micro and it was spot on right around...not close, it was spot on.