Thread: How long can you safely run a thicknesser?

It should run non stop just fine.

Non-stop up until the blades get blunt which if you hit something awful or put a dirty or gritty piece of wood thru can be way sooner than you'd like.

I'd agree with BobL. Your blades will pack up before the thicknesser.

LGS

Originally Posted by BobL

Non-stop up until the blades get blunt which if you hit something awful or put a dirty or gritty piece of wood thru can be way sooner than you'd like.

Cheers!

It is pretty much inevitable that I will hit a nail sooner or later.... I am slowly but surely de-nailing the decking, but the previous owners used a brad gun to put it down, so they arent coming out easy, and there is a heap of them in each piece.... Even so, some one them just dont wanna come out! the best I can do is drive them below the surface....

There is some sand and grit, some worse than others, but I am planning to sweep down each piece before putting it through.

I am hoping by really taking my time, I can minimise any damage to the blades.... In the end, I am happy to sacrifice the blades to get the decking smooth, as long as I dont sacrifice the machine!

I'd encourage you to do the 4-5mm in 3-4 passes to help save the blades edges.....
Also the web-link suggests a magnetic stop switch on one of the models which would help with missed nails....

Have you thought of running the planks through a table saw, or band saw first? Then with the timber almost to size, you plane to the required dimension in a single or maybe two passes.

Recently I helped someone remove 6mm from some 150mm wide Jarrah planks, trust me when I say it is hard stuff on the machine, we were using the Carba-Tech unit, which is more or less like yours.

Even with two passes on a table saw (top and bottom) to cover say 90mm to 110mm planks, I would think it would be firstly quicker, secondly easier on the machinery and your ears, not to mention the rest of the household and the neighbours ears.

Mick.

Two tricks to prolong blade life.

Since you are machining recycled wood, buy a decent metal detector and pass it over each piece of wood before machining, the set anything that triggers an alarm aside for further attention. Expensive, but cheaper than the new machine and probably on par with one or two new set of blades.

Don't feed your boards perpendicular to the cutter head, send them through the unit on an angle so that the blade wear is fairly evenly distributed across the width of the blade. Obviously the angle can't be that great that the board collides with the frame during the pass, but wants to be large enough to use most of the blade width.

Originally Posted by Optimark

Have you thought of running the planks through a table saw, or band saw first? Then with the timber almost to size, you plane to the required dimension in a single or maybe two passes.

Recently I helped someone remove 6mm from some 150mm wide Jarrah planks, trust me when I say it is hard stuff on the machine, we were using the Carba-Tech unit, which is more or less like yours.

Even with two passes on a table saw (top and bottom) to cover say 90mm to 110mm planks, I would think it would be firstly quicker, secondly easier on the machinery and your ears, not to mention the rest of the household and the neighbours ears.

Mick.

Thats not a bad idea. I have a table saw that could do the job. I might put a few pieces through, see how it goes. It will certainly save the blades on the thicknesser......

Originally Posted by malb

Two tricks to prolong blade life.

Since you are machining recycled wood, buy a decent metal detector and pass it over each piece of wood before machining, the set anything that triggers an alarm aside for further attention. Expensive, but cheaper than the new machine and probably on par with one or two new set of blades.

Don't feed your boards perpendicular to the cutter head, send them through the unit on an angle so that the blade wear is fairly evenly distributed across the width of the blade. Obviously the angle can't be that great that the board collides with the frame during the pass, but wants to be large enough to use most of the blade width.

Thats a great idea. I was wondering about the best way to feed it through, I was thinking about two at. A time, but it was going to be difficult to handle on my own.... Your way makes a lot of sense.....

I agree with finding and doing the metallic contaminated boards last.
Also use a wire brush with the grain to remove grit.
Docking the ends is also worthwhile especially if the boards have been stacked vertically in the dirt.
When you do come to the ones with nails still in them feed them thru one side so the damage to the blades is localised. The damage is actually raised so is easy to plane off by hand with a #4 or block plane.
H.

Great Advice from everyone.
I have a bench top thicky ad have had it for few years now.
To protect the unit from day one, I only pass my wood through on the smallest setting.
This means lots and lots of passes.
Not friendly to the neighbours, but good for the thicky.
Take the most minimal cut you can.Let the tool work gently, it will go forever.
Paul.

Originally Posted by HOOKED.UP

Great Advice from everyone.
I have a bench top thicky ad have had it for few years now.
To protect the unit from day one, I only pass my wood through on the smallest setting.
This means lots and lots of passes.
Not friendly to the neighbours, but good for the thicky.
Take the most minimal cut you can.Let the tool work gently, it will go forever.
Paul.

That seems counter-productive to my mind. If you're doing 10 passes on a piece when you could do it in 4 you're effectively making it do 2.5 times the work and wearing the knives 2.5 times as much for the same result. Not to mention taking 2.5 times as long.

While I certainly don't recommend abusing your tools/machines, they are built to handle a certain load and wrapping them in cotton wool, I think, is false economy.

Happy to have my logic challenged.

Originally Posted by malb

feed your boards through the unit on an angle so that the blade wear is fairly evenly distributed across the width of the blade. Obviously the angle can't be that great that the board collides with the frame during the pass, but wants to be large enough to use most of the blade width.

alternatively put each board through at 90° to the cutter head, but stagger each successive board across the cutter head
put the first board on the left hand side of the cutter head
the second board about 35mm from the left hand edge
the third board about 70mm from the left
etc till you reach the right hand side of the cutter head

then start again on the left hand side of the cutter head

Some great comments from all.
I only made my comment from my own personal experience.
No offence meant to any one.

Paul.

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