Thread: Thicknesser- $1500ish

My Carbatec arrived today. Can't speak as to its performance yet, as I haven't finished setting it up and degreasing it (sooo much packing grease...). I think you'd have to have a need to go bigger than 15" to want to spend more money...it didn't strike me as likely I'd need any extra capacity.

Originally Posted by q9

My Carbatec arrived today. Can't speak as to its performance yet, as I haven't finished setting it up and degreasing it (sooo much packing grease...). I think you'd have to have a need to go bigger than 15" to want to spend more money...it didn't strike me as likely I'd need any extra capacity.

Tell me how she handles when you start putting it through its paces. I got to see a 15" spiral cutter head in action the other day and it was a top notch machine. The timber came out of her nearly polished!

Yes, I think the spiral cutter might be an advantage, but on the two machines (planer & thicknesser) that was going to cost me nearly $1800 more...which is possibly still worth it, but I am assured aftermarket fitment is available for basically the same money. Hopefully it gets cheaper...for $500 more per machine I would have jumped on it.

Hi Craig,

Which machine did you go for in the end? the woodfast looks pretty good

Cheers

Andy

I recently purchased the 15" Carbatec, and am very happy with it. One of my reasons for my choice was the fact that the Carbatec had solid infeed and outfeed tables, rather than rollers. My previous thicky had rollers, and I gave them the blame for getting a fair bit of snipe on my work. The solid tables, and the fact that the head is supported on four very heavy duty columns has given me excellent results from my new machine. If the budget had been a bit more flexible I would have gone for the spiral cutter head machine, but reality raised its ugly head and put a stopper on that idea.