Thread: Thicknessing Painted Timber

Originally Posted by Kuffy

If you need to take paint off with a planer, it is much better to take the deepest pass possible. Taking light passes has the knives inside the painted skin for a longer portion of the cut and will grind away your edges far quicker than a deep pass.

Also, assuming the sides are painted too, send the timber thru the planer/thicky on an angle if you must. Joint after paint is removed from all four faces. If sent straight thru, the parts of the blades cutting the sides can blunt so quickly that you may as well have hit a pair of nails on the first board. DAMHIKT.

I have been removing the paint with a belt sander before jointing... don't know why I didn't think of a handheld electric plane. Idea adopted!

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

....I have been removing the paint with a belt sander before jointing... don't know why I didn't think of a handheld electric plane. Idea adopted!

You may not have had one in the shed?

Why not use paint stripper first, then pass it through the thicknesser? You can get some good eco paint strippers now, harmless to use

cut a bit deeper?? (Ie remove a bit more material so the cutter blades are shearing through timber not paint)? I reckon so long as your biting off a bit more the paint flecks off and doesnt even get contacted by the blades besides causing the crack.

Personally I've never had any durability issue with blades used on painted surfaces

I note a couple of posters are using sandpaper/abrasive to clean up before thicknessing.
I always understood this was a no -no before using a blade as particles may be left in the wood.