Official Luthiers Forum!

OK I finally found someone who has a byrd helical cutter & says he has a 98% success rate in planing figured wood down to 3/32. Does anyone on this forum do it & with what machine. I have a delta 22-580?
mike mcnerney

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Mike McNerney

No matter what , planning is not how to properly thickness wood. Hand planning and scraping maybe power planners just don't work. While helical is better than the flat blade thickness sanding is much less stress .
john hall
blues creek gutiars.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I was amazed at how fast a well set thickness sander (proper paper!) can thickness a board.

Bad paper means burns etc. Spend the $$ on good paper.

Mike

What type of paper Mike?

blues creek,
are you implying that power planing some how damages thin wood or any wood of any thickness? either the top few thousand or something.
mike
I have been considering a thickness sander. I have a line on a general I believe 14" belt.
I spoke to one wood seller that said they had to use a 40 grit belt to minimize belt clogging
& take .010 max.
I would appreciate more details on type of belts & why planing is not proper?
thanks bunches
MM

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Mike McNerney

In planing with a thickness planer , What happens is that as you thin the wood , it flexes. Then it gets lifted into the cutter and kaboom , toothpicks ,. Sanding is the only way to be able to control this. As for sandpaper , it is more the grit that will burn. Sandpaper is more than just sandpaper , you have so many types of grits and the adhesives that hold the grit to the paper , then you also have cloth back - paper back no load etc.
I use a 36 grit to hog if I need to take more than an 1/8 inch 60 grit for rough to .025 of final size. and 80 grit for finish. if you use a fine grit you will clog up and heat , as you sand you want to feel if the wood is heating . Like in metal work you want the heat to go into the chip or in this case the dust. Too slow will burn quicker than feeding fast. You in essence need to match your feed rate to the paper you are using.
john hall
blues creek guitars

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

What John said.

I used Ken Hodges advice and bought Klingspor paper (big roll). Really nice stuff.

John, would not a helical blade be less prone to lifting the wood into the planer? I have no visual clue as to what this blade looks like, but to avoid lifting, it would have to look like an auger bit I would think! Even so, I would not wanna try it. I have heard too many horror stories about planers destroying back & side sets.

Mike, General Industrial on ebay has a good (very good) deal going on performax 10-20s. Only $499.

Mike

A helical cutter makes a shearing cut and keeps constant contact with the cutter, which is a significant advantage. But as John says, it can't eliminate all chatter. There will be resonances, depending on mass, thickness, etc. which cause the piece to flex and get out of control. You may well get away with it most of the time. I've run rosewood through a standard planer down to 1/8" or less and gotten away with it. If you can afford to lose the piece, it can be a timesaver. If you can't afford to lose the piece, go abrasive.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.