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I know that a drum sander is the preferred machine for thicknessing but I don't have the $$$ to run out & get one. I'm also concerned about the constant expense of abrasives.

I do have a nice planer with a helical cutterhead that gets around the tearout issue associated with straight knife planers.

So, are any of you using a planer to thickness tops, backs & sides? I know that a backer board or sled would be needed because the planer won't go thinner than 1/8". I've never tried planing stock this thin & thought some of you might have some insight.

Thanks,
Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I wouldn't do the final thicknessing with a planer myself.
I'm lucky enough to know a guy with a KILLER shop
that I pay to sand on a Timesaver widebelt.
Amazingly accurate!

For strait grain, I often use my planer all the way to thickness the top, back et sides (my planer goes down to .080''). But as soon as there is slight interlocking grain of some sort or just little figures in the wood, than I have to finish thicknessing with the drum sander or else I'll have thearouts.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Perhaps suck it and see?
Find a some pieces with plain through to difficult grain, and take a few cuts to see how it goes with the helical cutter head.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

"I do have a nice planer with a helical cutterhead that gets around the tearout issue associated with straight knife planers."
Is this just wishful thinking or have you actually achieved success with zero tear out?
Remember, any tear out at all even to the depth of 1/10 mm may make that expensive set of wood worthless.
Yes, I would think a backing board essential.
I tried this many years ago and got to listen to pieces of a shattered Brazilian rosewood back as they were sucked up the vacuum collector duct on their way to the dust bin.

Hey Kevin, could you let us know how it goes with that?
Thank you,
Alan.

With perfect wood, ie. no runout or variation in the grain direction, you can safely use a planer to thickness. Unfortunately, there is always the possibility of finding some anomaly in the grain as you approach your final thickness. When you do... Poof! Your precious tonewood is high price scrap.
There are a couple of other issues with planing wood to thin dimensions. Most planers "snipe" a bit on the ends, where the wood is not in firm contact with both feed rollers. There are ways to minimize this, but I haven't found a way to eliminate the problem.
Also... thin, flexible pieces can chatter under the blade & be ruined in seconds.
My advice is to not take the chance. Sometimes it works, but often things go to H*LL in a hurry.
It's a lot safer to use a thickness sander or scraper or a plane to get the job done.
I haven't tried a planer with a helical cutter. It'd be interesting to see how it would work.
Some experimenting would be well worth while.
On very thick wood, I sometimes used my planer to take some of the extra off. Now that I have a Wagner Safe T Planer, I don't risk it any more.

Blowing one beautiful top or back or side set to pieces will pay for a lot of 60 grit sandpaper.

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Thanks for the replies.

I haven't run figured exotics but I have done birdseye maple with great results.

The "poof" potential is a real concern. I've never tried using a backer board & I'm concerned about & the leading edge making initial contact with the cutterhead. I could see it flap up & getting eaten. Maybe a little double stick tape under the leading edge?

Looks like I'll have to do some experiments.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

If your planer works well on Birdseye, it's a good rig. My standard blade Jet planer rips figured wood to shreds. It works OK down to about 1/2" thick. After that it starts getting really scary.
With your machine, it might be worth a try... But I wouldn't be putting any Brazilian rosewood through it!

Years ago, the LMI catalog had an article on Tom Ribbecke's method for shaping necks. He suggests spraying figured wood with a mixture of glycerin and water (1/4 oz. glycerin to 1 qt. water) to prevent tear out when dimensioning with a thickness planer. I've never tried this myself.

I use a drum sander, but I can second your idea of using double stick tape to hold the material to your carrier board. I use a layer of masking tape stuck to the carrier board, then a layer of double stick tape, then a layer of masking tape sticky side up. This sounds tedious, but for me it's faster than trying to get double stick tape residue off of everything, and more reliable than dulling the adhesive by wiping it across my jeans. I dimension batches of bone blanks this way on my drum sander (nuts, saddles, tie block bones). You can pull up the top layer of masking tape, and all the pieces come up together, to be turned over, stuck to another piece of tape, and put back down on the carrier board.

Let us know if you end up trying the glycerin, and whether it helps any. Good luck.

Why not get a hand held belt sander, clamp the piece to a flat board (with double sided tape, or whatever), and go real carefully by hand? Just keep running the belt sander back and forth, keep it moving to avoid digs, and check your work with a caliper. Then finish with a random orbital sander.

That has got to be cheaper than a drum sander, and safer than a planer.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

And to this point, why not just use a #5 plane.....no dust, easy mess to clean up and I bet just as fast! Just make sure it's razor sharp!

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

One question though, if I am using a #5 plane (which isn't even obtainable in Taiwan), how do I clamp the piece so that the resistance from the planing operation doesn't split the wood? Double sided tape?

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Cam clamp to the bench top..... or a C-clamp to the bench top..... or..... you get the idea.
But seeing as a #5 plane isn't available to you in Taiwan, just keep doing what you're doing. Mind you everything is available, it's just weather or not you want to pay shipping. Heck, Taiwan might very well be the shipping capital of the world

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Yup thickness sanders cost
However most of the home made ones were built for less than $100.
Lots of plans and pics on the various luthier forms on how to.
They are dead simple to make. Usually can be done with less than a days effort.

Probably cheaper than shreading up a few sets of sides or plates with a thicknesser.

Personally, hand planing is nice and quiet and very rewarding.

Of course all the big boys will sell you plates and ribs thickness to your specs for a few $.

Just some things to consider.


blessings

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Cutting thin fragile stock on big tools is all about making the tool forget it's cutting thin fragile stock

The stock needs to be held down rigidly to a backer. The mention of using masking tape followed by double-stick is a good one. The leading and tailing edges are the most likely to take a hit, so it helps to tape a similarly thick piece butted up against the front edge to function as a lead-in and to make sure that you have enough backing board before and after the side to ensure that it doesn't snipe. You want both rollers to be engaging the backer plate the entire time the side is under there.

I cut 7" long headplates down to 0.08" on my jointer using just a bit of tape on the leading edge (and my awesome push blocks)

As a disclaimer, test your method on a piece of fragile but worthless scrap a couple times just to make sure you're getting all the parameters right. The main thing is avoiding the leading edge lifting, the middle vibrating, and the tail end sniping.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Special thanks to those who've shared actual experience with what I'm attempting to do.



Got any pictures? I'm looking to replace my mediocre push blocks.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Tape would probably work, I used to spot glue the corners and the middle down with CA.

I now use a spacer board with the drum sander. This can be MDF. I use spray adhesive. Double sided tape can be a bear. Mineral spirits will clean up glue residue. Before mounting to board, get one side nicely sanded. I just don't like the drum being that close to the converyor belt. I spose this can be done with a planer. But I do not have one, so I do not know (the glue part).

Eric; Thanks for posting the masking tape trick. I will definitely add that one to the list! I spend more time than I like, cleaning up tape residue.
Mike... I assume you only spray adhesive to one surface, then put the pieces together before the glue dries completely? If you sprayed both surfaces, you'd have a bear of a time getting the pieces apart.

I'm with The Pad and Rod on this one. A razor sharp blade in a plane is an excellent choice. Just because its costs $$$$ and is powered doesnt make it an easier tool to use. Try a hand held power planer trust me they are damned hard to use (with great accuracy) and can be lethal. They all have a gyroscopic action so beware.....its pretty easy to take a couple of thous off with your sharp no5. though ...accuracy plus ( but probably not economical for strictly commercial use) Held at the angle my stanley slices off those paper thin coils that look like curly fries froms Hogs breath and fried up probably taste nicer. We often forget in this world of power how useful sharp and correctly maintained hand tools can be.

Steve

P.S yes i know i have lots of power tools too.

So far this is one of my least favorite things about guitar building, and I'm sure this is in part because I am not yet highly skilled, not to mention lacking in a drum sander. I'd love to get plates down to about 0.12 using a power planer and wonder if that's possible. At this point I use #5 and #4 Stanley Bedrock planes, and a hand held Bosch belt sander (which I'm not too happy about but it works)... the whole process seems to take too long and require too much effort. Wish I had a drum sander even though I do like using a well tuned hand plane sometimes.

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Yes, though I never thought about that... good call. But it could not ever be a hard as getting double sided carpet taped parts apart. I just insert a putty knife and carefully work them apart. I do the same thing with router template items. Works well.

Oh, just had a thought, if it were hard to separate, there's always the heat gun.

McMaster sells what they call double sided masking tape. It's made by Intertape. It's one of the products on this page http://intertapepolymer.com/Products/In ... fault.aspx

I used just got it & have only used it a little but I like it better than the double sided carpet tape - less residue & easier to get things apart.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.