Official Luthiers Forum!

FYI, there is a plan for building your own Thickness Sander in the most recent ShopNotes. It is for sanding 16" wide. Worth a look if you are planning on building one.

Cool little sander, but i'd suggest a wider drum, 18- 24" wide for our purposes, thicknessing joined tops and backs IMHO. And i would also have it independant from the TS but one would have to buy a 1/2-1 hp motor.

I picked up an issue last night. Looks pretty interesting.

Serge, I would agree that something a little wider would be better. But it is a great article for getting some good ideas, and one could certainly tweak the design to go wider.

Tom that's a neat little machine. My worry would be running it off a table saw motor which tend to run around 3450 RPM.

Tom, i agree with you not to discard it completely, when i built mine, i looked at probably 10-20 different home made ones before i combined the elements i prefered and included them into my design. It's just like Anthony said, the TS would turn a bit too quick for what's needed IMHO.

When I built my thickness jig I took a different approach. I made mine to be used with a router and vacuum suction, and designed it to handle boards up to 20"x36". This way I could mill off a lot more at once, and then just do a finish sanding.

Craig
CT Holden Luthiery and Supplies

Speed shouldn't be a problem as you could set it with size of the pulley on the sander. It seems like a lot of trouble though to set it up on the table saw rather than stand alone with a motor. I just wish Shop Notes came out more often as I always get some good ideas.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA