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As a newbie, I have only worked on 3 guitars. I have purchased wood
from LMI thicknessed an sanded. I don't have a planer and I don't have a
drum sander. I would like to buy wood elsewhere, but I assume most of
the wood from the OLF sponsors needs to be thicknessed and sanded.
What do you recommend for a beginner who has little room for more
equipment. Are the small planers adequate enough or do you have to
have a drum sander as well. I have little experience with using a large
block plane to do it by hand, but I guess I can learn. I don't know of
anywhere in San Diego where I can rent time on a big planer/sander.

What would all of you recommend and what do you all use. I know there
are planers for drill presses, but my drill press is quite small

Thanks

Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Hi Andy.

I am not absolutely certain but I think that most of us wood suppliers have both planers and thickness sanders. I have a 20 inch planer and 24 inch double drum thickness sander. I would not run tonewoods through a planer, I have tried spruce before I bought my thickness sander and was very disappointed, although it was bearclaw! But anyways, If you deal with the suppliers on this forum am sure we can arrange to get your wood thicknessed some how. There may be some other builders near you also that may rent a bit of time on their sander.

Oh and hey, another thought just jumped out at me! Not too long ago, like a few days Bruce Dickey was showing us the router based surfacing set up he was building to surface back and side woods. Although he has the exact same thickness sander as I do he does not like that the belts get gummed up with some of the oily hardwoods so will use his router surfacer first. You could do the same and finish off with a belt sander (only if you are good with it!!) or a palm sander (the better/safer option).


ShaneShane Neifer38591.0469212963

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Canada

Hi Andy
I offer thickness sanding and I think others do as well. I wouldn't recommend a thickeness planer with stock this thin. It would most likely shatter.
Bobc38591.3584837963

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[QUOTE=Bobc] Hi Andy
I offer thickness sanding and I think others do as well. I wouldn't recommend a thickeness sander with stock this thin. It would most likely shatter.
[/QUOTE]

You mean you WOULD reccomend a thickness sander, but WOULD NOT reccomend a planer, surely?

Andy, I did my first dozen or so guitars without a thickness sander, I don't always use it now! If I was producing guitars commercially then the thickness sander would be in constant use. But I'm never in any hurry when I'm building.

I started off planing the wood ala Cumpiano, then finishing off with the ROS. Then I moved to using the Safety Planer again followed by the ROS, but preferred the drill press sanding disc system as it seemed much less scary! OK it uses up discs, but ?2 of discs to thickness ?200 of wood seems a reasonable deal, and you can thickness a lot of wood before you reach the cost of even a 16-32 sander.

If starting out now I might give Bruce's router rig a go, (I think I will anyway)but would probably end up with the Drill Press sander disc, until I could justify the cost of the 16-32.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Hi Andy,
I would encourage you to larn how to plane your plates by hand. The "Cumpiano method" menitoned by Colin is outlined in the book "Guitarmaking Tradition and Technology" by Cumpiano and Natelson, and works very well. You will need a good smoothing plane (like a Stanley #4), learn how to tune it and keep it really sharp, but it will come in handy for many operations besides thicknessing plates as well. There are many books devoted to planes and working with them available, or you could try to find someone in your area to show you the basics. I will be time and investment well spent.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Andy, there are probably many cabinet shops in the San Diego area. These days, they will almost all have a thickness sander. Check around and see if one of them would be willing to either rent you some time on one or just do the thicknessing for you for a set fee.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

I just planed my first soundboard to thickness using a wooden hand plane. This thing is ancient.

I just learn't how to plane by practicing. It is not a fast progress and I found that it digs in a bit if you don't have the right amount of blade sticking out, but it worked and I now have a very thin soundboard (about 1.5mm on the outer edge). The more I plane the more I see what is a good blade height for different types of wood.

I also use a wide scraper which gives a plane shaving which is a little bit bigger than a normal scraper.

Another thing about planing by hand is there is no dust like sanding, which is good if your shop is in your house. It's not a 100% healthy, but its an improvement.billb38591.4621759259

Andy,

Lots of good advice above. Thought I'd toss in a few more thoughts.

I've been building for "only" a year and a half. Brian Burns showed me the ropes. He is very much a traditionalist. Doesn't own a planer or a drum sander. When I was up there, he was in the process of building a hold-down rig for his Wagner Safe-T-Planer. Once he finished it, we thicknessed my sides using this. It worked great. Good thing about it is, it isn't expensive and all you need is a drill press.

The biggest problem with using a Safe-T-Planer is the stock tends to chatter, so some sort of hold-down device needs to be employed as it's being moved under the Safe-T-Planer.

Only the sides were done in this fashion, though. I thicknessed the top and the back with a block plane. Sure it took some work, but hand planing is a pleasurable experience, so I didn't mind.

Now as far as planes go, you have a multitude of possibilities. I find, though, that a block plane works the best for me when thicknessing the top and back. I use a Veritas std. angle and I really like it. I bought a spare iron for it, and I would recommend that you consider doing this too. That way you can have two different bevel angles available. I keep one iron set to the standard 25 degrees, and changed the bevel angle of the other to 55 degrees. A steep angle works better with harder woods. So this iron gets used for rosewood and for ebony.

Still, some woods just refuse to plane, I've found. And I've been forced to thickness them by other means. Before I bought my drum sander, I would go over to a friend's shop (he's a cabinet maker/custom furniture builder) and use his. So, if you don't have access to alternatative means right now, I would strongly recommend that you stick to woods that plane easily -- like good ol' EIR.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Arnt,

Do you (or anybody else) know of a good online reference for tuning your planes? I've read through all my directions on how to sharpen it but there must be more to it than that.

Cheers!

John

Andy - a low cost alternative to a thickness sander is the jig that Bruce Dicky posted here last week, its a router on rollers so to speak,
Check out THIS thread for info.

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Thanks for all your help
Since I have several routers, I might try the Dickey method
Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

By the way
Do most of you thickness the back and top THEN glue together

or

Gllue together then thickness as one piece

Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

I think folks do it both ways Andy. Personally, I like to join my tops and backs and then thickness them. It helps clean thing up a little after ale gluing process.

Also, it allows me to go ahead and install my rossette and cut out the soundhole. Then any final leveling that need to be done is easier with the sander.Dave Rector38591.5244560185

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Even them up only, join them, select the top side and install the rosette, clean the top up, then take to near final thickness from the back.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I thickness three times. First I smooth off the surfaces, if tere is still a few saw marks that's OK. I then glue the sets together. Once dry I thickness to about .160ish. I install the rosette and let dry. Then I thickness the top until I have the rosette flush (I do some rosette flushing with block plane, scraper and sanding block as I am installing the various rings though). Then I send the whole thing through the sander one last time, first the top of the top to get the rosette 'lookin' good' and then to final thickness on the back. I finish off at between .110 and .120. Random orbit and scapers finish the process off.

Shane

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Canada

[QUOTE=John Elshaw] Arnt,

Do you (or anybody else) know of a good online reference for tuning your planes? I've read through all my directions on how to sharpen it but there must be more to it than that.

Cheers!

John[/QUOTE]

I bet there's a lot, a quick gooogle search turned this up, looks like a pretty good tutorial:Tuning A Hand Plane

My favourite plane book is this one by Garrett Hack:
The Handplane Book Lots of general info, how to's and beautiful pictures.

For all the information you ever wanted (and more) about Stanley planes check this one out:Patrick's Blood and Gore Patrick Leach also sells antique and used tools, his montly newsletter / tool list is full of old tool treasures and funny too!Arnt38591.6477314815

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

This is my solution to using a safety planer





Hope this helps. You can get these board buddies from woodcraft.com. Make sure you get the green ones as they roll both ways.
Tracy
Tracy

Tracy,

That's a great idea. What is the 24" track they are referring to on the website? Is that just a piece of wood to mount them to? The jig you have there looks great.

Cheers!

John

John,
That is Bruce's handy router jig for thicknessing. I was just showing another method for using the safety planer. Glad you liked it.
Tracy

I have been building for thirty plus years, and don't own a thickness sander. I can't stand the dust.

I do have a Wagner Saf-T-Planer. I will note that the ones I've seen recently are rahter like hand planes: more a 'kit' than a 'tool' in some ways. When I bought a replacement for my original one a few years ago I found I had to do a lot of tuning up to get it to work properly and not be a danger. They only tend to grab and make a rough surface when they are out of adjustment or dull, but with out the tune-up they go out of whack easily.

After the DPP I go to a hand plane. Don't even try to use a low angle plane for smoothing. I like a bench plane for the weight: I hate to think of how many miles I've got on my Record #4.

In a pinch I still thickness without the DPP. You need a solid and _flat_ bench top; then follow C&Ns methods.

Al,

I've also heard that the safety planers need tuning up to work properly. What kinds of things need to be done to properly tune them up?

Thanks!

John

Alan, how often do you have to sharpen the Wagner?

Thanks,
Monty

The original Saf-T-Planer I got had been milled/turned to the final shape after casting, and the cutters had been lapped flat. The replacement was an investment casting of very good quality, but the pockets for the cutters were not as flat on the bottom as they should have been. The newer cutters, too, were not truely flat; perhaps they warped in heat treatment. At any rate, the combination of the warped cutters sitting on slightly 'bumpy' surfaces meant that you could not tighten the scres up enuogh to hold them in place. They would tend to rotate in use, which changes the depth setting and causes the three cutters to bite differently from each other; a sure recipe for throwing stuff around the shop.

I used a chisel to scrape the bottoms of the pockets level. I did not have to remove much material. I ground both surfaces of the cutters to get a lsight hollow in the center, leaving 2-3mm of untouched metal all around the rim. Then I lapped them on a diamond stone (wet-or-dry on a glass plate would work) to make them fat all around the rim and uniform in thickness. Again, not much material was removed, but it took a while: that's hard stuff!.

With good bearing on the bottoms of the pockets the cutters stay in place a lot better, and cut smoothly without grabbing (too much).

I sharpen my DPP more often than I'd like, but what's new? As soon as the cutting edge looks like it's even a little rounded it should be sharpened. A rounded edge will drag and produce heat, and once it gets hot it starts to burn, and load up with gunk, and drag, and get hot. Get it sharp and keep it cutting, and it will stay cool (the heat is taken off in the chips). That will keep it sharp longer.