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I'm curious to get an idea of what tools folks use for thicknessing. In particular what you use for bringing sides down to their final thickness.

Drum sanders apparently work great, but you've got to drop some serious smack for one.

Thicknessing planers I'm told will cause irreparable tearout as you get to final thickness.

There was a recent post about the Wagner safe-t-planer.

I'm partial to my Stanley #5, though something as long and thin as a side is pretty awkward to work with a hand plane.

So what's a 1-2 guitar per year weekend warrior to do?

I have used hand planes up to now, but it does get old with some of the really figured woods (think bubinga!). I am finally building my drum thicknesser now, should be done over the week end. I'm building the hand feed variety based on several examples I have seen over the years, hoplefully it will work as well as they say.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I use a saftey planer to thickness and then after my sides are bent I scrape both inside and out before the top and back go on using a cabinet scraper.   

Arnt,

I would advise engineering your sander with some thought as to how to add
some sort of self-feed in the future. Hand feed works fine, but as I push/
pull wood through my sander I am constantly mulling over how to add a
feeding mechanism! Other jigs will take priority, but I have a feeling I'll be
adding this feature to my sander before long.

Cheers,
-Dave

I used my hand plane to thickness the few sets I've done so far. The hand plane will work very well for straight grained woods like plain mahogany or EIR. However, I had a really hard time planing curly cherrywood. If you want to use a handplane for the curly stuff, I would suggest you get a low-angle plane with an optional high-angle blade (a la Veritas by Lee Valley). It's harder to stroke, they say, but reduces tear-out to nil. Not cheap though. Maybe a DIY thickness sander would be the ticket.

Check out the tech. info for the high angle blade at the bottom of the page:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=45864&cat=1,41 182,48944

Hope this helps.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I lucked out and found a kit-built Kuster sander locally (Craig Sullivan also has one). The guy who was selling it was getting out of woodworking as a hobby, and grabbed it. I only found out about it when I was there to pick up a bandsaw he was selling me. I think I only paid around $350 or so for it. By far, they were the best investments I've made in tools.

Eventually, you're going to come across some really nice wood at a dealer and want to be able to resaw it and sand it to thickness. I have a surface planer for really rough wood, but I rarely use it, and it would shred thin woods anyway. Tried it. Wrecked some nice cocobolo in the process.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Look around your area or others want ad's for sale. I got mine from John Mayes who lived about 3 hours. I have seem them on occasion for sale in area papers. Also someone in your area may have one on ebay. I know some expense, but lot less than new. Make one is also option and lots of folks have that experience to help. One thing I did before had mine, was to use a local fiddle makers machine for a very slight fee (think $10 for 6 full sets) Also cabinet makers in area. I never was very good with the hand plane thing, but used the safety planer once with ok results. I guess it depends on how much going to build. If a hobby and few a year and that is all going to use it for, rent time somewhere

Depending on the wood figure and who I get the wood from: some I buy drum sanded to spec others I use a Wagner Safety planer and dress with a cabinet scraper and OR sander, some I use a # 5 hand plane. the longer I use the Wagner Safty Paner the better I like it. I would do all on a drum sander if I had one but I don't so I either order my wood sanded to spec or deal with it

Wagner SafeT planer here as well, I also use homemade Gilbert type drill press sanders for thicknessing and in fact have done it all will them on occasions. Final thicknessing will the ROS or scraper especially when voicing a braced top, or taking down a rosette.

Colin

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

Drum sander fer sure. Mine`s a shop built with a 9" drum running at 600 rpm. Being the pack rat I am, the motor and wood for it were readily available, and built for less than $20.00. I do advise using cloth backed 80 grit for the abrasive.
There aren`t many days gone by that I haven`t fired it up, and don`t/won`t do without one anymore. It`s become one of my "must have machines. What I like most about it is that I can thickness from 2.75" to .010" accurately.
One thing I can`t stress enough, though is DUST! If you`re not set up with a dust collection system, at least use a respirator! About two months of choking up a lung each morning taught me that lesson. (I thought it was the cheap cigarettes for awhile).Cocephus38793.5286689815

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

If you keep looking you will eventually find a used drum sander in good condition for $500-$1000.
Look on www.woodweb.com they have them from time to time.

Hey Todd

Good to see you.


Jay

I use a Jet/Performax 16/32 Drum Sander for Thicknessing. I love Mine.

I also use the 10-20. For rough work, I use a thickness planer, or the Wagner. I always finish sand with a D/A sander.

Al

[QUOTE=stan thomison] I got mine from John Mayes who lived about 3 hours. [/QUOTE]
Stan, I'm glad you got there before his tools went into probate. We're gonna miss ol' John!

Carlton, I hope you are kidding! I just PayPal'd John some bucks for a few more videos.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[QUOTE=dgalas] Arnt,

I would advise engineering your sander with some thought as to how to add
some sort of self-feed in the future. Hand feed works fine, but as I push/
pull wood through my sander I am constantly mulling over how to add a
feeding mechanism! Other jigs will take priority, but I have a feeling I'll be
adding this feature to my sander before long.

Cheers,
-Dave

[/QUOTE]

Dave, what kind of power feed system ary you planning to add to your sander?

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Another alternative...

In addition to the Wagner Safe-T Planer, working on a similar principle is the Gilbert Sander (available from LMI) that Colin mentioned. Like the Wagner it is a round flat disk on a shaft that mounts in a drill press. While the Wagner uses a cutter that is set to take a small amount of material off per revolution, the gilbert sander uses a 4" sanding disk to do the stock removal. It can be safer than the Wagner although I have had no problems with the Wagner.

I have used the Wagner for years to do things like taper neck blanks so I had always put off getting a gilbert sander. For thinning things like headplates and sides it looked like a nice solution so recently I bought one as I had some handsawn snakewood and burl headplates to thin. While I have never had a problem with my Wagner I used the headplates as an excuse to buy the Gilbert.

It works really nicely...think of it as a less agressive Wagner with the added benefit that it sands as well. I still scrape to remove any swirl or machining marks but it is a slick little tool.

I used my shopmade drum sander for the first time a couple of weeks ago, went like a charm although it needs a bit of adjustments for the overall performance. i'm considering building me a jig with router and bearings rolling on tracks like Bruce has, it makes a lot of sense when you lack space like me and Hesh!

Thanks for all the great responses so far!

There's really no way I'm going to be able to afford a "real" drum sander,
used or otherwise. $300 is way out of budget, and that would be
obviously in the used category. I have to admit the thought of building
one just doesn't appeal. I have so little time in the shop, that I really
don't like building jigs and fixtures and things like that, even though
they're necessary. I've burned one night already building a jig to do
radius dishes!

It surprises me how many people use the safety planer. At $50, I might
give that a try. I've already got an auxilary table on my DP, and it could
easily be shimmed to level it.

Jay

I use the Wagner Safety Planner

Mike
White Oak, Texas

I use the Wagner planer and the Gilbert sanding disk.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

The Gilbert is so dead flat, you can use it to check the level of the drillpress table. Is it a bargain at around $50.

I make all of my own 'Gibert' type sanding discs, takes about 20 mins to make one and I have a selection with different grits on always handy.

I use off cuts of MDF or Plywood, which are cut to a 5" circle using the circle cutting attachment on my small bandsaw. These are then drilled out using the spike mark from the circle cutter to centre, a flat brad point bit is used to open up a cavity in one face of each to take the bolt. I use 8mm bolts with the head cut off and put a nut and washer both sides of the wood and tighten right down with a bit of locktite on the threads. The two circles of wood are then glued together with PVA.

When set check the level of your table with a bent coat hanger and put some sandpaper on the table face up, I usually use it attached to a board, run the press and slowly lower the sanding disc onto the sandpaper to level the lower face to ensure that it runs level to the table.

Attach velco hook cloth to the underside and your done, 5" ROS dics can then be used.

Long winded explanation, quicker to do than explain. A couple of pictures perhaps.





I have one with a piece of leather stuck to the top which is great for final polishing of chisels etc.

ColinColin S38794.3883333333

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

[QUOTE=Arnt]
Dave, what kind of power feed system ary you planning to add to your
sander?[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure. The the bed on the sander now tilts to adjust the thickness,
so it would seem that a conveyer system of some sort would make the
most sense. On the other hand, converting to a raising/lowering bed and
using feed rollers might not be too bad.

I was poking around one of my favorite haunts on the web, and actually
found some literature on the Kuster machines that Don mentioned. There
are some good ideas there for anyone building a sander. I might try to
retrofit something like their feed roller system to my sander.
Here's the link.


Good luck Arnt!