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I have a bubinga back & side set that I have been trying to thickness. I usually run the wood under my drill press planer to get it close to finished thickness, but I can’t figure out how to smooth it out. The planer attachment leaves circular cuts and marks that I can’t sand or scrape out. I have also tried using a hand plane to smooth it but it chips and tears like crazy. I have tried everything I know to do to a hand plane to make it work, including sharpening the blade to a razor edge. I have no trouble thinning indian rosewood, I usually run it under the drill press planer to thin it, and then I smooth it out with my random orbit sander, but I can’t do that with this because it is so hard. Does anyone else have this problem when using bubinga? Any tips or info will be greatly appreciated.
                                                      

Colby a thickness sander is the bees knees on this problem. Some folk run by a cabinet shop and pay a few bucks to get them thickness sanded. good luck.

I don't have a Thickness sander yet. I have a deal worked out with a local cabinet maker to use his when he is in the shop. I supply my own sanding drum paper and clean up after myself plus help him load up cabinets when he needs an extra hand. He has been in poor health as of late so now it is time for me to start thinking about building one or purchasing one for my self.

You can also use a hand held belt sander to smooth things out a bit. If you don't own one, they are pretty affordable. Just start with fairly coarse belt and work your way down. Probably 80 grit to start. This will bring it down pretty quickly. Once the planer marks are gone switch to 100 grit then the RO sander. Finish up with the cabinet scraper and you'll be good to go. You can also graduate down in grit with the RO to something that is ready to spray also. This is "the poor man's drum sander;-)

Yeah, I have got a belt sander.I always thought there would be no way to keep the plate level, and that is probably the case with a spruce top or something, but with this hard stuff it works good.Thanks.

Colby,

I've got one of those Safe-T planers and while it is great at rough thicknessing necks etc I too find that it can leave swirl marks that take for ever to buff out with the RO sander. For thicknessing tops and B&S sets I guess a thickness sander is the bees knees, however for the number of uses it would get in my workshop I couldn't justify the $900 or so for the smallest model. I've found that a good mid-step between the Safe-T and the RO sander is a drill press sander similar to the one made by John Gilbert, see David Schramm's online apprentice web page.

I had my engineering department at work make me a set for different grade papers with a chamferred edge to facilitate feed. They did a fine job on the two sets of Bubinga and all the other woods I've used them on so far. And, $900 buys a lot of wood!

Colin

John Gilbert ThicknesserColin S38378.4133796296

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

That sounds like a very handy tool. I’ve got to find something like that.

The Gilbert Thickness sander is just a less aggressive version of the Wagner safety planer which makes alot of sense. Contact Greg (John Gilbert's son in law) who is now running the business at http://www.gilberttuners.com/index.html.