Convert Titan P/T to full time planer

[fezman]

HI,

I have a Titan P/T -you know the one from screwfix - that I'm planning to convert to a permanent planer.

It's worked reasonably well as a thicknesser for the ~2 years I've owned it, but now I have a Metabo DH330 thicknesser. As a jointer, well, let's just say the fence is a bit vague!!

So rather than sell it for peanuts, I would like to attempt to make the Titan a permanent 90 degree jointer. The plan being that this will let me get one flat face and square edge, before i push the stock through the DH330 to thickness to required size.

My outline plan is to take a ~ 600mm length of aluminium box section approx 3"x1" , which is square, and attach it to the outfeed table of the Titan.

To do this will require (at least) a couple of things. Firstly to cut a small arc in the bottom of the box section to allow the blades to pass under the box section. I've made a start on this using the round end of a belt sander to remove some material. This was really slow and not a large enough diameter. Moved on to a drill press mounted drum sander, which has the desired diameter, but is taking forever. So question 1 is, how (without any specific metal worktools) can i quickly cut the arc in the box section?

The second thing is how to attach the fence to the table? I've stripped the existing bracket down, and could possibly adjust this (read hit with hammer) to attach to the box section. Alternatively (and /or) drill a couple of holes at the beginning and end of the outfeed table, and simply bolt the box section to it. I can see that being a faff to get a bolt inside the middle of the box section to attach a nut underneath the table. Any other ideas out there?

I've seen a couple of similar things done on youtube & am aware that most opinion on this machine is Shog Dite, but would like to try and use it as a) it's paid for, b) the size is good for me (not much space left in my garage!) and c) using a sled in the lunchbox thicknesser looks a faff TBH, but i will give it a go one day.
thanks
Ian

 

[gmgmgm]

HI,
My outline plan is to take a ~ 600mm length of aluminium box section approx 3"x1" , which is square, and attach it to the outfeed table of the Titan.

To do this will require (at least) a couple of things. Firstly to cut a small arc in the bottom of the box section to allow the blades to pass under the box section. I've made a start on this using the round end of a belt sander to remove some material. This was really slow and not a large enough diameter. Moved on to a drill press mounted drum sander, which has the desired diameter, but is taking forever. So question 1 is, how (without any specific metal worktools) can i quickly cut the arc in the box section?

To cut the gap for the cutter blade, couldn't you just hacksaw it? Maybe a few small holes to get the curve you want, then hacksaw between them. A little child hacksaw would be big enough.

I see the bigger problem as needing a shim shurely on the infeed table? The infeed table is usually a mm or so below the outfeed table (but clearly parallel). Maybe use clamps to get it all set up and working, then drill through (cobalt bit) and put in plenty of bolts.

 

[OscarG]

I got the same P.O.S machine so watching this thread with interest!

 

[Noel]

Sanding aluminium is hard work as the grit just gets clogged. Try some parrafin wax or even ordinary soap, that should help. But as said, cut away as much as you can and the finish with abrasive and wax/soap. Either polish to a shine the box section or just leave it cleanish and protect with wax or polish as it'll oxidise very quickly.

 

[Lonsdale73]

If it's fitted to the outfeed table, won't it be clear of the blade?

 

[arcflup]

Clicky

 

[Bodgers]

It is a better thicknesser than it is a surface planer/jointer. So you are locking it in to its weakness.

Yes you can make a better fixed fence, but you still have the short tables that are too lightweight to absorb vibrations. It is a nasty machine to use in this mode.

I sold mine, bought a Metabo thicknesser, and I have a simple jig to flatten one side and use a jointer hand plane to edge join. Saves space as well.



Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk

 

[novocaine]

buy a new set of blades.
now trash your old ones by lifting the the head in to the new fence. job jobbed.
notes:
wear safety specs
gloves
face shield
leather apron
bomb suit
dog trainer sleeves
hide behind the wall I'm going to hide behind when I get flamed for suggesting such a thing and use a long stick to run the machine.

job done. :shock:

 

[mr rusty]

Agree, it's a better thicknesser than planer. Personally, I wouldn't bother. The tables and table fixings are rubbish. I bought mine as a cheap thicknesser to do a particular job - extended the thicknesser bed, threw away the rubbish plastic guard and made a new one out of ply, (tie wrapped the safety micro). It's eaten £1.5Ks worth of accoya on the original blades, which now need changing.

 

[fezman]

novocaine - you dont know how close i was to doing that however...

I've been away most of the week with work, so no progress until today. As 1 or 2 members indicated they might do something similar, i've tried to do a bit of a WIP thread below - first attempt at something like this - so be nice folks . (the images are available on http://www.pbase.com/ianfereday/ukworkshop if you want higher res ones).

When i got back to the aluminium box section, it seems i was only a few minutes from getting where i needed to be with the drum sander. I persevered and ended up with this.

So that was the cut out dealt with, without the need for new blades :shock: :shock:

I then went on to mark out 2 holes to attach the new "Fence" to the outfeed table. I decided to drill a pilot hole in these, and think the 2.5mm drill bit was a bit blunt - it took about 10 minutes. When i used the 6.5mm bit for the full diameter i wanted, it cut through in a few seconds.

Once this was complete - the main issue was inserting the bolt in the hole that was approx six inches inside the ali box section. To do this i cut a strip of paper a little wider than the internal width of the box section, folded it in half and cut a small holt for the bolt. opening the paper to make a "v" profile, enabled me to insert the bolt into the hole in the paper, push the bolt and paper inside the box ali, until the bolt fell into place in the hole. I carefully lowered the bolt and box section through the hole in the outfeed table and attached a nut. This was a lot of faffing about TBH, but it did work. Attaching the bolt and nut at the open end of the Ali box was pretty straightforward.

I then realised I wouldn't be able to hold the bolt from above, whilst I tightened the nut underneath the table, so improvised by grabbing the bolt with a pair of mole grips, then tightening the nut with a spanner like this.

At this point i checked how square the fence was to the bed of the table. It was approx 91 degrees, so I undid the nuts, applied a length of blue masking tape to the outside of the fence, and re-tightended the nuts. This resulted in the angle to the outfeed table being adjusted to 89.5 degress. hmmf - I couldn;t be bothered to faff with this until 100% square, until later.

Here you can see the box section and the tape and the bolts i used.

So given it was nearly square, i decided to give it a go. First on some scrap CLS that was a bit beat up (no pics sorry). The on a small cherry board.
Before - this was a little out of square , with a high spot to the left

After - it was pretty close to square.

Here is a close up of the fence sitting over the cutters.

This cut out bit ended up being fine - despite my earlier blathering on.

Overall view: well it joints better than what it did before, but i think i will remove the blue tape and build up layers of (thinner) brown packing tape until it is perfectly square.

This should give me a reasonable chance of getting boards flat and a square edge before i put them through the Metabo DH300 for thicknessing.

Sorry some of the pics seems to be upside down, they look fine on pbase, but are 180 degrees out here ????

ohh and one last point - the new ali fence is rock solid and does not move at all, once i have squared it up, i think it just might be worth it!!