Fox Planer Thicknesser

[newbieblyth]

Hi,
The boss has asked me to finish off our bedroom by building in some wardrobes. I have decided to build some Oak framed / Oak veneered panel doors with birch carcasses. Anyway pricing out the Oak alone if I buy 70mm x 19mm PAR it is going to cost near enough £200.

I have just seen this Fox 210mm x 204mm Planer & Thicknesser on offer at Rutlands.

Is this a good buy? And will it save me much money (so I can justify the purchase) by buying sawn Oak.

Many Thanks

Andrew

 

[Mark68]

Hi.

I've got the woodstar pt85,,which looks like the same design,,same model rebadged ??
Had it for a couple of months now,,i'm very happy with it, but then i'm not using it all the time,,just now and again, on smaller stuff.

The only bad points to me on this one is the fence is fixed,so all the edging is done on the first inch or two of the blade,,so i can see that in the future this part of the blade will lose its edge while the rest of the blade will still be sharp,,i belive that on dearer machines that the fence can be moved across the bed???

Also there is no infeed table or out feed table,,so ends up with dips in the start and end of the wood when thicknessing wood.

I'm sure with a bit of thinking these problems can be overcome.

Apart from that i'm happy with it. i think its just a case of remembering that its not in the same leage as bigger machines. I'm short on space, so when i do anything i got to pack everything away afterwards,,which is a plus point with this machine,,i can put it back in its box,and store it away.

Hope this helps a bit.

As for your other questions,,i'll leave that to more experienced members.

mark

 

[Paul.J]

Hello Andrew.
I have a couple of Fox machines and for the money they are good machines.No problems so far
Paul.J.

 

[newbieblyth]

Anyone else got any thoughts on this offer. It closes on Tuesday, so I any advice gratefully received. Cheers

 

[tonybaloni]

Hi Andrew,

I bought this from Rutlands around October/November last year. Sale price then was £129.99 if I remember correctly. I bought extra blades and I seem to remember it was just over £150 all in.

I keep mine in the van for site use, and it takes a beating, but is ideal for what I need it for. The timber finish is not fantastic, but that can easily be improved by hand planing or sanding, but for rapid stock sizing etc, its fine.

Biggest problem is when you convert between thicknessing and jointing, having to remove the fence is a bit annoying as you have to move the dust collecting port to the right location.

Still, it's pretty good value for money and does it job without complaint.

Tony

 

[newbieblyth]

Well it arrived yesterday. Well actually I got one the day before but unfortunately it was damaged in transit, the infeed table adjustment knob protrudes from the edge of the table and there was only a thin bit of polystryrene betwee it and the edge of the box, needless to say when the courier driver stopped, the box didn't and drove the knob into the table edge, cracking the table and knackering the adjustment.

Anyway Rutlands handled it without fuss for me and I they collected and replaced the following day.

For the money it seems to work quite well, I need to sort out my technique a bit, and when I make the wardrobe doors I will have to make some auxiliary tables to support longer 2+ m of 75mm width Oak.

Anyone have any advice on getting the best from these and how to go about replacing / sharpening the blades as the manual does not seem to go that far!!

Also I am probably going to have to sort some extraction out, either something a'la Nikki or perhaps wait for a Liddl / Aldi shop vac to be on offer, as I have exhausted available funds.

 

[philg]

recently bought on of these, wondering if you have any bother with the thicknessing handling moving while the wood is going thorugh due to vibration, thicknessing some 6 inch oak recently i found that by the time the plank was half way through the handle had moved and lowered the thicknessing table.