planer thicknessers

[marcros]

This may be a stupid question, but I currently have separate machines.

Do planer thicknessers have a single cutter block, or do they have one for the planning and one for the thicknessing part.

I am thinking of upgrading my planer to one that will manage wider stock. It is the 3 blade axi 6” one, which other than the fact it is 6”, I cannot fault. I am only looking at this stage, but am wondering whether to try and find one that I could fit with one of the spiral cutting blocks, or even splash the cash (yet to be saved) and buy a new one with said feature.

I would prefer to have a model that would switch easily (i.e. quickly) between the planning and thicknessing functions- should I focus my searches on ones that wind up and down, or ones that you lift the table like a toilet seat? I would prefer not to have o move fences if possible.

Has anybody retrofitted a spiral block to an old/non new planer thicknesser?

 

[MickCheese]

My 8" Kity has just one block. Very easy to switch between modes but you do have to fiddle with the extraction hose.

Mick

 

[Pond]

All the P/Ts I have seen have just one block, in an 'over and under' configuration. You just feed the timber from opposite ends depending whether it's 'over' (planer) or 'under' (thicknesser).

I have recently bought the Axy AW106PT2. It's good but you have to remove the planer fence to lift the tables for thicknessing which is a bit of a pain and it's heavy! I have noticed also that I have to re-adjust the outfeed table on the planer everytime I put it back down after thicknessing, which again is a pain.

 

[carlb40]

All the P/Ts I have seen have just one block, in an 'over and under' configuration. You just feed the timber from opposite ends depending whether it's 'over' (planer) or 'under' (thicknesser).

I have recently bought the Axy AW106PT2. It's good but you have to remove the planer fence to lift the tables for thicknessing which is a bit of a pain and it's heavy! I have noticed also that I have to re-adjust the outfeed table on the planer everytime I put it back down after thicknessing, which again is a pain.

Those are the very reasons i went for separates. It would have done my head in having to keep removing/ refitting/ resetting bits. The only PT i would consider if i had the space is a sedgewick. That way i could plane or thickness without moving tables.

My little axi 6'' planer is great. Just wish it was a wee bit wider and the axi thicknesser had a bit more height on it

 

[Col]

...

I have recently bought the Axy AW106PT2. It's good but you have to remove the planer fence to lift the tables for thicknessing which is a bit of a pain and it's heavy! I have noticed also that I have to re-adjust the outfeed table on the planer everytime I put it back down after thicknessing, which again is a pain.

I'm in exactly the same boat having recently bought the AW106PT2. The machine performs great but it is a pain lifting the tables when switching from planing to thicknessing. If (when?) I upgrade it will be separates.

Col

 

[James-1986]

I worked for a company last summer who had a rojek combination planer with flip up tables, the bane of my life. It was slow, inaccurate, laborious and very frustrating; especially if you forgot to straighten a bit of timber after you've just coverted it to thicknessing! Most of the time when I wanted to shoot an edge straight I'd just get my jack plane out 'cos I couldn't be bothered taking the fence off, winding the table down....

 

[Dangermouse]

you cant beat a good old Wadkin, mine is from the 1960's still going strong and no bl**dy flip up tables.

 

[marcros]

hmmm. it is starting to look like i may replace the planer then with another separate.

 

[carlb40]

There is a jet P/T that is easy to use apparently. It's beds both lift together and don't think they need adjusting. Just can't remember which one


EDIT

Seems like most of the jet P/T operate the same way

http://www.axminster.co.uk/jet-jet-jpt- ... rod603785/

Not the above machine, but useful to watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6s74fBHzLk

 

[yetloh]

hmmm. it is starting to look like i may replace the planer then with another separate.

There is a solution to this problem in the form of the Swedish Moretens H410 planer thicknesser. I have one myself and can thoroughly recommend it if your budget will stretch that far. It has the usual under and over arrangement but the tables do not lift and the extraction serves both functions without any adjustments; the extraction performance is excellent Because there is no need to move an extraction hood there is also no need to alter the thicknesser setting if you want to plane. Planing width is 310 mm, but you can thickness up to 410 mm wide - the overhead extraction ducting accounts for the difference. Not sure of the current price, but the last time I looked I think it was about £2600, which isn't cheap but it is very well made with a separate feed motor and you get all the advantages of separartes within the footprint of a p/t.

There is a video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fcFQFzFS04

Jim

 

[heimlaga]

elderly british mashines like robinson and wadkin have the same feature.
a neighbour has a moretens 410 and i used it a bit before i bought my first own planer/thicknesser. going from one function to another is very easy but the dusty collection is not very good. if it was mine i would make a simple loose dust hood for it.

then there is the old swedish system which is basicly a heavily built planer with spring loaded powered feed rollers let into the table and a thicknesser table that can be swung down above the cutterhead. i have a 24" combination of this type and it works rather well but the fence has to be removed every time. they are no longer made.

machines with one cutter block for planing and one for thicknessing are called four side planers. they all have one cutter block for each of the four sides and usually a fifth thicknesser block for profiling. they are big industrial machines used in planing mills for making tongue and groove boards and the like. old flat belt powered ones are rather cheap but they have no use for a hobbyist.

 

[Jacob]

This may be a stupid question, but I currently have separate machines.

Do planer thicknessers have a single cutter block, or do they have one for the planning and one for the thicknessing part.

I am thinking of upgrading my planer to one that will manage wider stock. It is the 3 blade axi 6” one, which other than the fact it is 6”, I cannot fault. I am only looking at this stage, but am wondering whether to try and find one that I could fit with one of the spiral cutting blocks, or even splash the cash (yet to be saved) and buy a new one with said feature.

I would prefer to have a model that would switch easily (i.e. quickly) between the planning and thicknessing functions- should I focus my searches on ones that wind up and down, or ones that you lift the table like a toilet seat? I would prefer not to have o move fences if possible.

Has anybody retrofitted a spiral block to an old/non new planer thicknesser?

Toilet seat is OK and tends to be cheaper AOTBE. With my Minimax combi you have to move the fence but a very similar SCM machine I saw you could leave it in place, which is handy. Yes one block - that's the whole idea - two machines for the price of, er, 1 and 3/4 machines.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

I have had a Delta bench top thicknesser and Elektra Beckum PT, which I used only as an overhand planer, for many years. They take up a little more space than a combined machine, but I hate flipping up the tables etc... If you make your own dust extraction port to go on top of the planer there doesn't have to be a reason to raise the table for thicknessing unless the micro-switch inhibits that.

Nick

 

[marcus]

There is a solution to this problem in the form of the Swedish Moretens H410 planer thicknesser. I have one myself and can thoroughly recommend it if your budget will stretch that far.

Yay, another Moretens fan! Thought I was the only one. They're brilliant machines.

 

[yetloh]

elderly british mashines like robinson and wadkin have the same feature.
a neighbour has a moretens 410 and i used it a bit before i bought my first own planer/thicknesser. going from one function to another is very easy but the dusty collection is not very good. if it was mine i would make a simple loose dust hood for it.

Not my experience at all but I guess it may depend on how suitable your extraction is for a machine of this capacity. I started with a small Camvac and extraction performance was awful, but with a proper HVLP system rated to the sort of dust/chip output a machine of this capacity can produce it is truly excellent with only a tiny proportion of waste escaping collection, and certainly miles better than the big industrial extraction system at West Dean College achieves via the craqppy and inconvenient extraction hood on its big Sedgwick p/t. The problem is that people will spend loads on a piece of machinery and skimp on extraction; it never works.

Jim

PS glad to hear of someone who is with me on this, Marcus.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

I agree on extraction. Best thing I ever did was site a cheapish 4in bag extractor outside the workshop, with a single hose to my pt or thicknesses, but no gates, which can reduce flow if you don't have a very powerful extractor. I use old vacuums for sanders and saws, some with intermediary cyclone bins, to remove fine dust.

Nick

 

[heimlaga]

you may be right nick.
he has only a small dust collector for that moretens machine. i think the dust collector has a 1,4kw tree phase motor and the filter bag on top of it is rather small. maybe we should try some day to hook it up to my bigger dust collector and see how it works.

 

[custard]

Never mind lifting tables, IMO the number one hassle with planer thicknessers is blade changing. If I was faced with the choice of separates with traditional blades, or a combined planer thicknesser with tersa blades, then the tersa would win every time!

 

[Fishandchips]

I have the aw106pt and have recently bought a thicknesser because I was sick of changing everything. I have a small workshop and its a pain changing to the thicknesser and moving the extractor from one side to another.

I am considering fixing the beds of the aw106 because I don't think I'll use the thickness function on that machine again.

 

[RogerS]

Never mind lifting tables, IMO the number one hassle with planer thicknessers is blade changing. If I was faced with the choice of separates with traditional blades, or a combined planer thicknesser with tersa blades, then the tersa would win every time!

You could always go for these. I did and never looked back. Nor do you have the high upfront cost of a Tersa block. I also remember reading sonewhere that Tersa blocks were designed for only taking off small shavings at a time. The blades in mine are just like the standard blades and so can hog off a fair bit if you need to.

http://www.barke.de/web-content/eng/sysbarkeEN.html

You can get them from Cutting Solutions.