Savings buying sawn timber ?

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stefan szoka

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I make the odd piece of furniture, cabinets or sideboards in ash, elm or similar.
PAR is expensive so considering purchasing planer thicknesser to convert sawn. (The Sheppach 260 looks good). Require 3/4" thick stock, so 1" thick sawn sufficient ? Not used p/t before, so not sure what sawn starting thickness needs to be to achieve 3/4" planed stock.
What are the savings ? I have heard its around £2 per metre.

Regards,

Stefan
 
Stefan
I don't see how you can come up with a figure like £2 per metre. It depends on the timber.

The big advantage of planing it yourself is the control you have. But bear in mind that the bigger the board you wnat to plane, the more likely you are to have to plane it thinner.

For example, 1" stuff usually planes down to 21mm. But if you want only smallish pieces, you might get 23 or even 24mm if the board is generous to start with. OTOH, if you wnat a 3m length, you might struggle to get 20mm, depending on how flat the board is. I've just planed soem oak, it was 3/4 stock, cut at a generous 20mm, but I needed 2.1m lengths and have got only 14mm thivkness out of it, entirely due to a kink round a knot.

I would heartily recommend getting a P/T, or even better if you have the space, separate machines (I don't). But it's not to save money, it just widens your options enormously.

Cheers
Steve
 
Stefan...

I'd go along with Steve... all it takes is one wee defect in the board to really hammer your finished thickness... one word of caution though.... if you buy one of these wood munchers, be sure to get a good dust collector for it too; these things will fill a 50 litre bag in no time flat...

what qualifies as a good dust collector is a whole different can of worms....
 
Stefan

Agree with what the others said but would add the following. I tried that approach..once...and got badly bitten. The sawn timber seemed to have had accelerated growth..with very wide growth rings...that just simply would not plane up. The wood was rubbish for that purpose. Ok - I may have just been unlucky but once bitten...



https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3814&highlight=
cheers Roger
 
Stefan

Assuming uyou don't use hundreds of metres of timber a year, then there are no savings to be had as the P/T will cost £500+ and the planing is only £2/m. You would need to buy 250m of wood (I don't think I've purchaswed that much timber in the last 7 years!) before saving any money and you would probably find a reduction in the £2/m price if you were buying larger quantities.

Whne I bought my fiorsat thicknesser, it was to allow me to control the thickness, not to save money over the lumber yard planing it.

The P/T is a great tool to own because you can easily dimension wood to exactly the same thickness across pieces and you can decide on thicknesses as you build
 
stefan szoka":22a5r4rz said:
£2 per metre is what local timber supplier (Falmouth) charges for planing !
Woodstock? Run away, Stefan. Run away as fast as ever you can... Although their best unsorted redwood isn't bad, to be fair.

The big advantage of a P/T is control, in my opinion. You have control over how thick (or thin) you can leave a given board, depending on your requirements. The guy running it through the machine down at Woodstock just takes it down to the "required" size regardless. It's not his money, so why should he bother about taking too much care over how he does it either? Friday afternoon, nearly time to knock off? Well we'll just take a deeper cut and push it through a bit quicker then, shall we... Yep, I wouldn't be without a P/T for all the planes in Maine. :wink:

Alternatively consider an outfit like British Hardwoods. I'm pretty sure I found their prices for planed stuff worked out better, even allowing for delivery.

Cheers, Alf
 
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