Thicknesser. Is it the one machine you couldn't be without?

[Bm101]

I'm an idiot, we all know that. At least Karl Pilkington got paid to be an idiot abroad.
I joined here a few months back thinking I'll get a veritas blade for my record 5 1/2 Job done right? It's been a steep learning curve. Enjoyable mostly. Sometimes more expensive than I envisioned when I saw myself in a leather apron with a pencil behind my ear giving out advice to Harrison Ford in 'Witness' as I extolled the virtues of the Amish saw technique.
Ok. Im exaggerating. But when I started starting, (now I'm just beginning the middle period of starting starting) I admit I probably did have this idea in my head of planing up square, down in my shed.

Ok so we all live and learn. TBH. I've done lots of stuff I'm quite proud of, I don't need moral support. But I'm beginning to realise.
Is the one necessary bit of machinery for someone like me a semi decent planer/ thicknesser? (*Nods to Paddy R 8) )
From there I can pursue my (mostly) handtools hobby of making doors/porches/ stuff for the house etc with some hope of squareness to start with.
I have a bloomin great vintage pillar drill. I have the handtools mostly, certainly for now. If you were in my position would you feel it necessary to aim towards getting one?

Cheer as always.
Thanks as always for taking the time.
Chris.

 

[RobinBHM]

I would consider a planer thicknesser probably one of the most important machines for woodworking.

It allows the freedom to buy sawn timber and machine it flat and square to any section you want. Yes you need a method to saw as well but that could be bandsaw, table saw, track saw, hand saw.

 

[Bm101]

Thanks Robin, it was actually a comment from yourself in another thread that got me thinking about this. Time to do some planning for the future I think. Never really saw myself with a bandsaw etc. But the above would give me the head start to finish mostly by hand as I learn.
Many thanks
Chris

 

[Bm101]

One more question.... sorry. What would you be looking at to do the business without selling off the childrens kidneys? A qood quality brand second hand that would handle most things chucked at it without being deadly expensive. Ideally it would do 5"+ Perhaps more. I'd love some advice, yet again. I'm sorry. No mad rush I got no money at the moment anyway. #-o 'm happy to wait on this one and do some hunting so what might be the best things to look for?
Cheers
Chris

 

[RobinBHM]

My first machine was an elektra beckum 260, which has been cloned by a few different brands.

I found mine to be excellent.

the surface planing tables on mine were cast aly, which worked fine, you just needed to not press too hard as the beds can flex a bit. The outfeed table had 2 adjustment screws so making the tables parallel was straightforward.

The fence was accurate but flexed a bit and needed checking and tweaking to get spot on

Thicknesser side, the bed had a stainless steel polished sheet and the machine fed very well.

I would say an ideal starter machine capable of precision work provided you fettle it and treat it carefully. It wont like 10ft boards of oak.

I would say you could plane stock up to the size of door stiles, say 100 x 50 2.1m long. Smaller stock like shaker cabinet door sections of around 75 x 25 would fine on the machine all day long.

These machine often appear on ebay and Im sure quite a few people on here have them. I dont know price, about £350 I would guess.

I know lunchbox thicknessers are a cheaper option, but they wont flatten and square up.

 

[wallace]

I have a little p/t like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Erbauer-ERB05 ... SwNphWXuQw They are badged under various names but are pretty much the same. I find really quite good considering the price of them and its easy to put out the way. The fences are a bit dodgy but they can handle some big lumps when thicknessing. I use mine mainly for small stuff its better than firing up the big old 18" wadkin

 

[custard]

I've had many workshops over the years, ranging from about 8 square metres up to 80 square metres. Some didn't have electricity so were 100% handtools; others have had three-phase, compressed air, hot and cold running water, and central heating. But the two machines I'd now absolutely insist on would be a bandsaw and a thicknesser. There's nothing clever about this recommendation, it's simply that rip sawing and planing to thickness are the two most arduous tasks in woodworking, so these would be where I'd most want the help of a few obliging electrons!

However the problem with a thicknesser, or a planer/thicknesser, is that the majority of hobbyists run them way past when they need to change the blades. The reality is that many get caught in a catch 22, they can't run to the expense of Tersa blocks or disposable knife blocks, and they're not using the machine often enough to get really slick at blade changes and resetting the traditional planer knives, so they just keep putting it off. So if you do decide to get a thicknesser then in the very early days, when you're still full of enthusiasm for the machine, practise knife changing over and over agin until you've got it down pat. Because any thicknesser is only ever as good as the knives are sharp.

I saw myself in a leather apron with a pencil behind my ear giving out advice to Harrison Ford in 'Witness' as I extolled the virtues of the Amish saw technique.

Before I became a full time furniture maker I used to work in the film industry. Movie scripts generally go to great lengths to avoid ever showing an actor using tools, because no matter how talented they are as actors they'll always struggle to look convincing with a draw knife or a welding torch. But Harrison Ford was a carpenter and set builder before being "discovered", so the barn raising scene in Witness is one of the very few instances where you'll see an actor not just holding a hammer but actually swinging it!

 

[deema]

The two machines that I believe get the most use are the table saw and the P/T. They quickly get stuff useable, and launch you into what for most people is the fun stuff,

If you want the best solution that utilises the least space IMO a P/T is best. You want one with the longest in feed and out feed tables possible to flatten and straighten the stuff. You need everything to be absolutely rigid, no flex and again IMO if it doesn't weight a lot and is made out of cast iron it's not really going to be stable enough.

A lot of people have enjoyed using PT with lift up tables to access the thicknesser. The issue with this solution is that you need much heavier engineering to make lift up tables stable and reliable return to their position than fixed tables. Very very few machines are truly built for this.

The only new fixed table machines I know of, that are in the middle price bracket are produced by Sedgwick, a British company based in Leeds. There are also lots of secondhand machines from Wadkin, Cooksley, Robinson, Dominion as well to choose from.

Cutting knives come in three flavours, straight steel knives that take a lot of setting up, the cheapest solution on machines, Tersa knives, which are incredibly simple to change, literally seconds, which is mid range and Spiral blocks that use carbide inserts to create the cutting face, these provide the quietest running machines, are the most expensive and IMO are actually once you take away the sound benefit not as easy to live with / exchange cutters / easy to drop the bits in the machine. The optimal solution IMO is the Tersa block.

I wouldn't get too caught up with 'accurate' measurement systems on these machines, remember, you will plane and thickness all of the stuff at one time on one setting, therefore absolute thickness is in my experience never a factor.

Price, well a new Sedgwick PT is the top you would need to spend, and about £1000 will buy you a very nice secondhand machine. The machines and brands I've suggested will hold their value and are sought after so will sell very easy should you look to up-grade to a bigger machine.

 

[RobinBHM]

I have a little p/t like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Erbauer-ERB05 ... SwNphWXuQw They are badged under various names but are pretty much the same. I find really quite good considering the price of them and its easy to put out the way. The fences are a bit dodgy but they can handle some big lumps when thicknessing. I use mine mainly for small stuff its better than firing up the big old 18" wadkin

Hey Mark ccasion4:

Have you treated yourself to a new Wadkin

 

[worn thumbs]

I think this kind of discussion needs to be flavoured by the type of woodworking you focus your efforts on.If most of your output has straight sides and square corners a sawbench might be at the top of your list if you can use a hand plane.For curves and bevels you definitely need a bandsaw.A planer/thicknesser will only come into play when you have some reasonably straight timber to process.Which elements of the process are you trying to speed up?

 

[sitefive]

you still havent told your budget?
If you just want a cheap thing, get titan/erbauer from screwfix for £150- £200

If you want to futureproof get the metabo hc260 or its many clone versions, costs exactly £500 new , I never buy anything new but I had a loooooooong look on ebay ( for probably 1.5+ month) to see if I could find some cheap machine, and all I could get was about 5years used machines for 320-400 and none locally, than I started to think- it will need new blades, you will have to spend money on fuel to go get it, and it might have some hidden fault as it's an used machine, also did I said it would be used machine? So I spent the extra £100 and just bought it New with long warranty.
Good machines, only the planer beds are way too short for stock over 1.5m long.
If I will upgrade My next upgrade will probably be a full blown 4 sider

 

[sitefive]

you still havent told your budget?
If you just want a cheap thing, get titan/erbauer from screwfix for £150- £200

If you want to futureproof get the metabo hc260 or its many clone versions, costs exactly £500 new , I never buy anything new but I had a loooooooong look on ebay ( for probably 1.5+ month) to see if I could find some cheap machine, and all I could get was about 5years used machines for 320-400 and none locally, than I started to think- it will need new blades, you will have to spend money on fuel to go get it, and it might have some hidden fault as it's an used machine, also did I said it would be used machine? So I spent the extra £100 and just bought it New with long warranty.
Good machines, only the planer beds are way too short for stock over 1.5m long.
If I will upgrade My next upgrade will probably be a full blown 4 sider

 

[wallace]

You can get some good deals on multico which have proper cast tables I have a thing for old wadkin kit so I got a very rough p/t and spent a month restoring it. It has a skewed head and can take moulding knives without upsetting the planeing knives.
Robin thanks for the birthday wishes, I did treat myself to a pallet load of spindle moulder bits and I'm sure I noticed in the pictures a sliding tennon table that fits to the moulder. I will see when the courier delivers it tomorrow. I still have a LQ recessor, Maka morticer and a NH spindle grinder somewhere in devon that I bought 6months ago.

 

[xraymtb]

I'm in a similar position to you at the moment, trying to do it all by hand but with the difference that I've had many of the machines in the past.

If you have space and budget, I would get a decent p/t and a bandsaw. Everything else can be done efficiently by hand.

If space is more limited and budget consider a thicknesser on its own. You can either plane one flat face or hot glue the board to something flat (length of 3/4" ply for example) to use the thicknesser to get a flat face. Edge jointing is easily done by hand.

The bandsaw is great for resawing, long rips or curves which can be tedious by hand but I would still say thicknesser first.

 

[Bm101]

Thanks for the detailed advice all. The reason I have been a bit vague is really because I'm just dipping the proverbial toe. I'm just waking up to the fact that PAR generally isn't square or accurate enough to work with without working it flat and square myself. Sure I'm not the first to make this mistake. But it does cost a bit more as I understand so why not invest the money saved over time on doing it myself and getting it right first time. What I was trying to get was your experienced views and as always you've been most helpful.
This is definitely a future purchase for me I think, but I also don't want to jump in to the sea of amateurs who have bought too fast/cheap/expensive or bought the wrong gear because of misconception and inexperience.
I've generally found there's 3 tiers of tools (very generally speaking of course), from those that won't do what they are built for to those that make doing it a pleasure. Just trying to find my price point and need before I start looking.
My shed is 'fairly' big it's one of those cabin malarkeys that was here when we moved. Over the last couple of years I've been bringing the betterhalf round to realising that a fair bit of it is destined to be a mancave. The rest is family storage for detritus etc. I'll secretly admit that it was one of the reasons I bought the house lol. 8)
Most of my make list is joinery stuff, doors, etc for the house and the new loft extension when it hopefully goes ahead next year. I would like to make other things as time goes by. But who knows what the future brings.

You've given me a great starting point and some insight. Many thanks as always.

(@ Custard, great fact re Harrison Ford. I still picture that sometimes when I tell myself to slow down with a saw. (Another thing I'm trying to relearn). Funny what we remember eh? So Han Solo could get cooler!

The Shed. You know what they say about chasing rainbows!

 

[Bm101]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161906775413? ... S1.R1.TR11
Coronet, looks solid. Appear to be closed down as a company as far as I can see. Any ideas?

 

[SurreyHills]

That looks to be a planer,only, no thicknessing capability. Don't know what your budget is but look at something like the PT 260 model available rebadged by loads of manufacturers.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[blackrodd]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161906775413?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l5999&_trkparms=gh1g%3DI161906775413.N36.S1.R1.TR11
Coronet, looks solid. Appear to be closed down as a company as far as I can see. Any ideas?

Nice solid machine but sadly has, what it is seen by some as a very dangerous thicknesser attachment that sits on top.
Personally there are many other planer thicknessers out there, pick something not so dodgy.
Conventional under table thicknesser's are far safer.
Regards Rodders

 

[siggy_7]

If you check the "For sale" section of this forum, good buys often come up as it's a machine people frequently upgrade in order to get more capacity. I bought a Scheppach HMS 260 in this way 3 years ago and it's a brilliant machine, I've planed up to the maximum 10" capacity hardwood boards on it and it's about as big as you can run off a 13 amp plug. There is one with cast iron tables in that forum right now in fact, which I would be off buying if I didn't already have mine.

 

[Bm101]

Firstly, thanks all for the advice.
Thanks Rodders I did wonder why it wasn't going because it looks very well made. And from what I could see from old threads and a bit of research it was a well made bit of kit. Your explanation solves it. I'm happy to wait. Appreciate the info. Like all my body parts where they are.
Siggy, thanks I saw that but it's a little to far for me mate. Used to live in Bangor though! I'm happy to sit back on this one and wait for the right one to turn up.