What do you all feel about running stock on edge through a thickness planner? It just seems like a bad idea to me and probably unsafe. Since I have a jointer and a TS I don’t have a real reason to do this, but the technique has come to my attention. The current issue of Fine Homebuilding feature an article with a finish carpenter ‘edge thicknessing’ to get a surfaced edge. This is something that I have flat discouraged field carpenters from trying (them not being experienced planers). Seems to me potentially unsafe and depends (too much) on the squareness of the stock and whether you gang them up. I wonder if the couple times I have done it have given me a false sense of security. Any experiences?
Brian
Replies
No big deal in my experience. I've been doing exactly that for over three decades, and I learnt it off old cabinetmakers that had also been doing it for decades. Anything less than about 100 mm wide is fine in my experience.
The only proviso is that if the the boards are wide, say over about 100 mm and up to 250 mm (about 10", the largest capacity thicknesser I can ever remember using) then sometimes it's useful to cramp a few together and feed them through as if they're one board.
If you're doing this make sure the plank faces are at right angles to the edges, and all the bottom edges are flush together. There is a bit of tendency for wide planks to tip away from the vertical if fed singly, and cramping a batch together prevents this happening. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
It is quite routine, certainly in furniture making.
I can't see how it can be unsafe unless one feeds a hand or two in as one supports a bunch of boards as it first enters the machine....and the better machines have anti-kick back fingers to make this more difficult to do.
Ofcourse the lower edge must be square, but it should have come off the jointer or saw like that anyway. Often if you have a number of boards of almost similar width much time is saved by feeding them in clamped together and if one or two are slightly off-square on the lower edge this will be rectified if you have allowed for a second pass through the thicknesser on the lower edge. If you have many narrowish boards that are reliably square on one edge then then you can often get away with not clamping them, provided you can keep them together as they enter the machine, but it depends on the type of machine too. This easy to to with timber being prepared for rails and the like- easy to bunch several in the hand.
Some machines do not lend themselves well to this- it depends upon the way the pressure bars and feed rollers are set up, and the amount of pressure.If the feed rollers or pressure bars are not quite parallel to the table or if there is much pressure then chances are good that a single board will cant over, so if you have only one board then it is adviseable to place it in the middle of the table. If you are feeding two boards then place them at each side of the table. If the machine has segmented feed rollers then it is not necessary to do this.
I would say there may be a knack to it and you must know how your particular machine is going to work with it, and if you know the potential shortcomings it can save a lot of drudgery, especially in applications where small discrepancies may be inconsequential-like in the carpentry of timber framed houses.
I head for cover now.
We routinely do this all the time, for instance when preparing face frame stock for cabinets. The only risk is to have out-of-square stock because the piece tried to escape the pressure rollers by laying over. Usually all the precaution that is necessary is to gang them up. We plane a lot of 3/4" x 2" stock on edge, putting 4 or more together as they go through the planer. No need to clamp them, just hold them tightly together at both ends (needs 2 people though).
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
The rule of thumb is that the ratio of width to thickness should be no more than 5. So, if your board is 3/4" thick, you can plane it on edge as long as it is no more than 3-3/4" wide. More than that and you risk having it flop over on its way through the planer.
-Steve
I was taught that you clamp two boards to the inlet and outlet wings on the planer, on either side of the one you are going to feed through, to hold it upright. Never had a problem doing it.
And, I have seen a sled, made out of plywood, that you clamp boards that don't have a true edge to, to run them through the planer, in lieu of a jointer, to true up one edge.
Dear Brian,
I am a contractor and can say that this is a routine procedure that I have been doing for 10 - 15 years. It is quick, accurate and safe. It is leaps and bounds over a sanded edge and is much better than a hand planed edge, power or otherwise, in particular if I am the guy doing the planing! I lost a good amount of feeling in my dominant hand a few years ago and for me, what was a convenience became a necessity. If I haver ever had trouble, if it is with 1x Ipe, which can want to roll over in the planer. Gang planing is actually preferred here as two or more pieces held together will tend to support each other. My only suggestion would be avoid running the edged pieces in the same area all of the time, say the center. Skew or just start a little to the left, a little to the right so that the blades will wear evenly.
Best,
John
Thanks all for sharing your practices. I guess I was just leary of pieces kicking back or exploding as they tip over. I'll add 'edge thicknessing' to my repotoire, but I'm still going to stand to the side and wear safety glasses. I like the rule of 5 to 1; I was looking for something that clear.
Brian
There is one caution Brian, and philip is the only one to have touched on the subject. It relates to multiple feeding. The reason I mentioned cramping the boards together is because the majority of less expensive thicknessers have single feed rollers. If you have thinner or narrower boards passing through at the same time as thicker or wider boards, the thinner ones get hung up in the machine as the single feed roller grabs and feeds the thickest or widest piece in the batch.
The thinnest or narrowest boards tend to float around on the bed of the machine as they're not properly held in place by the feed roller and pressure bar. This quite often leads to notchy cuts and, in some instances even causes kickback which can be quite vicious. I know it can be vicious because I've experienced it.
With edge planing if you cramp all the planks together at both ends as I suggested the narrowest boards are pulled through with the widest one, and the chance of notchy cuts and kickback are very much reduced. So, going back to philip's point, he mentioned "segmented" feed rollers. This type of feed roller can pull through multiple pieces fed individually because they are able to adjust up and down to accomodate different widths and thicknesses. Each segment is usually about 50- 75 mm long, so as long as each board is grabbed by different segments of the feed roller multiple single feeding is practical and safe.
The machines I use have segmented rollers, and just to let learners know how fast you can feed I'll sometimes continuously feed through 50 or 100 planks four or five at a time side by side and end to end just to make the learner at the dumb end of the machine work like a dog pulling each plank out and stacking it in the right order ready for the next pass through. It's a bit mean I know, because I don't tell them what's about to happen, but they usually soon get the message, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Thanks for your comments. They are very informational. I first saw you using the word cramp. I thought it to be a typo for clamp. Then you keep using it. This is new to me. The only cramp I know is as it applies to my feet, legs and arms. Is this a British term? Does it in fact mean clamp?
Yes, Tinker. Cramp or clamp. Same thing, with cramp being a British English term. I use both pretty much interchangeably, depending on my mood.
It's a bit like the British terminology of surface planer (gets wood 'true' on one face, and straight and square on an adjoining edge in relation to that first 'trued' face) and a thicknesser whose only job is planing wood to a consistent dimension from the 'true' face and 'trued' edge. The latter machine is also sometimes called a thickness planer. Those are the names we use for what Americans generally call a jointer and a planer.
Regarding thicknessers, there's a maxim I use to teach learners what a thicknesser does if your wood isn't true on a face and edge: 'banana in, banana out, thinner banana.' Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Languages and terms change even in an area. What you learn first you learn best. Back in the forties when I was in HS, I considered several types of planers. There was the jointer planer and there was the thickness planer. I don't know if they even had hand planers. I wish they would have stayed with that terminology - more descriptive. And now, they have the combination thickness jointer planer. A sabre saw was a sabre saw. Now it is called a jig saw. To me, a jig saw sits on a table and you bring the work piece to it. I refuse to accept that change.
T,
To add a little to Richard's comment: as far as I know cramp is usually applied to a bar cramp whereas C-clamp seems to be the universal term on both sides of the Atlantic. Of course, someone will now find an olde woodworking treatise with "C-cramp" writ in it.
The English language is a volatile and ever-evolving creature, which may be one of the main factors underpinning the same attributes evident in the wider cultures that employ English. I mean, there you are using the New Nomenclature "informational" when "informative" would naturally have sprung on to my tongue. :-)
Bill Bryson, an American author who lives in both Britain and the US for long periods at a time, has written a very informational book called "The Mother Tongue". This examines all sorts of English divergence between British and American English and is fascinating albeit informationally-rich.
Lataxe
Lataxe,
Huh. I thought a C-clamp was called a G-cramp on your side of the pond. Guess my source was old and out of touch.
And won't you tell us about spanners now?
Ray
They are G cramps or clamps over here Ray, not C cramps. C clamps is American. I'm not sure where Lataxe picked up the Americanised term, but perhaps it's because he only reads Fine Woodworking and doesn't touch any of our British publications, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Ray,
Guess my source was old and out of touch. And also Mr. Joyce too I guess.
Mebbe Mr. Froe can tell us about his bickkies and spelks!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
My first encounter with the British "cramp" was reading Ernest Joyce's classic book on furniture making, a good long time ago. Since he routinely referred to cabinet sides as "cheeks", I convulsed with laughter when he suggested at one point to "throw a cramp across the cheeks". BTW, do you still have iron-mongers over there?regards,David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
Thanks for the caution. I wouldn't try to feed different widths at the same time, I don't think.Brian
It doesn't make any sense to me. i also use the jointer and table saw to get parallel edges. My TS leaves a surface that needs no refining for gluing and only light sanding if it is an exposed edge so I see no need to run boards thorugh the planer on edge.
Tom Hintz
Because there is always more to learn!
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