My project requires thin boards of 5mm thick, 168mm long, 10.5cm wide…trays for a toolbox. I prefer to not use plywood.
I’m buying some 170mm wide board…planed…Ash, Beech or Maple, haven’t decided which as yet.
The purchased boards come 19, 25, 32, 44, 57mm thicknesses.
Is it possible to run the 170mm boards through bandsaw (standing up)…for example run the 25mm thick board three times through bandsaw to get three 7-8mm boards and run these through the thicknesser flat to get three 5mm boards?
I cant find any where that sell thin beech,ash, maple timber boards.
Those can be quite hard. I tried cutting a board of maybe 130, 150mm width in the same way and found it challenging (gave up, did something else with it instead).
Perhaps with a different blade on it… Maybe @lewisss can offer some advice here?
I have this problem also. Most timber is way too thick to make small boxes from.
There are a few places that sell ‘box making’ wood. But it’s fairly expensive. They just bandsaw timber to approximate depth and then drumsand the difference. http://shop.exotichardwoods.co.uk/boxwoods.html
Using a kerfing plane and handsaw will take your arm off.
What about bandsaw/table saw and then whacking it through the thicknesser to finish off? I did that at home once and got a lovely finish to the wood. Got the thickness spot on too.
EDIT: I was working with thicknesses of 12mm, so not sure how a thicknesser will handle 5mm. May just tear it up?
FURTHER EDIT: just seen @joeatkin2’s post above. Thickness down to 1mm, so there’s your answer.
Remember that you are going to loose about at least 5mm per cut , because the blade is 3mm and at least 1mm per side . Probably more like 8mm as we are not a sawmill.
And the bord will move if you cut it down remember that a big lump of wood has locked in stress the moment you plank it the stress will be released and the bord will twist (unless it is 1/4 sawn wood )
Thanks. Useful tips all around. Andy I dont mind having a go by hand but would need a kerf saw to help ryoba saw cut stay straight.
Talking of 5-6mm planks…what jointing would you reccommend to make the trays, essentially lidless boxes…mitre and glue? Dovetail? @CriticalTolerance how did you do your box?
Mitres with splines - although they’re largely decorative. We have a nice spline jig courtesy of Joe, but for very thin material I wouldn’t want to use them. Traditionally the approach would be box joints (there may have been a jig lurking around for that but I have a feeling it might not have been incredibly accurate (@Barnaby_Coote may have built this a long time ago?)
For this kind of tray I seem to remember DiResta did a good box with inbuilt trays. Modern glues would make butt joints that much stronger.
Are you sure you won’t consider thin ply? There’s nothing like it for strength.
Indeed. You can also keep flat panels more stable by gluing two thinner layers of wood with orthogonal grain…which is essentially plywood.
Finger joints are a popular choice for small boxes too, I think partly because plywood doesn’t take kindly to dove tails where as very fine box joints are easy on a tablesaw with appropriate jig.
For slightly thicker wood, i’ve had good luck with pine sides and plywood bottoms which has good stability and warmer/home made look compared to all ply.
For quick reliable small boxes, the laser cutter is superb.
