Planer/thicknesser questions

Discussion
1

Have got a clockmaking project in a couple of months that requires some thin bits of wood and wondered if this might be the tool for the job - but I have no experience or knowledge of it’s capabilities/or how it works - so got a couple of questions - had a browse through the pdf’s but didn’t really find many answers.

  1. Is there a limit to the width of boards (and what is it?) (i assume the limit to length is the length of what you can fit in the woodshop…)

  2. I gather you can cut pretty thin boards by sticking your board to another one (with double sided tape) then running it through - is this fairly easy/possible to get 1mm board out of a typical hardwood? Is the tolerance on thickness with our machine reasonable , maybe need ± 0.2mm? Flatness isn’t especially important, just that the thickness is consistent.

  3. another idea related - is it capable of cutting acrylic impregnated stabilised wood, e.g https://stabilizedwoods.com/ - says you can mill it so I’d imagine it would be ok but not 100%

Cheers!

2

  1. 12 inches max width (around 30cm). You won’t be able to fit much more than lengths of 2.5m or so in the shop.

  2. If you want 1mm it would be better to buy veneer. Veneer is sold sawn with a thin kerf blade or ‘unrolled’ by a knife, creating a lot less waste than if you do it yourself, so it can be more cost-effective than planing down thicker timber yourself or using a bandsaw. It’s usually 6/10ths of a mm but you can find 10 or 11/10ths I believe. At this thickness the wood will be flexible.

  3. stabilised wood is mostly a resin, so plastic, which will dull the knives in no time. The thicknesser is designed to take solid hard or softwood. You can mill it flat, but it will also dull end mills pretty quick

3

Thanks @Barnaby_Coote!

Interesting shout on the veneer - but I might have some specific wood in mind/cost is not really an issue as I don’t need a huge amount planed.