Thickness Planer

[Ron Nossaman]

>I don't know how feasible this would be but you could attach the piece you 
>want to plane piggy back style to a straight flat piece with double sided 
>tape. Run them through together and then separate and you should have what 
>you want.
>
>Greg

I don't know how it would work with thin stuff, but I've done it planing 
tapers and bevels and it works great. I think most of the problem with thin 
stuff is that most planers are set up for relatively thick softwoods, and 
the blade angle is too far from perpendicular. They sell for what most 
folks are likely to use. This yields an adequate compromise between quality 
of surface finish and blade longevity for softwoods, but tends to chip 
hardwoods with the blade cutting as it lifts out of the wood. The thinner 
the hardwood you're trying to plane, the worse this lift and chip effect 
gets, because the flexibility of the thin wood aggravates the problem. Back 
beveling the cutter blades (about a mm) on the leading edge to effectively 
bring the cutting angle to somewhere between 5°, and 0° from perpendicular 
to the bed instead of the 30° or so the original setup provided, will limit 
the lift and chip effect and should allow planing of both thinner and 
harder wood than the owners' manual indicates. Since nothing comes without 
a price, the tradeoff is that the blades dull more quickly, and make 
considerably more noise cutting.

That's pretty much everything I think I know about planers.

Ron N