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This thread will likely seperate the old school from the new school, but I'm still curious. What are your thoughts on the following tool purchase: I was in Woodcraft the other day looking at a #5 low angle Lie Nielsen plane for thicknessing back/sides. After talking to the sales guy there and describing what I would use the plane for, he mentioned I could also get great results with a power planer by attaching the boards to a support board with double sided carpet tape. I don't have a preference one way or the other, I just want to get consistent, quality results.

Do you guys think I'd be better off in the long run (considering time/quality) honing my skills with the Lie Nielsen, or would I be just as well off with the power planer? I'm mostly looking at applications for thicknessing the back and sides, as well as the top.

Cheers!

John

I guess I'm old school as I don't now even own a thickness sander having gone back to the Wagner or a plane. I do use the Wagner for most back and sides but always use a plane for the tops.

I think the chance of shattering a nice set of BRW with a power planer are very high, they hate figured wood, and I can only see grief in that direction.

My view would be leave the power planer on the shelf. If you've got a big drill press get a Wagner (lots of threads on it here) and a good plane, I still prefer ythe vintage Stanley or Record, well tuned they will do everything a LN can.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I would be concerned about snipe using a power planer. meaning the horizontal feed power plane. These planes are not really meant for fine thickness planing

i would not use my planer for the purpose; you risk the very thin wood shattering.

i use my planer a lot, in preparing neck blanks for instance, but not for thicknessing plates. the planes, or a thickness sander are your two basic choices, or perhaps a wagner safety planer. however, i would not want a low angle version for the purpose, particularly with figured hardwoods.crazymanmichael39048.546412037

I'm new school now because i lack some knowledge on old school tools but plan on heading in the old school direction with time, less dust in the shop i'd say!

Power planer.........Naw!!!!

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I'm with everyone who has posted so far. Especially with Colin.... Wagner for back and sides (clean up and graduate, etc with a scraper) and hand plane the tops.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

It's not an old-school issue, really...
Thickness power planers are wonderful tools, but not for thicknessing tops/sides/backs.
Thicknessing tops is easy with a well-sharpened hand plane of just about any type. Most topwoods (spruce,cedar, etc) are quite straight-grained and a pleasure to plane- though you do have to be careful watching the grain direction on the two 'halves' of the top. Generally I would do most of my planing on the top after it was glued up, and there aren't a lot of power thickness planers in my price range that will handle that width. Even if you found a planer wide enough it would either shatter the wood or leave marks from the feed rollers.
Back and side woods tend to be figured (more and more these days) so you will need a high-angle hand plane with a narrow throat to have any chance of avoiding tear-out, on anything except an Indian Rosewood or other similar straight grained set. Even the mahoganies tend to be 'ribbon grain' (alternating grain direction) so they can be difficult as well. Sides are so thin that a tearout can be a real problem, leading to a crack when you go to bend. A toothed blade (available as an 'option' or from blade suppliers (Hock??)) is handy for dealing with figured woods. You can also make your own with a straight blade and a Dremel cutoff wheel and some patience.
Scrapers (hand cabinet scrapers) are great for smoothing hardwoods but are not too effective for keeping the surface flat.

If you have a few tools already, you should think about putting together a simple (most of the examples you will see are overkill for the occasional builder) thickness sander if you are going to work with wild-figure woods.
If you are sticking to EIR and straight-grained woods, a good hand plane (not low angle) will do the trick. The low-angle plane is very handy, but not for thicknessing.

I'm sure the Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes are very nice, but for the same money you could probably find several very usable planes on eBay or even from a used tool dealer. I recently bought a nice ECE Primus smoothing plane (used, but not much- blade had only been sharpened once- the factory marks were still on the bevel) with an adjustable mouth/throat for well under $100 delivered from the US to Canada. You might want to look in that direction, if you have some time.

Just my 3 cents worth...

John

The concensus is unanimous! DO NOT use a planer to thickness backs and sides. Old school would be hand plane, new school would be thickness sand. You could also use both! I am with Michael on this, a planer has a place but not on back, sides and tops.

Shane

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Canada

Good golly, not a planer. I found that out the hard way. Never again.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

If you go with a low angle plane, get a high angle blade to go with it. I don't know about LN but the Veritas Planes (Lee Valley) have this optional blade. The resulting angle is very steep (adjustable up to 60 degrees) and will prevent tear out even in the most figured woods.

Veritas low angle plane.

I would use a planer on expensive stock. I'd rather use a drum sander.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Hand plane for tops, drum sander for backs and sides. I don't own a thickness planer; they are usually sold as jointer / thicknesser combination machines over here, but I only have a nice old Wadkin 10" jointer, no thicknesser. Between my band saws, table saw, drum sander, edge sanders, Wagner planer and hand planes I feel I have most wood processing bases covered.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Wagner B&S, hand plane tops

Middle School

MikeMSpencer39048.6515856481

There is probably a *small* chance you could get away with the planer with a brand new spiral cut carbide/diamond blade like those sweet grizzlies, but thats getting into the thousands of $.
Better off with a wagner ($60) to get the B/S close and a scraper to finish it off.
Hand plane (# 4 1/2 works incredibly well) for the tops.
-j.

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“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy

[QUOTE=JohnAbercrombie] If you are sticking to EIR and straight-grained woods, a good hand plane (not low angle) will do the trick. The low-angle plane is very handy, but not for thicknessing.
[/QUOTE]

Hmm, it sounds like the plane will be the way to go. Thanks for all the opinions fellas. I do have a Wagner Safe-T Planer as well as the Gilbert sanding disk, however I haven't been happy with the amount of cleanup/scraping required after their use.

On the issue of high vs. low angle planes--what are the pros and cons of each? The guy at Woodcraft showed me an extreme flamed maple board he planed with the low angle plane, and it almost looked like it had a finish it was so smooth and shiny after using the low angle plane. He mentioned I wouldn't be able to get those same results with a high angle plane. Why?

Thanks!

John

I have used a planer to thickness backs sides and tops by doublesticking the wood to a strip of MDF. All went well the first time. The second time I got to enjoy watching an expensive peice of rosewood explode into little pointy fast moving splinters.
This is the voice of experience speaking........ Do not use a planer to thickness backs sides or tops.

Al

[QUOTE=John Elshaw]

Hmm, it sounds like the plane will be the way to go. Thanks for all the opinions fellas. I do have a Wagner Safe-T Planer as well as the Gilbert sanding disk, however I haven't been happy with the amount of cleanup/scraping required after their use.

Thanks!

John[/QUOTE]

John, as I said above, I do all of my B&S thicknessing with the Wagner, and I only have to finish off with 120 on the ROS usually. I have found that if the wagner is good and sharp and the table very square to the cutter then the finish is pretty good. I do have homemade Gilbert type sanding discs and use them as well. An important thing with the Wagner is a steady feed through of the wood, and not taking very large bites. What speed does you press run at? Mine hits 4000rpm and seems fine.

That said using a couple of planes a al Cumpiano is very satisfying. I'm just starting a guitar, which is going to have no power tools used at all in it's making, so I'd better start practicing with the plane!

Colin

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Three most helpful tools I have purchased include band saw, thickness sander and my cam clamps. I use these tools nearly every time I am in the workshop. Just upgraded my band saw - not high end, Sears $375, the thickness sander was around $800 and the clamps represent around $300 innvestment. I could do without the clamps, I could probably even do without the band saw but the thickness sander - not sure how i would do without that tool. Sizable investment, especially for hobbyist like myself but worth every penny in my humble opinion.

John-
As others have pointed out, the important thing is the angle of the cutting edge, not the way the plane body is built, so you can probably get any plane with a decent iron to do the job.
As I understand it, the greater the change in direction you force the shaving to undergo, the less chance you will have of a split/tearout starting. This is the rationale for a narrow mouth and a high edge angle when working with woods that tend to tear out.
In some planes it is possible to flip the blade over to change the angle, or you can have spare blades with different angles.
I wouldn't put a whole lot of weight in the salesman's demo, unless you saw it yourself, as he was doing it. If you are taking extremely thin shavings (final 'polishing' of a surface) you can avoid tearout in many cases. However if you are trying to take a set of sides from sawn thickness to .080 inch, it could be a long afternoon with thin shavings!

If you are going to build even a couple of guitars, and plan on making your own bindings, etc you will be well repaid for the time it will take to build a simple thickness sander. (PM me if you want some ideas on this.)

You don't need a machine that would be suitable for a pro- just remind yourself how much quicker your slow little machine is than doing it by hand! .(That's what I keep telling myself when resawing on my bandsaw.)

John

john,
i don't know what school i'm from, but after working in a cabinet shop for a year and recognizing the importance of great equipment to some of these operations, i sought out a guy close by who helps me with his thickness sander.

he cleans up his belt and runs through the soft woods first before gumming it up with the exotics. i stand on the outfeed side with my dial caliper and spend a bunch of time flexing, and hand it back to him on the side i want sanded next.

i glue up and rosette two tops, glue up two back (cut to rough profile just like the tops), plus bring sides and other things like eir cutoffs for binding fretboards, and other cutoffs for bridgplates.

overall it takes about 25 minutes. i show up with a $5, a $10, and a $20 in my pocket and so far it's never cost me more than the 20. i've gotten to know a really nice cabinet maker, and he's saved me countless hours of time.

while i loose out on the convenience factor, i could do this for years and years before coming anywhere close to the cost of my own sander.

some of you might think i'm taking the easy way out, but i think we all make our choices. some buy necks. some have inlay work done. i borrow a guys timesaver.

phil

Power planer, No!!! If things go wrong, the workpiece can just absolutely explode into splinters!! No!!

I tend to do the rough thicknessing with a Safety-planer, followed by a sanding disk. (Still haven't built myself a drum sander yet).

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I'm not old enough for school yet. Pre-school maybe.

Question. I read a warning earlier in an OLF thread that was dealing with joining top and sides. The warning concerned using sandpaper and a 2 foot level - and the need to sand/join the top before sanding/joining the back. The concern was contamination (risk of stain)of the top wood from the residue of the back wood if the back was sanded first. I can understand that.

But this thread has me thinking about how this concern is addressed using a thickness sander for backs and tops. Is the danger real? What do you do to clean the sander before thicknessing your tops?

For what it's worth, I think a helical insert planer could probably handle it, especially in hardwoods, but there'd be no point compared to using a thickness sander besides maybe the 'planed vs sanded' surface.

If you want to talk about 'new school' and 'old school' I think old school is the hand plane, middle school is the Wagner and thickness sander, and new school is vacuum clamping stuff down and then thicknessing with this guy:



It's covered in aluminum because I made my first part in alu today (yay) but it's wonderful for just about anything. It makes chips rather than dust and leaves a shiny planed surface on both wood and metal.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services