router for thickness planing?

i remember someone saying on TV that a router can substitute for a thickness planer if used creatively. Does anyone know how to do this or can point to a link that shows how to do this?

thanks

Reply to
Ah10201
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It's not hard to imagine building a platform that the router could sit on top of with the board (firmly secured somehow) underneath. you could move the router back and forth along the length of the board until you ended up with a flat side. Then flip over and repeat. Personally, I'd rather eat dirt than do this or anything similar to avoid spending a few hundred dollars for a planer, but that's your call. I can barely imagine doing this if I had a one-time use for a thickness planer, but not for any more than that. If you're looking for a machine you can live without, choose the jointer instead.

todd

Reply to
Todd Fatheree

I guess it really depends on what you need to plane. Imagine, if you will, that you have been given a huge beautiful cross section slice of Carpathian elm burl big enough to make a tabletop. Of course it is WAY too big to run through any imagineable thickness planer or jointer -- at leaast ones that might find their way into a home shop. And even if you did have a plane big enough it would probably destroy the gnarly wood. A job like this is ideal for router processing and he needed jig(s) aren't too complicated or difficult. Or how about flattening the top on a huge workbench?

Not saying that a router is the best way to go for everything and I sure wouldn't want to give up my 12" jointer/planer combination...

Reply to
John McGaw

Stuff like end-grain slabs responded reasonably well to this treatment. Only thing I've ever used it on, though if I did it regularly I'd go to something like the Saf-T-Planer and my RAS.

Reply to
George

I do not have a link, but I although I have a 13in planer, I was given an old maple table top (30in by 60in) which had been sanded by the previous owner using a belt sander. There were a number of visible belt sander depressions and generial nicks and scratches which needed to be removed.

I tried sanding, but this was too slow and uneven.

I ended up using the router with a dado bit mounted between two pieces of angle iron. The angle iron rested on wooden rails (pieces of plywood cut straight) clamped against the table top long sides. I made a series of passes down the table. This worked reasonably well, but took a long time to set up making sure the rails were the same height.

The main problem was my inconsistent pressure. I ended up with a "low point" at one end due to having pressed down more than other areas, but this was not obvious as I was working. I also had to do a good amount of finish sanding to remove lines between passes, which were due to the inconsistent pressure. Ideally a thicker angle iron would reduce such deflections.

In my case, this was a one-off use. I would not consider this setup again unless I had a large piece which would not fit in the planer. It just takes far too long. My planer gives a terrific finish which requires minimal sanding to be ready for staining/varnishing.

I now have a drum sander, but would not want to attempt to sand such a large piece. The problem I have with my drum sander is that any slowdown of feed rate causes a very noticable channel, which is too hard to sand by hand.

Dave Paine.

Reply to
Tyke

Reply to
Jim Behning

I think I remember seeing something like this in American Woodworking a year or so ago. It was a box that had a sliding gizmo arranged to maintain a constant height for an attached router. A dadoing bit could then be used for surface planing. The downsides were that the workpiece was constrained by the size of the box and it took a long time and a lot of passes to cover the entire surface.

I'm kinda into building my own shop aids but I agree with some of the other posters. This seems like way too much work for very little gain. I'd sooner buy a thickness planer.

Reply to
Chuck Hoffman

I'm going to throw a resounding echo to this comment. I've never been a big hand planer, but while making a walnut mirror frame for my wife, and no immediate access to a planer, I broke down and sharpened up a Stanley plane that I've had for a long time, but never really used much. Prior to this effort, I'd really only used my planes to clean up an edge for gluing, etc. Well... to avoid a long story, I was amazed. Shocked, even. It took next to no effort to plane down the rough cut walnut and it was much cooler than I can express, to watch the wood coming to life right under my hands. In mere minutes I had it where I needed it and nothing compared to the feeling of seeing that wood and experiencing bringing it to that state by hand. It would have taken me longer to set up a planer if I had one, than it did to plane down that board, and it would have just been a step in a process. The whole thing of hand planing is just something you have to experience. You don't need 20 planes in your shop, you don't need hours of laborious effort, you just need a couple of good sharp planes and an appreciation for the craft you're doing. A planer, while still something that I would not turn down, is no longer at the same priority for my woodworking that it once was. It will make large quantities of nice wood faster than a hand plane will and for that reason I'll probably get one sooner or later, but for smaller, one off projects, I'm fine with a hand plane.

Reply to
Mike Marlow

formatting link
fun and tell us how it works.

Bob

Reply to
BillyBob

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