getting hold of thin planks of hardwood timber

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

Hi Chaps

I am appalled at the cost of pre-fabricated wooden inserts for kitchen cabinet drawers and have a fancy to make some myself. (none of them seem the right size and shape for the stuff I want to have in the drawer)

where can I get thin planed and sanded planks of something like beech or birch hardwood which are about 5mm thick and 50mm wide.

I've looked at flooring shops and they all seem a bit thick for what I need. model shops don't seem to do planks of any significant length and I'm not sure if my local timber yard would have anything that delicate.

Can anyone point me at a suitable website?

Any other suggestions? Not the angle grinder again ;-)

dedics

[Bob Mannix]

Have you tried a proper timber merchant, there must be one somewhere nearby. I can give you the website for my local one but only as an example, they don't do web sales, but you could ring up and ask - if they can't do what you want, then no-one can (IMHO). Of course you might be close enough to visit!

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

thanks for that Bob

It's not actually that far away! I could have a little trip out to the country for a look, any excuse eh! I've actually got friends (no really!) in Abingdon so I could kill two birds---

I need to visit a few local yards first.

dedics

[stuart noble]

I doubt if you'll find 5mm anywhere. Someone might machine it down for you but you'd be paying the cost of a thicker section plus the labour. Birch ply is probably your best bet.

[Rod]

I'm glad you ask that.

I went down the same thought processes several times over the last couple of years.

Ideas I came up with included:

Using veneer to build up a gluelam/plywood structure.

Slice bits off a big bit of timber using a circular saw.

Make do with cheap plastic insert until...

Funnily enough, the last option is still in use.

(I also wanted similar to make my design of knife rack/block. In the end I used a bit of hardwood from a sofa frame, cut it up and made slots with circular saw. Surprisingly effective but not, IMHO, really suited to a drawer insert.)

[TMC]

I have sawn my own thin timber to 7mm x 50mm and even 7mm x 70mm using and ordinary 10" bench saw with a combination blade. A good band saw would probably give a smother initial finish. I have then finished it with an orbital sander.

I have been looking (not that hard I must admit) for a thicknesser that will thickness down to 7mm so that I can speed up the finishing but it is difficult to get this info from the specs. They all say how big they can accommodate but not how small

Bosch do a thicknesser attachment for their electric plane which may go thin enough but its £139 and my plane is a Makita so not really an option for me

Tony

[George]

Why are you so concerned about it being beech or birchwood? it won't be seen until you open the drawer/s

Try and get some plywood and stain it the colour you need.

[George]

Pick-up only though,but if you were to pick it up and take it to a yard to get it sawn into a couple of strips to the size you want I suppose it would run into the cost of what you have already found out to buy the inserts?

has lots of wood for sale but mainly always a pick-up buy.

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

I'm not really, I just thought it would go nicely with the rest of the kitchen decor. They must use thin planks for making the posh drawer inserts in the factory, I just thought it would be cheaper and a bit of a project to try and make one!

If I use ply I'll end up with the ply edge showing at the top of the sections.

dedics

[dennis]

Double sided tape onto a plywood carrier?

A drum sander?

[Man at B&Q]

In that case, B&Q do a range of small pine sections in metre lengths (sort of midway, size wise, between "mouldings" and normal timber). It's probably not a cheap way of buying, and you have to examine each piece and put back the ones with the obvious joins.

MBQ

[stuart noble]

You might get it sawn, but nobody would plane it. Too thin for safety I would have thought. The stripwood you see in the sheds is a specialised production, which is why it's so expensive

[The Natural Philosopher]

SLEC UK

Or buy from local joiners.

you can typically get up to 4" wide and 48" long as most will buy from SLEC anyway.

and

SLECS wesbite is dire, call them though.

find a hardwood timber place and get some planks made to order.

However frankly for non visible construction work birch ply is far better than 'real wood'

Beech is not ideal to make things from anyway. Its har and excellent in comporession, but tends to split very easily.

Mahogany (type) wood is better, or bass for lightness.

I'd lasercut that lot out of 5mm MDF meself ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think bass (Lime/Linden) would look best for you then. White and very fine grained. Best carving wood ever IMO. Easy wood to work. Can laser cut it too on a 150W laser machine.

Hmm. If enough people wanted it..Mind you it would be bloody expensive Probably around 50 notes for a flat pack insert kit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You can thickness down to about 0.8mm, but its wasteful of wood.

I regularly use 3-6mm hardwoods.

[Andy Hall]

A business opportunity.

It's reasonably easy to thickness down to 3-6mm as long as the material is attached to a backer board before it goes through the thicknesser. I do this quite often and it's easy enough with care.

[Andy Hall]

A business opportunity.

It's reasonably easy to thickness down to 3-6mm as long as the material is attached to a backer board before it goes through the thicknesser. I do this quite often and it's easy enough with care.

[John Rumm]

I would probably chose a more sizeable lump of wood of the appropriate type, and rip saw thin slices off it at say 10mm thick, then use a thicknesser to get down to the final finished size.

If you want a cheap and slightly less elegant solution, chop up a sheet of quarter inch MDF!

[Rod]

Carve it out of a solid lump? (Obviously not good if you want to make several, but for a one off, might be as effective as some of the other ideas.)

[stuart noble]

Small sections generally do seem to have become expensive in recent years. They take up a lot of retail space for what they are and, I suspect, they move slowly. Half of them probably get broken as well.

You can probably still buy them by the bundle up the Hackney Road though.