Width of thicknessers

Joinery shop may be able to help or someone with a wide belt sander. Try Yellow Pages for furniture manufacturers, joinery shops at al

You could jury rig a type of sled to do it with a router but perhaps life is too short

Wide thicknessers are fairly common in bigger woodwork shops esp furniture makers, and timber merchants so I'd just keep phoning around. Or do it by hand. Would have been easier if you had thicknessed the boards first before joining - slightly over size and then reducing the finished thing to desired size.

cheers

Jacob

How much do you need to take off?

Sounds like a job for a wide surface sander...

Alternatively, and if you intend to do this stuff often, you can get thee down to ebay and get a good old Stanley/Bailey #6 or #7, spend a while sharpening the blade and setting it up, then plane it down the old fashioned way.

I'm just flattening off a glue-up for a coffee table in that manner, and it's quite satisfying work. "Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking" and Garrett Hack's "The Handplane Book" both have good instructions on the technique to use.

Finally, I suppose, you could always just go at it with a belt sander - it will take an age, and produce copious bags of dust, but you would get there in the end.....

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Indeed - how about, er, hand-planing? Perhaps you're being self-deprecating with your "cobbled together" description, but it doesn't sound as though you need any precision beyond what you'll get from a sharp hand plane.

Or a belt sander?

If you can't find a shop with a wide sander/planer could you get the look of it being thinner by using part of a large diameter round over bit in a router or using a router with a straight bit to remove some of the thickness round the circumference . Would depend how high the susan is off the table but if most is in shadow then why remove all of it just remove the bit you will see when seated?

Steve