Just curious what you guys use as the deepest cuts when skinning a blank and taking it down to thickness? Since I only shape a board or two a year, I don’t have a modified planer. I bought a Bosch 3.365 planer a few years ago. The deepest cuts I can make witht this planer is 5/64"…Takes FOREVER. Just wondering if that’s normal or if the modified planers cut much deeper. Thanks.
Ats why close tolerance blanks were handed down from
ARARAT the great clark.
eps close tolerance Hotwire also makes sense…
that said skil 100 does only an eighth…
Big bites with the planer tends to rip foam.
perimeter planing you can gain a little bbite when you distort
the angle of attack and tip the blade deeper into the foam
Shape the board with the catalogue
and alternative rockers…
…ambrose…
Thanks ambrose…Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing out on something. I like my noseriders to be super thin in the nose and tail, so it’s a lot of work. I end up taking it down to what I think I can hand sand off, only to find out that I need to break out the planer again(or…DARE I say it…the sureform!!)…
Haha, I designed some of the first close-tolerance blanks for Clark. Ambrose made me laugh. The ones I did were shortboard blanks, though. When boards went thinner in the late 80s we were taking 5-7 full passes off bottom of the existing blanks to get to thickness - we really needed some thinner, more foiled blanks.
But to your primary question, most pro planers are set up to take 1/8" as “full pass”. Rockwells and Hitachi F30 will take even more, and it is possible to “punch out” a Skil 100 to take more than 1/8".
Thanks Mike. I like my noserider tails to be about 1/4" at the very end, going up to about 1 1/4" at 12". That’s a LOT of foam to remove from any blank I guess…
Almost all the blanks now are designed for cnc use, so they leave them thick at the tips for versatility and ease of indexing. So it follows that that’s where you’re going to have lots of work when hand shaping.
I figured as much…Thanks. More work=more experience shaping. Love it.
+3 to -Mike Daniel’s. I dunno how the hell we got my stock Hitachi planer taking 1/8" layers off the bottom… it actually DOES!!!
We opened it up all the way, as deep as the blade would go…so that was zero the opposite way on my stock Hitachi planer. Also, I measured my blank at the start @ 3 1/8". Anyway, I took two layers off bottom, one off deck and I did a little sanding and - poof! 2 3/4" thick!
Technically, or maybe I’m misinformed? But my stock Hitachi planer is only supposed to take 1/16"cuts off max. But we got mine cutting a whopping 1/8" cuts per pass that are perfect! Mike / rooster got me setup, and he turned from zero at the start, to zero all the way on opposite direction w adjustment knob…ya know where
The blades out all the way- which comes to a stop on Zero. Check yours out and get back. Disclaimer:i don’t know your planer, and using pp is risky. Keep hands away from cutting blades, and where gloves and eye protection!!! Good luck.
The modifird Hitachi’s should take 1/8" at full cut.
My Bosch also cuts a full1/8".
Skil’s are easy to modify with a Dremel.
Just cut the slot for the depth handle to go another 1/8" for a full 1/4".
I modified mine years ago.
The Rockwell will cut 1/4" plus too.
When I worked at Brewer, he had a planer he called “Jaws”.
It cut a whopping 1/2" at full cut.
That was a mower.
When he hit those wide gun stringers with that, you could hear it down the street.
Barry - I’m not sure you read what I said? MY HITACHI IS STOCK! I’m tryin to figure out HOW we managed to get it to cut FULL 1/8" passes! It cuts em perfect to!?!?
My thoughts:
Maybe not many realize the stock Hitachi planer cuts 1/8" if you dial (open it up) wide open? Mike / rooster set it up, I ran it, I think he tried a test pass -then handed it to me…it worked out fine for thicknessing. Let me put it straight to ya! If your a little imaginative, and you can improvise…you’ll have a “Badass” board in your grubbies in a hr! No joke.
The cool thing about what we found out is: you just turn the flippin knob clock wise, and -BOOM! It comes to a “stop”, the blades cutting 1/8"!
Ok, I haven’t used it much, but it does have some fly adjustment, but a bit slow… might just need to up the depth cuts…but I’m thinking there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.
If it still has that rubber block inside, remove it.
It will allow it to cut deeper.
Oh really! I think I noticed that block? I’ll check her out in the am. Ty Barry!