I wanted to use Tony Konovaloff’s technique of using beveled hardwood strips for glazing cabinet doors (Fine Woodworking #116, p. 49), but I didn’t want to handplane all the strips. So I designed a technique to do the work using my thickness planer and a plywood platen. I’m sure that this method could be easily adapted to many other small-stock-milling needs, making them simpler and safer.

Start by milling the rough blanks and surfacing them to thickness. Then make a platen to fit the bed of your thickness planer by cutting grooves in a piece of plywood. In the drawing, there are two grooves one to hold the stock on edge and a second groove to bevel the strips. I cut this second groove by tilting the tablesaw blade 5¡. The platen grooves support the blanks on two or three sides and guide them through the planer.

To use the fixture, clamp the platen to the planer bed, and pass the blanks through, taking light cuts.

Bruce Gillies, Aurora, Ont., Canada

Fine Woodworking Magazine, February 1997 No. 122

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