Replies

1. 
   jerry | Sep 21, 2005 06:19pm | #1

   i've read about and seen pictures of setting up a drum sanding bit in a drill press - clamping a fence to the drill press table and passing thin strips between them. no 1st hand xperience - but it sounds plausible.

   jerry

2. 
   JohnWW | Sep 21, 2005 07:05pm | #2

   If the veneered piece is no wider than your thickness planer, you can glue the planed side of the bandsawn veneer onto the substrate and then pass the glued up sandwich through the thickness planer to finish off the exposed sawn side and reduce the thickness of the veneer.  I use this technique for veneered drawer faces and it works well. 

   Another possibility is to attach the smooth side of the bandsawn veneer to a carrier board with double sided tape and then pass it through a planer, but this can get dicey.  If the tape lets go, the veneer can shatter inside of the planer, which can be dramatic and possibly dangerous. 

   Note that really thick veneer starts to act like solid wood, developing surface cracks when it shrinks during dry weather and developing enough stress to cup the substrate and possibly tear the glue line.  To avoid this bring your final thickness of the face veneer down to 1/16" to 3/32" max.

   John W. 

3. 
   DonC | Sep 21, 2005 10:28pm | #3

   I have a "Saf-T-Planer". It fits into drill press and each rotating blade is 1/64" beyond the cutter head. You can safely plane a board while holding it in your hands because with each revolution it is removing 3/64" and each bite is only 1/64".  It cuts surprisingly fast.  I used to own a Rockwell Delta, now discontinued machine, called the "Uniplane" that was same principle only the cutter head was 8"  diameter. Anyway, I made a shop vacuum jig (Plans from FineWoodworking mag)to suck the veneer down to the table/jig surface and run veneer under the Saf t Planer. works good but each pass only planes the 3"diameter of the cutter head.

   Nowdays I sand with oscillating drum sander and a fence. width of vener is determined by length of the drum sanding sleeve. I guess the BEST is a commercially available drum sander BUT, I also have a Shopsmith machine. I made a rock maple cylinder on the Shopsmith while in lathe position and wrapped the cylinder with sandpaper. The Shopsmith table is adjustable up and down. I hand push thin boards between the table and spinning maple cylinder. Works good but I had to jury rig a vac to get rid of dust as it is created. The whole set-up works BUT leaves alot to be desired when compared to commercially available drum sanders.

   My favorite is Performax. If the paper get loose, it has auto take up feature to tighten the paper. I would avoid any velcro system. To much cushion effect.

   Finally I see at the wood shows a guy that sells a BIG BUCK sanding machine that operates kinda like a jointer. You hand push material over a sanding head. Just imagine a jointer's cutterhead being replaced by a sanding drum. It worked great and all dust was vacuumed up from below the table surface.