I currently own a 12″ surface and am not happy with it at all. I notice a lot of plans on the net for building drum sanders, but have never seen one for a planer. Has anyone seen one?
My uncle is a machinist with a nice shop at home, so i think we could build it if we had something to go by.
Jeff
Replies
You have a model to copy, what more do you need? While your intentions are good, your goal is unrealistic unless you only want to build one for the sheer fun of it. You will find it will cost you far more to build than you imagined just in materials, never mind the time and labor which you will provide for free. Gone are the days of the old Popular Mechanics build your own machinery with the imports that that abound. Remember the Belsaw planer? That was the ultimate poor mans planer. The other alternatives were the 13" Rockwell, 12" Powermatic and 12" Parks. Boice Crane made a super nice 12" as well. The Belsaw was pretty cheap compared to all the others. Ryobi was the first to come up with the lunch box planer and everything changed after that not to mention the advent of the imports which really brought prices down. Maybe you need to tune your planer up. You didn't comment on what you found so discouraging about it. Sometimes the simplest solutions aren't that obvious. BTW I repair and maintain planers and have access to a full machine shop but I wouldn't waste my time building one no matter how much fun it would be!
I always thought someone could make a great planer (company that is, not an individual) if the started with a good sized, heavy duty Danley die set. But if they did that, the cost of the planer with nothing to it yet would already be running close to the price of a better then average home shop machine. Jeeesh, trying to control balance and vibration on a home built machine would be a nightmare in itself I would think. A cutter head alone--the lathe work, milling, machining(tapping, reaming, etc.), heat treating, od grinding, balancing and whatever else would need to be done---I'm just trying to imagine what that would cost for a single piece????? What is machine time now? $60, $75 an hour? Plus materials. Wow!
Don
Here are some pics of a drum sander I built that cost me $50, not counting the motor.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_KatyPlaneWood
Mike,
Nice looking machine. Question--How does the sander work without a feeding mechanism or did I miss it?
Don
I am the feeding mechanism! :)
PlaneWood by Mike_in_KatyPlaneWood
Mike,
Don't you have a problem with kick-back?
Jeff
Jeff -
No, not really. I use double stick tape and tape small pieces to larger boards. I rarely use it for boards over 2 ft long. Consider what I do.
I have used it to go down to a 1/16" thickness. I think I could go thinner, just have never tried it.
Would I like to have a full blown unit? Sure! but considering what this cost me it has been well worth the money.
My point is, you can make some of your tools if time is of no problem. Being retired, my time is pretty cheap! Making a thickness planer though would be a daunting task.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_KatyPlaneWood
Inventive.. GOOD JOB! I like it...I have thought of making one but never could deside on what to use for a drum..If I was still workin' (in Printing I had access to all kinds of rollers..) Now I'd have to pay for it! LOL...
Will -
I made the drum out of 3/4" mdf. I turned enough 6-1/8" circles with a 5/8" center hole to stack together to make the drum which is 14" long. I used poly glue to glue the stack together because that glue would not make the mdf swell. Once they were all on the shaft, I clamped them all together using 4 pipe clamps and all the pressure I could do. I let the shaft overhang and cut it to the proper length later.
Once the unit was together, I used rough sandpaper on a slanted block to sand the drum parallel with the bed and down to just a little over 6". Then I switched progressively to finer grit paper till it was 6" and very smooth. Then I applied what must have been 10 coats of poly varnish (mdf sucks it up like a sponge).
The things I would do different now is to use a 3/4" shaft and to use at least a 1.5hp motor.
The auto-feed mechanism is powered by my muscles! :)
I used mahogany because of it's stability and also oriented the grain upward on the end support blocks. I've been using it regurarly now for about 4 years.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)PlaneWood
Question. The original post on this thread, assuming the date is accurate, is almost three years old. How does something like this resurface after such a long period of time?
Someone most likely was searching the archives. Try it! you can dig up some pretty old posts.
Mike, nice looking machine there-or was that two machines-and it reminds of an early machine that I made 25 years ago. The feed thing is tricky at start/end but I know it works well for small pieces. I have since gone on to widebelts of various makes but still like my early machines for what they taught me about how machine sanding really works. Nice work. aloha, mike
I have one of those old Belsaw planers that I found rusting under tarp in a friend's yard 10 years ago. I bought it from him and reconditioned it myself, added a BIG (5HP) motor and never looked back. I love it.
Over the years I have used it to plane many thousands of board feet, both for myself, and for others. It has handled everything I have thrown at it and never complained a bit.
One job in particular was some Oregon ash that a hippy type who owned a Wood Mizer mill had cut to floor his horse drawn Gypsy wagon. The Belsaw put a beautiful surface on that ash and the finished flooring looked great.
BTW, I'm new to this forum. My name is Lee and I have a very small one man shop in Cave Junction, Orygone. Yeah, right next to that Biscuit fire that burned 500,000 acres over the last couple of months.
I build jewelry boxes for the tourists and drawers for a local kitchen cabinet builder to pay the bills, but my heart loves to build Shaker and Arts & Crafts furniture, with an occasional Krenov type piece to keep me on my toes.
Lee,
Welcome to the forum! I haven't been here that long either, but I love it. The responses are always helpful and the folks are friendly. Sounds like you have a lot of experience and knowledge which is sure to add to the site.
Jeff
BTW, those hippies didn't happen to have their wagon powered by a small, homemade jet, did they. My uncle claims he doesn't remember what he did with the thing, but I suspect it's still around... wonder if a guy could power a planer.......
You didn't by chance hear about this years Darwin award winner did you?? Some idiot in Arizona attached a C-5 take off booster rocket to his car. They could tell were he lit the thing by the melted road, they could tell where his tires popped and the brakes melted by what the rims did to the road, it's assumed he reached a speed in excess of 5 or 6 hundred miles an hour before he went airborne which was assumed to be at the spot where the rims left no more marks in the road. The car was found 30 feet in the air, buried into a cliff. He couldn't make the turn that came up 5+ miles after he lit it, but it's assumed he was dead by then anyway.
Don
Edited 9/6/2002 12:50:39 AM ET by Don C.
Geez that same guy won the award last year and the year before. Actually I was reading somewhere about these so called legends and it appears these are basically unconfirmed myths that get passed around. I've heard this story many times over the years with different cars and booster. I'd be interested in seeing some formal documentation on these so called events.
Hmmmm, I was always under the impression the Darwin awards were legit based on the exposure the award gets. The award is about stupid things people do that end up in killing themselves. It may be worth investigating for validity.
Ok, I was had on this one. Looked it up and this was actually the 1995 winner and was known to be an urban legend, but was let to stand because it was such a great story! Look up others though, and you'll see that there is nothing about this story to surprise anyone that there isn't someone who would do it.
Don
Edited 9/6/2002 1:55:27 PM ET by Don C.
I've heard that one for at least 15 years, maybe more.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_KatyPlaneWood
A lot to consider, but I don't think it impossible. Like I said, my uncle has his own machine shop so the labor isn't a factor. This guy built his own motorcycle (including engine) from scratch (worked well until he crashed it) as well as a small jet engine (which worked, but the neighbors called the police and fire departments - oh ye of little faith.)
We were planning to purchase the head, then do the rest ourselves. Another consideration is buying an industrial cabinet planer (they sell them for scrap price) and reworking that.
Jeff
We were planning to purchase the head, then do the rest ourselves. Another consideration is buying an industrial cabinet planer (they sell them for scrap price) and reworking that.Buying a quality head (Shelix helical carbide?) and getting a dead or "used up" machine cheap would give you a jump start on having the highest quality set up available and you could certainly trust the machining. ;-) aloha, mike
Jeff,
As it is now 31/3 years down the road I assume it is a Thicknessing Planer that you still want to make?
As long as Uncle has a thorough understanding of the principles of planing and you can agree on the correct design I think you should order the best quality hydro-head from Leitz , Germany without delay. In the mean time source a few sheets of boiler plate-not less than 5/8" thick. Make sure you have segmented feed rollers, digital read out and power table movement, with fully adjustable bed rolls. You also want a reversing facility so you can back out on those difficult boards.A three speed gear box is mandatory. The most efficient drive is needed-nothing less than flat nylon belts and chains all round.Since it is only a 12 incher you can go easy on the motor-just use a 5 non Ryobi horse motor.
Specify that all critical surfaces should be machined and then ground to Swiss engineering standards. Any colour will do as long as it is Green and not Frizzzilee green.
When you have carried out successful operating tests on that, the prototype, you can then go on to make the real thing from cast iron.Philip Marcou
Edited 8/29/2005 6:54 am ET by philip
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