thinning strips for sides

[batman]

been trying to get in a little bending practice before my good stuff gets here. how do you guys get your strips down to .100 or less. not having much luck with the planner. tried clamping a fence to my sander but its not very good either. thanks Don Batten

[8ch(pl)]

You can glue the leading edge of the piece (it needs to be longer of course than the finished piece) to a piece of MDF or flat plywood and feed that in until it is close, then hand sand to the thickness.. Remove the piece with a small saw. Only glue a bead across the very front end of the piece.

[Michael Lewis]

Batman, make sure that you end up with even thickness along the entire length of the side. Leave NO scratches, dips, or evidence of saw marks, because the thinnest place is where the stress will cause failure.

Thickness sander of some sort is the recommended method of dealing with figured woods.

[Chris Baird]

Before I had a thickness sander I used a block plane with a blade honed at 45 degrees and put in upside down. I works like a scraper. It is slow going but the results are good if you pay close attention.

[Jim Hilburn]

I see Performax has a tabletop 10" thickness sander. Still over $500, but it would be a nice addition to any mando shop. I have the 16" version and I don't know how I got by without it before.

[toddjoles]

I use a the belt section of my 6 inch combination sander. I hold the work firmly with a backer block with a handle. Slow the belt speed down if you can and keep the work moving.

I think Siminoff has a picture of this in his new book.

I would switch to a Performax in a heart beat though if I could afford the extra expense. I have used them before and they do an incredible job. Just remember to remove the material in little bites.

[John Bertotti]

I think I have some plans for a homemade thickness sander somewhere. I can email them if I find them. Let me know if you want them. John

[batman]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm a residential contractor and i think I'll check with the guy who does my cabinets. he has a huge shop and just went totally computerized. i think they have a 60" thickness sander. maybe i can rip a bunch of stock and carry it over and get them to do it. I buy from 60 to 70 sets of cabs.a year from him so i would think he could thin a few pieces of curly maple. thanks again Don

[sprucetop1]

I'm still low-tech. I use an old Stanley no 7 jointing plane with the blade very sharp and set very fine. The sole of the plane has been flattened carefully on fine abrasive emery paper on a sheet of plate glass. I clamp one end of the (over size length) rib to the bench, and plane away from the clamped end with the no.7 held skew to the length of the rib. I then reverse the rib , re-clamp and plane the other end. Then do the same on the other side of the rib. Tearout (if it occurs) is usually worse in one direction. I do not plane to final finish dimensions, but get to the final thickness using a sharp hand-held scraper. This eliminates tearout. I have an old Stanley 113 scraper plane, which I haven't yet tried on the scraping, but it would probably work well.
This hand tool method is surely slower than a belt sander, but there is no dust, and it does work well with practice. I do my violin and guitar ribs the same way.

John

[Rob Grant]

I'm really "primative." Basically I take a small piece of plywood (at least 12mm thick) and screw two parallel lengths of steel flatbar to the ply. The screw heads are countersunk and the steel "rails" are the thickness of my sides. I position the rails roughly the same width apart as my sides. I insert a rough cut piece of side material tightly between the rails and then run a belt sander over the whole works. I occasionally flip the piece of timber in the jig and sand until I obtain the proper thickness (hit the rails).

Attached photo is of several jigs including ones I use for making fretboards. It's all pretty primative, but it works for me.

[Luthier]

You have to do whatever gives you the final results you want to achieve by using whatever means are available. If cost of buyng new equipment is a factor than try and be resourceful with what is available. A Thickness sander is the best tool to use. Any method mentioned above will also work. I have even used a Wagner Safety planer in my drill press with double faced tape and have achieved great results. The thickness MUST be uniform as stated or you are just asking for trouble when you go to bend it.

Don

[Austin Clark]

Drum sander in the drill press with a fence. The fence has a semicircle cutout to get the drum up real close.

Then finish with a scraper.

Real fast and seems to work well for me. Hang on tight to the side piece though!!

cheers,
austin

[P Josey]

Here's the way I did it. First time at it with excellent results. Hope this works.




Paul Josey

[ShaneJ]

How smooth is the surface after running the ribs under the safety planer?

[Chris Burt]

I own a Performax, but for mandolin ribs I use a small high-angle Lie-Neilsen block plane (the 103 I think) with the optional (and excellent) toothed blade and finish up with a scraper. I clamp one side of a rib to the edge of my workbench and plane away from the clamp, then reverse the rib and plane the area that was under the clamp. Then I flip the rib and plane in two directions again--always planing away from the clamp.

Once the rib is ready, I remove the plane marks with a scraper. Once again, I scrape away from the plane. The scraper is sharpened to 90 degrees and thus takes finer curls and leaves a finer surface than does one sharpened to 45 degrees.

I can thickness mandolin, violin, and viola ribs about as quickly with the plane and scraper as I can with the Performax and don't have to deal with or breath sanding dust.

[Chris Burt]

Actually, I scrape away from the clamp, not the plane.

I use a flat board and sand paper, but it takes a while.

[amowry]

Hey, I recognize that safe-t-planer photo ! It really does work well as long as you use a hold-down and make sure the table is perfectly perpendicular to the spindle. You can see slight planer marks, which I clean up with a scraper (takes ~4 minutes per side).

[P Josey]

amowry,
I knew I'd get caught using your photo. I tried to find your web site to post here but couldn't find it. I saved that photo to my documents to print off long ago. After I thickness the sides with the safety planer, I run the sides quickly over the benchtop sander. I get excellent results and it's easy. Like amowry said, you must use hold downs as pictured in the photo.


Paul Josey

[amowry]

No problem Paul, I'm glad the photos are being put to good use. I'm sure I'd use a thickness sander if I had one, but I think the Safe-T-Planer is the next best thing. Sometimes there's a little tearout at the edges with figured wood, so I cut the sides to width afterwards.

[John Zimm]

I successfully thinned a piece (for a mando that still is waiting to be finished-one year later) by attaching two parallel pieces of wood to a piece of plywood. I clamped the rib material between the strips, and ran over it with a router. Yeah, I imagine the pros would not recommend this method as it takes a little monkey business making sure you go over it well, but it is pretty fast and works well enough for me.

-John.

[Stephen Perry]

I too built a safety planer rig. Fast and reasonably clean. I have the fence and sanding drum for polishing out the planer marks and then a very sharp scraper for the final surfacing and thicknessing.