Incredible woodworking machine

[Rick Lindstrom]

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this machine actually is in a practical sense, but it's amazing to watch it at work. Good music too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plByNDFwlOk

[fox]

That is super cool, sounds so cool too....

[Phil-D]

I've been a woodworker for over 50 years. Judging by the width of the plank, I'd say it's a toilet paper maker for Sumo Wrestlers.

[fscotte]

Toilet paper, exactly.

[Charlieshafer]

I'm not a luthier, but do build cabinetry and furniture for a living, and it's still hard to fathom use, other than the aforementioned wooden toilet paper. It gets the boards perfect, but then once you start messing around with the joining, it all goes out the window anyway.

[fscotte]

That calls for this one as well.

[kjbllc]

not even carbide teeth?

[fox]

Low tech version......

[fscotte]

What do they use the shavings for?

[Marty Jacobson]

Automatic skew plane. Sweet.

[barney 59]

It's a "Super Surfacer"! Automatic skew plane exactly! Makita made one as did Hitachi in the 1970's. I had a Makita -stationary blade and a conveyor belt -it didn't do that back and forth thing this one does,just one way and it practically shot the board through. The carriage for the blade rotated and the wider the board the more angle you would rotate the blade to. I was at a trade show in Atlanta and Makita was demonstrating the machine and I had to have one and ended up taking it home! It produced almost a glass like finish but was not a thickness planer. In making something like a table top (for example) I would super surface the faces of the boards and then run the opposite side through a planer. Pretty much about 90% of what would be the final finish for the top would be completed by what the surfacer produced if you were careful about your glue job. It was a terrific machine actually and was expensive at the time,about $2500 if I remember correctly. This one looks way more advanced and seriously expensive. Mine went up in smoke with a lot of other stuff and I've never seen another to replace it! In fact other than mine and seeing that Hitachi listed one in a catalog I have never seen another or actually ever heard of anyone else having or using one. Might explain why they discontinued them.