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I'm thinking of buying a planer thicknesser I have extremely limited space as my workshop is my loft so all machinery needs to fit through the hatch here's what I've found http://www.rutlands.co.uk/machinery-&-a ... hicknesser

What do you think guys?

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

If thinking of using a planer to final thickness tops and backs think again. I'm not trying to be a smart a#% with my coments. It is just that planers have a bad tendency to snipe (tear-out fibers) on QS spruce really badly and you really far to little thickness control. for thicknessing top and backs a drum sander is the tool of choice. performax makes a 10" 10/22 drum sander that will have a smaller foot print than this for about $500

I've tried using a planer and it mostly worked ok down to about 1/8" although some of the pieces with figure fractured and ended up with holes in them due to the runout.

The Wagner safety planer did a good job without blowing chunks out of the wood but wasn't much fun.

Then I got a Jet 10/20 thickness sander

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A planer is not a good choice. You need a thickness sander to get to the thicknesses needed for guitars. A planer is to violent. I can tell you from experience you will lose more than 1/2 of your wood in a planer , to to underplay the danger factor. A planer will just explode the wood.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John Hall hit it right on the nose. Planers are violent. Even when planing thick pieces, things happen. I have used planers for thirty years, and I have seen it all. A thickness sander is the tool of choice. But a planer is a good tool to have around. I have a 15" Grizzly that is 20 years old and still works like a charm. I bought a 16/32 Performax on Craigslist when I started building guitars. It works great.
Mike R

I'm building a home made thickness sander 600mm wide but I was interested in a planer for processing chunks of wood down to neck size, truing up edges on things I own a safety planer and intended to say take stuff to 0.125" joint tops and backs hand plane a little then then size on the home made drum sander.

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

For an amateur, a home built sander is the way to start. Mine uses a six inch PVC pipe as a drum and I can get the thickness within about three thou.

There is a fair amount of information on the Hana Lima board.

I agree. Thickness sander is way more useful and versatile than a planer. The latter will take stock downquiker but the sander will let you accuratly thicknes the tops, baks sidea, necks fretboards....

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Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/

John-
Since your plans do involve a thickness sander, I'll just comment on the planer. (I agree 100% with the comments on not trying to thickness plates/sides with the planer, though I regularly thickness brace stock and similar straight-grained stock down to 1/4" or so.) I have a home-built thickness sander. (BTW, thickness sanders need hefty motors-it's a crude way to remove material.)

The planer in your link looks like a knock-off or the INCA (Swiss made) over-and-under 10" planer; and I recall that Hitachi (?) made a similar machine. One advantage is that you get a wide jointer, so that you can (properly) surface one face of a board before thicknessing. This is something missing from the typical N. American shop setup with a 4-6" jointer/surfacer and a 12-15" thickness planer.
I have an 8" INCA jointer which I've owned since the late 70s. (I also had the (hand-fed-yuk!) thicknesser attachment originally and used that until the Ryobi 10" thickness planer hit the market in the 80s.)

The relatively short jointer table is a problem with longer boards- not a problem with luthier-sized stock.
Check on the blade adjustment setup- this is critical for good performance. If the outfeed table on the jointer is not adjustable (as on the INCA), blade height is doubly important if you want to get a straight edge.

The jointer safety guard -(if it works the same as my INCA's) is excellent. The INCA has a hardwood guard which is handy if you ever accidentally force the guard down on to the blade.

Dust/chip collection can be problematic with over/under machines, so check on what is involved in changing from jointing to thicknessing. Hit the web for older reviews of the INCA machine for some discussion on this.

You will want to have a spare set of (sharp) blades on hand for those Sunday mornings when you discover you have put a nick in a blade.

With a machine with an internal motor, the lifetime of the machine depends on the motor quality- so that is a caution. A spare set of brushes might be a good buy, while you can still get them.

Cheers
John