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Please don't send a thin piece of wood through a planer. It won't end well.

Here's a cheap and pretty effective alternative. I'll try to post a couple pics at the end.

I chuck a hole cutter into my drill press and cut disks from 3/4" mdf. The largest hole cutter I have is 2.75", so that's the size of my disks.

Enlarge the center hole to 5/16" and countersink a 1/4" recess on one side.

Drive a 5/16" x 4" carriage bolt through and tighten. Then hit the nut with thin super glue.

A couple coats of shellac go on the mdf, and the base assembly is complete.

Now I attach cloth-backed abrasive to the disk and chuck it into the drill press.



Obviously nowhere near as aggressive as a Wagner, but 36 grit abrasive still makes pretty short work of rough thicknessing. Follow that with a couple of passes of a 100 grit disk and you're done.

To glue the abrasive to the disk, I apply painter's tape to the face of the disk, and (important) wrap the ends up over the edges. Then run a single piece of tape all around the edge of the disk, which helps hold the tape more securely to the disk.

Squeeze a couple of beads of thick super glue around the taped face and clamp the abrasive until it sets.

Now, once the abrasive gets worn out, just peel the tape off, apply more tape and glue on a fresh pad of abrasive.

Sounds more complicated and time-consuming than it actually is.

Though for those who already have the Safe T Planer you could just buy the sanding disk from LMI...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

So how dangerous are these things?

I have one that I bought a few years ago and never used. Is it worth trying or is it better to not even start with a Safe-T-Planer?

Jim

Observe all common sense rules as you would with any other power tool with teeth. Read the instructions and follow them. I don't think it's nearly as dangerous as the typical table saw, but we all know what that tool can do to us, so we respect it, we observe safety procedures and we don't freak out about it. Keep the teeth sharp and the drill press table parallel to the cutter head. Keep the rotational speed high. Use fences or jigs to keep your hand away from the cutter. Wear eye or face protection. Make light passes--as many as you need. Never attempt a heavy pass. Observe those things and you will be okay. Neglect any one of them and the tool might grab and spit the work out at you. Like any other toothed power tool, it could grab your shirt sleeve or your fingers if you carelessly operate it. I think you see what I mean. A more direct answer to your question might be: It's as safe as you are. Or as dangerous as you are.
Patrick

Jim... I have only used it for a couple of pieces and my concern was mostly that i didn't burn a piece or let it go where if it had a natural bend that it might rise off the table and thin the wood more than wanted.

With all the safety concerns kept in mind, i don't see it as a more dangerous tool than any other power tool. It's just one that a bit of practice would make me more comfortable that I wasn't going to screw the wood up.

As stated, it can be as dangerous as any other sharp, spinning bladed tool. I love mine. I wish I could find a better way to collect the chips it sends flying though. Makes a mess of the shop.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Tried a shower curtain?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I have not Colin, but that is about the best idea I have heard. I was stuck thinking of ways to make a hood. Thanks for taking me out of the box!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Works for me.
Pat Foster mentioned he was thinking about it, and I treated it as a joke.
Then the light came on....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Shower curtain is a great idea. Where do you get those circular shower rods that hang from the ceiling? The ones you use in a free hanging shower head with no shower stall - just a drain in the floor.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

This might do the trick.


Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Oh yeah!!!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks for the responses. I was wondering if it had design problems that made it inherently dangerous to use.

Jim

My two cents....and. I know this is off the original subject.

Forget about aligning the cutter properly to the table and avoiding climb cuts. When you mounted that thing on the drill press you already gave Norm Abrams the finger. "Read, understand and follow THIS dang yankee."

The Safe-T-Planer is NOT a power tool, it's an attachment to a power tool. Saying it is just like using any other power tool in order to emphasize safety precautions is at best misleading.

The power tool, in most cases a drill press, is being used for a task it was not manufactured to do. See owners manual on securing the work piece etc. Yes, a drill press CAN be used as such, but then you can use an ice pick to clean ear wax. Both work great for removing material! But...

All that said, I have a fairly new Safe-T-Planer and I'd be willing to trade for other tools( files, saws, planes, rasps, chisels, etc.) or materials(wood, truss rods, strings, pickups, etc.) of comparable value if anyone wants it.

For the record, I like it but just don't use it much since I've gotten accustomed to an old block plane and jack I've tuned up. It takes me longer to setup and cleanup than to just get on with it in most cases.

There's one think I have not seen mentioned yet, so, in my usual manner, Ill give a bit of background.

I got a Wagner planer about 40 years ago, and used it a lot. Eventually the cutters got ground down to where they could not be sharpened any more. I could not find replacements, so I bought another unit. It gave me no end of trouble; grabbing stuff and throwing it around, and doing a generally lousy job when it worked. Since I'd had few such problems with the original unit, I had to take a closer look to figure it out.

When I took the thing apart, the reason was pretty obvious. The three cutters sit in pockets that are slightly angled, so that the outer edge is down, putting the tips of the cutters a little below the bottom surface of the tool. There are alignment marks punched into the under side of the overhang, beyond the tools, to show where the edges are supposed to be. On the old one, the bottoms of the pockets had been milled out flat, and the cutters were lapped to be flat and level. The new one used the same investment casting, but the bottoms of the pockets were not flattened, and cutters were warped. The non-flat cutters could not be properly secured in the non-flat pockets, but would tend to rotate when they hit a piece of wood. Inevitably, you'd end up with only one edge cutting, and that would toss stuff around.

It took only a few minutes to scrape the pockets flat with a chisel. It took longer to lap the warp out of the cutters, and get them all to the same thickness. Once I did that, they were fine. From what I've heard, they only cheaped out on them for a little while, but that was enough to give the tool a bad rep.

There's no such thing as a 'safe' powered tool. Hell, there's no such thing as a safe HAND tool, and I have the scars to prove it! Properly tuned up and set up the Wagner planer is a very useful tool, and much safer than many. I find the most general rule with it is to see that you never point your fingers at it, and, of course, the closer it is to the table, the less hazard there is. I've been bitten by mine a couple of times (and it hurts!). I've had a couple of students who just can't seem to get along with it: you do have to be aware of where your fingers are relative the cutters, and some folks seem less adroit in that sense than others. But nobody's gotten more than nasty cut on the finger.

As soon as I found that the maker had retired, and production had stopped, I got a set of replacement cutters. I've gotten more than ten years out of the last set, and they've got at least another decade in them, so I figure I'm good for another thirty years. At that point I'll be about as old as Strad was when he stopped, so what the heck. Personally, I don't see how he made fiddles without a Wagner planer.