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Does anyone currently use a planer with a Byrd Shelix-Head for thicknessing tops/backs/sides?

A drum sander is obviously the more common tool for this type of task but a few things cause me to consider a planer with a shelix head instead.

First, the dust. From what I understand a drum sander creates an enormous amount of dust. My shop is in the basement of our home. While I could purchase a dust extractor to cut down on the amount of dust in the house, that is another added cost.

Second, our furnace is opposite side of the basement from my small work area along with with one of its two intake vents. Creating any significant dust in the air with a natural gas furnace nearby seems like it would pose a danger of combustion.

Third, it seems like a planer would be a more useful tool to have for random house projects that always seem to pop up—tables, cabinets, cutting boards, etc.

Budget is a real limitation, so I am looking to try and pickup a used DeWalt DW735 12" planer. This would obviously require me to thickness the backs/tops before joining, but hopefully wouldn't be a big drawback. I am open to other ideas though. Thank you!! - Mark D.

A planer, even with a helical head, will be problematic with back and sides because of the thinness of the pieces and it will tear out chunks of the pretty woods. I have Powermatic 20 inch planer with the helical head cutter but it still chunks out pieces sometimes. I'm also not sure you could plane down to the required thicknesses. Maybe for now you could find a local shop willing to thickness sand your stuff for a fee. You are right that a thickness sander is not as handy for general woodworking but for guitars the sander is the way to go.

Mark,

I would consider a dust extractor essential with a drum sander otherwise you risk running through a significant amount of abrasive due to clogging/burning. If its a small shop, nearly essential with a planer of any type. The Grizzly Canister dust extractors in the 1-2hp range are solid options, and can be found used at reasonable prices if you keep you eye out.

The best low-dust option (and can be more budget friendly) would be to use a hand plane and/or scrapers for thicknessing tops/backs/sides. It can actually be faster than a drum sander on some woods, gives you a chance to get to know the grain (runout, curl, stiffness, etc)

A good cabinet scraper, a #4 or low angle jack plane, sharpening stones/film of your choice, and a jig for sharpening makes for a great thicknessing setup.









Drum sanders are wonderful tools, but I would suggest you want to invest in the full setup. A a planer is not liekly to give you the control you want for thicknessing delicate tops/backs/sides.

Additionally, you are better off being able to get to final thickness after the plates are jointed. You will never be able to join the plate halves perfectly flush without needing clean up. At least I can't!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

You can also buy serviced parts from LMI, joined and thicknessed for a reasonable price while you budget up for tools...

I have an old Powermatic PM160 16" planer with a Shelix head.

I use it in conjunction with a carrier board to thickness backs, sides, and tops.

It's about 10X faster than the sander but there are some dangers. If the piece isn't securely attached to the carrier board or if the double stick lets go for some reason, it will eat the piece of wood. I have experienced tear out on highly figured Koa .



Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Thanks Kevin, that is exactly the input I was looking for. I'm ok with assuming the risk of chewing up wood here and there—generally I don't build with high end wood to begin with; and I'll be sure to pay close attention to the feed rate. It's just good to hear it is at least *possible*. The budget for a planer+drum sander+dust collector would take 5 years to materialize…I'm patient, but not that patient.

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Mark Dillon \\ Dillon Instruments :::====( o || )

I made my first couple of guitars doing the thicknessing with a Safe-T-planer. It is slow and messy, but gets the job done, if you so some cleanup with a cabinet scraper at the end. However, i was very pleased to replace that with a drum-sander when I could afford it. I also have a planer and use that for furniture making and general woodworking - but never for guitar making

Planers are a great way to identify runout DAMHIKT.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for the input! I have attempted to use hand planes and a scraper to get the stock down but I found the process of thicknessing (especially the sides/backs) to be time consuming and cumbersome. Some of this may be traced back to human error on my part, but I could not seem to get certain woods to plane well. Low angle plane with an extremely tight mouth, super sharp iron, etc. It was still maddening. When I was finally able to avoid tear out it was taking a shaving of .002" or so, which makes removing any significant amount a *long* ordeal. :-/

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Mark Dillon \\ Dillon Instruments :::====( o || )

I recently put the Cutech planer (link below) in to service in my shop and could not be happier with its function to date. I haven't tried to plane highly figured woods yet so can't speak to its performance with same but I have been able to plane sides to final thickness with a carrier board as shown in the video below. The problem with backs is that an affordable 13" (or 12" as you mention) planer can't accommodate the joined plates and see Bryan's comment above about trying to join them after thicknessing - nightmare..

Of course if you can afford a 16" or larger planer then by all means but they are not cheap.

I just got a SuperMax 19/38 thickness sander and use to get to final thickness it after planing wood to its minimum of .125" 1/8" in the planer. The planer gets "exactly" to .125" every time and am please with the performance. The 19/38 is hooked up to a shop vac and it handles the dust pretty well.

REALLY empathize with your decision.

Have you considered building a thickness sander? I had one for many years. Very inexpensive to build and with a cheap shop vac you're covered for dust.

http://woodgears.ca/sander/plans/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxK571Wz1s

https://www.cutechtool.com/product-p/40200h-ct.htm

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Thank You and Best To All

Good point. Making a thickness sander is a viable option but not without its drawbacks. I am still using my shop made thickness sander; I have a love hate relationship with it. It gets the job done very well though slowly and tediously. The price was sure right since I had a motor and made much of the rest from scraps around the basement. I used it for several instruments with just a shop vac for dust collection. That worked okay until I got a dust collector.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Same here. I could not afford the SuperMax 19/38 but pulled the trigger as it was on sale with free shipping and it's a game changes. I run so many different pieces through it for so many different purposes. Loved/hated my home built but simply love the SuperMax.

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Thank You and Best To All

I have a bench top DeWalt planer and can get wood as close to thickness as I need with it. The cutter head is of a small diameter and the rollers are pretty close together so it has less of a tendency to suck the wood into the cutter head and blow it out the dust chute as some of the larger planers do. With careful glue ups you might be able to align the plates well enough to finish sand them flush with a R.O. or large pad sander (or the plane taking .002" shavings).
I wouldn't bother with the shellex head on such a small planer. For the cost of it you might find a used drum sander. With sharp blades and straight grained woods the planer should work O.K. with regular knives.

Thanks a lot for the info and the links! Like every tool purchase, I keep going back and forth in my mind about what would work and what wouldn't. If only we didn't have budgets to worry about! Haha.

If it's possible to get to get the rough stock to .125" thickness every time with a relatively inexpensive planer then I will probably go that route. Those Cutech planers look pretty great for the price. Still trying to debate that versus buying something like this 16" Jet:

EDIT: The below planer was listed at $750 when I originally posted this link. Should have purchased it then apparently, as now it is listed at $1699. :-/

https://www.amazon.com/708531-JWP-16OS- ... op?ie=UTF8

That would cut out about 90% of the time/work of doing it all by hand. I'm willing to get the final finish using a hand plane/scraper as needed. Thanks again for the input! All the best

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Mark Dillon \\ Dillon Instruments :::====( o || )

Thanks for chiming in! That is very good info to have. Have you planed any figured (or slightly figured) backs/sides with your DeWalt? Still going back and forth in my mind about which direction to go.

May be able to get away with the smaller planer, leaving the plates a bit heavy, and very careful glue ups. Like you mention, it's always possible to take off the final .01" or so using hand planes and scrapers—my only hope is to take away the majority of the manual labor part of it. The reality of family and kids means I only get a few hours a week in the shop. Best to take advantage of it every way I can.

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Mark Dillon \\ Dillon Instruments :::====( o || )

Yeah tough decisions... For general woodworking a planer is a great tool with many uses day to day. For guitar building? It would literally (and was) the last tool I would buy as its real world uses in guitar building are limited at best, unless you are re-sawing raw lumber which again is one of the last skills required when guitar building.

Do you have 220V power? Not sure why that Jet is so cheap but it does require 220V. Might be a good choice but the points above about joining thicknessed plates should not be ignored.

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Thank You and Best To All

If you have a limited budget, and if you are trying to set up for building guitars, I don’t see how buying a planer is a good idea. You will be beating the odds if you avoid problems, and there are so many other tools that are more useful for building guitars. For your specific situation, a Saf-T-Planer in an inexpensive drill press is a great choice for thicknessing wood. Far more useful, and less expensive than a planer.

Hi Mark,
I haven't planed highly figured wood with the DeWalt and I'm not sure I would risk it. I use a small drum sander for figured stuff. For straight grained stuff it works fine. The smaller planers do a better job of planing wood thin. The Jet 16" planer may not do as well with conventional blades.
Like the jointer, there are a lot of things you can do with a planer if you learn how to use it. Again, as with the drum sanders you can sometimes find a deal on used equipment. I also have a Delta bench top planer I picked up for $100 that I use at another location. At my age even the bench top units are a bit heavy to drag around from place to place.

I recently got a small planer and it's great at doing boards for resaw, rough fretboards, Bridge stock Etc. I think you could get some plates close as sometimes they come around .2". That idea of taping them down to a carrier board would probably work, if you're lucky LOL!

If you watch Craigslist you can find second-hand drum Sanders reasonably priced. But they are few and far between. Ryobi is the cheapest of the lot but they are fine. I was not patient enough and ended up getting my first one on eBay which I do not recommend as shipping that heavy of an item being packed by an amateur is asking for trouble.


New username, same Pat Mac

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Pat

When looking at insert style cutterheads like the Shelix, keep in mind that they are not created equal. There are many knock offs where the edges of the cutters are parallel to the axis of the head. These do not produce a shearing cut. If you've only used straight knife planers, there is a huge difference when going to a Shelix.

I've planed curly and quilted maple, figured Sapele, figured cherry, Wenge, Padauk, Amazon Rosewood, figured Cocobolo, Koa, Ziricote, Osage and other woods with the Shelix and the only one that tore out was highly figured Koa but YMMV. Of course sanders never tear out but they are painfully slow if you actually need to thickness not to mention the joy of clogged belts with oily woods.

Disclaimer - my Shelix is in a very heavy old planer with no vibration. I don't know how well a benchtop machine will perform even with a Shelix.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Jet makes a 10/20" drum sander, Open end. I used one to build several guitars. Budget friendly. I have planers, not going to toss $600 wood under one of those!

Using hand planes efficiently requires some knowledge and a few planes though nothing too fancy. I can hand plane a walnut back to thickness and scraper finish it in under 15 minutes. Obviously longer for rosewood. Having a couple of spare blades helps, sharpen all blades before thicknessing (super sharp) so you aren't breaking off task. You also need some way of removing material fast. That comes down to a jack plane or a plane with a cambered blade - what I term a gentle scrub plane. I use a wooden plane for this because they are lighter, less tiring in use. Finally a smoothing plane with a closely set chip breaker. The rest is just knowing which direction to plane and having an efficient way to hold the material.

We offer free thickness sanding if you buy your sets from us.

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"I have planers, not going to toss $600 wood under one of those!"

I have planers too, and wouldn't toss $600 dollar wood under one of those either. But come to think of it, I don't have any $600 wood.