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How to make a thicknesser from a planer with your own hands. Do-it-yourself thicknesser machine: drawings, photos and videos Thicknesser machine, what can be done

20.08.2023

People who have a small carpentry workshop at home sometimes need flat boards to carry out some work, but thicknessing machines for wood are very expensive, and no one will buy them for immediate needs. But there is a way out of this situation; you can build a woodworking machine with your own hands, using available tools.

Homemade thicknessing machines have different designs; in this article we will talk about the simplest version of its manufacture, but even this will require certain skills and tools.

Materials and tools

Since the machine is made from improvised means, then the materials Every person who may need such a machine should have the following:

  • Table for work - the minimum width must be at least one and a half meters, and the length must allow processing at least 2-meter boards;
  • An old wardrobe door is an option; in general, any flat surface approximately corresponding to the size of the door will do;
  • Two beams with a cross section of 150x50 mm and a length not exceeding the door;
  • Two boards with a cross section of approximately 25x100 and a length of 40 cm;
  • Smaller bars and planks of different sizes;
  • Wooden wedges;
  • Plywood 20 mm thick;
  • A set of thin strips with a thickness of 2 to 6 mm.

During the preparation process you will need the following tools:

  • Electric planer;
  • Drill and set of drills;
  • Electric jigsaw;
  • Square;
  • Self-tapping screws.

Homemade machine and its operating system

The structure of a thicknessing machine is as follows: a board fixed on the plane of its lower part is processed by a plane moving manually in a special bounding frame. The frame allows the power tool to move freely left and right, processing boards up to 400 mm wide.

Surface preparation

A chiffonier door or a slab of plywood replacing it is placed on the work table. The main condition should be compliance with the dimensions and evenness of the surface;

Fixation to the table can be done either through bolts; for this, holes are drilled along the edges of the plate, which should be identical to the holes in the table, and the plate is pressed with bolts. You can fix it by resting it on pre-prepared pins on the table.

Fastening the guide axes

For the axles, polished beams are used; they must be the same height, so that the boards, after processing in a homemade thicknesser, are smooth on all sides;

Place plywood on them, so that the beams are located strictly along the edges of the plywood, and screw them in with self-tapping screws.

Planer pads

  1. It is necessary to cut out two pads for the plane from thick plywood; they are needed so that the electric planer can be installed on the supporting frame of a homemade thickness planer and with their help adjust the planing depth;
  2. The pads should follow the contours of the plane, but have a greater length; along their edges it is necessary to cut out seats of the same depth, approximately 60-70 mm, on each side. Their width should be about 5 cm.
  3. The working surface of the pads should be treated with sandpaper;
  4. The linings are attached to the plane using the bolts on it; for a tighter fixation, it is recommended to use washers. For rigidity, the upper protruding parts are expanded with small blocks and fixed with self-tapping screws.

If there are no bolts on the body of the electric plane, you can make the frames a little larger and fasten them on four sides with pins, spreading them in advance with bars slightly shorter than the width of the plane.

Support frame

To make the frame, timber and board are used. The frame should be 10 cm wider than the distance between the outer parts of the bars fixed to the wardrobe door, and the length should be commensurate with the grooves on the planer pads. In other words, it should lie completely inside the frame, and at the same time it should not move back and forth, but only on the sides;

A square will help in assembling the frame. Transverse boards with a cross-section of 100x25 mm must be rested with their ends against the block, and maintaining an angle of 90 degrees, they must be fixed with self-tapping screws;

In order for the frame to move evenly along the guide bars, a limit bar should be placed on one side of it. This can be done using self-tapping screws.

Advice! Do not use less than 8 screws to assemble the frame of the supporting frame, otherwise it will not be rigid enough!

By and large, the tool is ready; for greater clarity, you can familiarize yourself with how to construct a homemade thicknessing machine for wood; the video will be presented at the end of the article. In order to understand how to use it correctly, brief instructions are given below.

Instructions for using a thickness planer

This machine helps to give the boards a perfectly flat appearance, because often during the drying process they take on the shape of a propeller, sometimes this is so insignificant that at first glance it seems that the board is absolutely flat. But as soon as she gets on a really flat surface, she starts playing on it.

  1. Having placed the bent board on the lower part of the machine, you should wedge it in such a way that when you press on any of its edges, it remains motionless;
  2. There remains a space between the guide bars and the board being processed; it must be filled with spacers and the board wedged for reliable fixation;
  3. The plane in the frame must be positioned in such a way that it barely touches the surface of the board being processed. For this, beams of various thicknesses are used. For smooth adjustment, you will need a set of thin strips, the dimensions of which are indicated in the list of materials;
  4. Having set the thicknesser properly, you can proceed to the initial grinding;
  5. To do this, run the plane several times over the entire plane of the board being processed. Then replace the slats with thinner ones, or remove them altogether, and repeat the procedure;
  6. When one side of the board has been processed, it should be removed from the machine and the surface should be cleared of accumulated wood chips;
  7. Turn the board over, fix it and repeat the whole process from start to finish. You will be left with a board processed on both sides, which can be adjusted to any size if necessary.

This wood planer can grind boards with high precision, the error is about 0.5 mm per two-meter workpiece. This is comparable to the accuracy of domestic factory machines.


Everyone who has more or less encountered the production of construction joinery very soon came to the conclusion that it was necessary to have at least a primitive thicknessing machine on hand. Without it, obtaining workpieces calibrated in thickness is extremely difficult and time-consuming, and the process takes a lot of time.

It’s not always affordable to buy a ready-made industrial thickness planer; the prices are steep, so many craftsmen decide to make one. There are many designs, I bring to your attention the following design of a thickness planer.

Making a thicknesser with your own hands

The frame and table of the machine are welded, made of a 50*50 mm angle and a 40*40 mm square pipe; larger sizes can also be used; the extra massiveness will only increase the stability of the machine and reduce vibrations during operation.

The next required design element is the knife shaft. It is better to purchase it ready-made, along with axle boxes, since homemade shafts are not always well balanced. In the above version, a three-hundred-millimeter shaft for three knives is taken. The shaft and engine pulleys must be stepped in order to be able to select the optimal shaft speed, within the range of 4000-7000 rpm.

For a given shaft size, an asynchronous motor with a power of 4-5 kW is quite suitable; there will be no need to use large pulleys, in addition, a motor of such power can be started using known methods and.

The pressure rollers must be machined or taken ready-made from the waste of old Soviet washing machines. The frame of each roller is welded, fastened with spring-loaded bolts on one side, and a piece of steering rod with a pin from a Moskvich is used to fasten the other. As operating experience shows, it is a good idea to use two such mounts on one roller. The springs are taken from truck engine valves.

Unfortunately, in this version, the supply of blanks is manual. In the future, there is a desire to use a mechanical one.

The table is mounted on adjusting bolts. To avoid the need to adjust each one, the bolts are equipped with welded bicycle sprockets connected by a chain.

To make a woodworking thicknessing machine you needed: a welding machine, an angle grinder, a drill, a drilling machine and a lathe.

Good luck and successful technical solutions..

Do-it-yourself thicknesser: drawings

Click and enlarge

Few people in childhood were left indifferent by their first visit to a carpentry workshop. The indescribable smell of fresh wood shavings, the cleanliness and smoothness of a freshly planed board, the fluffiness of sawdust - this is the place where, with the help of a thickness planer, the magical transformation of several clumsy boards with a scratchy surface from protruding fibers took place into an elegant stool.

The result of the surface planer was perfectly smooth lumber, which was suitable for making many interesting and beautiful things.

Design and types of thicknessing machines

Of course, the thickness planer was not the only one in that workshop. And many of these workshops could not boast of such luxury at all. But a circular saw, often assembled on the same shaft as the drum of the jointer, was almost always available. And then a simple device that made it possible to control the uniformity of pressing the workpiece to the surface of the work table brought the jointing machine closer in its functionality to a thickness planer, which in capable hands provided almost the same result, although somewhat more expensive in both work and time.

We talk about this in such detail here so that the main topic of the article is clearer - making a thicknesser (thicknesser) machine with your own hands. After all, its main task is to plan the molded wooden material with the same thickness. And several successive planing operations on a jointing machine with such a clamping device will ensure this result.

But what is a real surface planer equipped with?

The thickness planer has:

  • Desktop;
  • working shaft (1 or 2), two - for simultaneous processing of two surfaces of the workpiece or one - for processing the workpiece on one side;
  • rollers for pressing and pulling the workpiece (a pair on top or two - on top and bottom), with electric or manual drive;
  • table height adjustment system;
  • workpiece reverse protection system.

In the modification of the jointing machine, some of the listed systems are missing. But also, dual-purpose machines are produced industrially - planer-thicknessers.

In them, under the working table for jointing, there is a height-adjustable surface thicknessing table. Processing of the workpiece is carried out using the same drum with knives as jointing. In this case, only the upper part is processed. When the machine is operating as a surface planer, the upper part of the machine is covered with a protective cover to prevent injury.

Sometimes, instead of a drum with knives, a wide cutter is installed.

Schematic diagram of the operation of a thickness planer

Why make a thickness planer with your own hands?

The scheme of work should be clear to most home craftsmen even without visualization, but for ease of understanding the tasks of making a surface planer yourself, it will not be superfluous.

There are two motivations for making any equipment yourself:

  • desire for self-realization;
  • desire for savings.

All the rest follow from those listed. And you can save a lot of things:

  • first of all, money due to the abolition of auxiliary functions, which can be completely dispensed with in a home workshop;
  • in the second - electricity by reducing the number of electric drives;
  • thirdly, space in the workshop due to optimization and adjustment of dimensions.

If we talk about a full-fledged thickness planer, then, based on the three-dimensional drawing located below, its components can be reduced to the following list:

  • electric drive from an electric motor with a power of 1.5 - 2.5 kW on a two-knife drum rotating at a speed of 5 - 10 thousand rpm;
  • manual chain adjustment of the work table level;
  • manual chain coupled feeding of the workpiece by two lingering pressure rollers.

But you yourself decide on the concept of your surface planer. Let's look at 3 approaches to implementing the idea of ​​making your own thickness planer.

High-tech method for manufacturing a thickness planer

There are 3 independent electric drives, which:

  • drive the cutting drum,
  • are broaching pressure rollers,
  • adjust the position of the desktop.

Torque is transmitted to the drum using a V-belt drive, and in the two remaining options - a chain drive. Moreover, the uniformity of pressure on the rollers is regulated by interconnected spring-loaded intermediate sprockets, although in our opinion, such a system will still not allow us to avoid some temporary loosening of the chain at the moment the workpiece leaves the feed roller.

The tensioning of the drive chain for adjusting the height of the work table is carried out by two rigidly fixed sprockets.

Such an approach, obviously, can be justified if you have a flexible mini-production with a large number of equipment reconfiguration operations. Although here some schemes could be simplified. For example, like this:

Such a machine will not be cheap, and the abundance of rather complex components will require constant maintenance. But, apparently, this is exactly the case when the desire for self-realization was in the foreground, because for similar money it would be quite possible to find a used thickness planer and, having slightly repaired it, provide a solution to the same problems.

Do-it-yourself thickness planer made from an electric planer

It is precisely this approach to solving most tasks for a surface planer that arise in a home workshop that we find most interesting.

First of all, this interest is based on minimal modifications to an existing tool to perform the work of expensive equipment with almost the same result.

By installing an electric planer on a platform with variable height, we get almost the same thickness planer. True, it is not the position of the work table that is regulated, but the position of the working tool in relation to the workpiece being processed, but this does not change the essence of the process. The role of the table here is played by a flat, powerful board with width limiters on the sides. They also serve as the mounting location for the main unit. But first, let's talk about him.

On the planer, we will replace the rear support plate with a homemade one made from OSB or plywood, with a thickness that ensures the same level as the front plate, which regulates the required gap (1 - 3 mm) for removing chips. Its width should correspond to the width of our improvised desktop.

On the sides of this plate, slats are screwed to attach the legs, the height of which is dictated solely by common sense. It is obvious that, based on the standard width of the plane knives of 82 mm, the thickness of the workpieces being processed should not be more than 100 mm, so the distance between the axes of the leg fastenings can be taken as 110 - 120 mm. Accordingly, their total length will range from 140 to 160 mm with a width of 35 mm and a thickness of at least 10 mm. The legs are fastened strictly at the same distance from the edge of the bar.

Installation of the assembled movable upper unit with an electric planer on the desktop is carried out locally, so that the fastening is strictly at the same level. This is done to ensure that its movement is parallel with respect to the base surface, which will ensure precision processing of the workpiece.

The easiest way to set the height during work is by selecting slats of appropriate thickness, screwed onto the work table width limiters, or using other stands.

And the clamping of the working tool is ensured with spring ties or a harness, but for small workpieces this is not required at all. Also, in a given position, this parallel platform can be fixed with self-tapping screws.

Video of using a surface planer assembled by yourself:

A budget option for a homemade surface planer

This is the simplest method of using an electric planer as a surface planer. Of course, it would hardly occur to anyone to call this design a thickness planer, but in terms of the function it performs, this is exactly what it is.

We deliberately selected an option for wide blanks. Indeed, in this form it performs work that most industrial thicknessing machines cannot do precisely because of the width of the material being processed, and in our case it is limited only by the length of your hands.

Of course, we cannot recommend such a barbaric attachment of an electric plane - a rather expensive tool - to a moving platform. Much more interesting is the option of securing it, described in the previous section of the article, but using a wider platform and moving the slats along the width, and not along the axis of the tool. In this case, the danger of damaging anything important inside the plane body is reduced to zero.

In the example given, a glued assembly of wooden slats of various sizes and even types of wood is processed.

Height adjustment is made by installing calibrated bars on the sides of the work table, two sets of which will allow you to process an unlimited number of workpieces on both sides to a given thickness.

Obviously, the same system can be used when processing molded material, and not just wide and short workpieces, but at the same time, unlike a thickness planer and the previous option of using an electric planer as a planer, you will not move the workpiece, but independently move along her.

It is no less obvious that the work table must be perfectly flat in the horizontal plane, otherwise its unevenness can be transmitted to all the workpieces being processed. Watch the video - example below:

Dear readers, if you have any questions, please ask them using the form below. We will be glad to communicate with you;)

Often craftsmen who love to work with wood, or owners of country houses, are faced with the need to plan a lot of boards to give them visual appeal. It is necessary to equalize the thickness of the material, determine the dimensions of the boards and panels, obtain a smooth surface of the blanks from which furniture will subsequently be made, or used to finish the floor or room. The solution to the problem may be to buy a thickness planer or make a thickness planer with your own hands, because a device with automatic feeding of workpieces and knife shafts made of high-speed steel significantly speeds up and facilitates the process of planing wood.

Purpose of a thickness planer

Thicknessing machines are intended for plane planing of workpieces - panels, bars and boards of thickness to a given size, and therefore are the main ones in woodworking enterprises. In addition, almost every carpenter has surface thicknessers. The main purpose of thicknessing machines is to uniformly service boards and other wooden products over the entire area and obtain blanks that have equal thickness over the entire width and length.

Thicknessers, when used in construction, are capable of processing large quantities of wide boards in one pass. Unlike industrial devices, household surface thicknessers are small in size and much lighter, which makes them easier to transport. In addition, modern models have a lightweight system for changing working knives and increased control of cutting depth in order to accurately adjust the thickness of the chips being removed.

As a rule, before carrying out this procedure, wooden surfaces are pre-treated on a jointer. For non-standard types of materials (polymers, soft plastics, foam-based insulation), thicknessing machines with rubber-coated metal feed rollers are intended, which are not capable of damaging the surfaces of the workpieces.

Sectional feed rollers, which are equipped with woodworking equipment, allow you to simultaneously feed workpieces of different thicknesses at the entrance to the machine. The thickness planer is one of the important equipment in carpentry and construction, as well as in the furniture industry, allowing the production of precise strips for wood furniture or slats for kitchen trim.

You cannot plane very thin workpieces on a homemade thicknessing machine, because vibrations occur, which affect the quality of the processed surface. The shortest length of the workpiece to be processed should be 100 millimeters greater than the distance from the front to the rear feed roller. If there is a need to mill shorter material, it must be securely fixed to the base. With the help of appropriate devices on thicknessing machines, it will be possible to process even wedge-shaped workpieces and level non-parallel planes.

The cutting depth shows the cut of the thicknesser in one pass: this indicator ranges from 1 to 3 millimeters, depending on the width of the material. The width of the workpiece characterizes the processing capabilities of products that have a certain size: the optimal solution is 30 - 330 millimeters. The performance of the machine is affected by the power of the machine. A 1.9 kW thickness planer is suitable for private workshops. Devices with a power higher than 1.8 kW are useful for planing hard wood - spruce, beech, pear, elm, ash.

Design of thickness planer

A thicknesser is a special device that belongs to the category of woodworking machines that successfully cope with planar, volumetric and profile milling of straight and curved workpieces made of solid wood.

By design they are distinguished:

  1. Single-sided thicknessing machines, on which planing is carried out only on the top side;
  2. Double-sided thicknessing machines, where two opposite sides are planed simultaneously - the bottom and the top;
  3. Special thicknessers - three-, four- and multi-knife.

The most widespread are single-sided thicknessing machines, which are simpler in design and, accordingly, in operation. We will consider their device today.

The table of a thicknessing machine, unlike a jointing machine, is made of one solid slab that is precisely planed and sanded, and it does not have a guide ruler in its design. In addition to the horizontal table, on which the thickness of the layer being removed is adjusted, the thicknesser consists of such basic elements as a special cutter, which is represented by several separate knives and a system for automatically feeding the wooden workpiece along roller guides.

The bed for a thickness planer is cast iron, hollow, solid, and all the parts and mechanisms of the machine are attached to it. A metal corner measuring 100 by 100 millimeters and a length of at least 1000 millimeters can serve as a support table. This length is explained by safety measures. The support table is hung on the technological corners of the machine, secured with bolts on one side and clamps on the other. The height of the table can be moved along the guide slides using a lifting mechanism.

A knife shaft is placed above the table. The workpiece feeding mechanism is represented by two pairs of rollers. The first of them is located in front of the knife shaft, the other - behind the shaft. The lower rollers are installed exactly under the upper ones. The upper rollers rotate from an electric motor through a gear drive, which is why they are called drive, feed or feed. The lower rollers are installed freely and are driven into rotation by the supplied material. These rollers are supporting or guiding. In double-sided thicknessing machines, the knife shafts are located in the table and above the work table.

The purpose of the lower rollers is to facilitate the feeding of material to the knives; they protrude above the surface of the work table by 0.2-0.3 millimeters. With a higher position of the lower rollers, the material being planed vibrates from the impacts of the knives, thin material will sag, and planing will turn out to be uneven. The front upper roller is usually made corrugated for better adhesion to the unplaned surface of the workpiece. Such a roller is installed 2-3 millimeters below the surface of the material that is fed to the knives.

The upper back roller must be made smooth, because corrugation can spoil the planed surface of the wood. Place it 1 millimeter below the cutting edges of the knives. The feed mechanism rollers are arranged in parallel, so only parts of the same thickness can be fed into the thicknessing machine at the same time. Products that are thinner, even 2-3 millimeters, when they reach the knife shaft, will receive a strong blow to the end with a knife and fly back out.

For simultaneous planing of lumber that has different thicknesses, a sectional grooved roller is introduced into the planer of the planer, which makes it possible to use the entire width of the machine and dramatically increase its productivity. The sectional roller consists of 12 corrugated rings, which are mounted on a common axis and connected to it by springs. When a product whose thickness is greater than the thickness of others that are simultaneously processed passes under the roller, the sections that press on it are shifted upward and maintain adhesion to the material under the action of springs.

In front of such a corrugated roller there are hangers, the purpose of which is to prevent the part from flying back out of the machine. On top, the knife shaft is covered with a massive lifting cap, which serves as a reliable fence and is a high-quality device that directs the chips into the exhauster funnel. In addition, the cap provides support for the fibers during planing; for this purpose, its lower edge is brought close to the knives.

You can increase the interchangeable knives from two to four. As a tool, in addition to a cutter, you can use a smooth drum covered with sanding paper. The drum can be turned from heat-resistant plastic, aluminum or hardwood. Suitable sizes: diameter 80 millimeters, length 100 millimeters. At one of the ends a groove is made for a nut and washer. On the side surface for attaching the skin, a longitudinal groove is cut, which has a trapezoidal shape, under a clamping bar of a similar shape. Drill three holes in the strip for screws with countersunk heads.

Feeding is carried out by upper rollers - rear smooth and front grooved. Two smooth rollers that rotate freely in bearings are able to reduce friction when moving material along the table. The typical maximum width of the processed product is 315 - 1250 millimeters, thickness - 5 - 160 millimeters, knife shaft diameter 100 - 165 millimeters, there are 2 - 4 knives on the shaft. The power of the electric motor reaches 1 - 44 kW.

The faster the shaft knives rotate, the cleaner and smoother the surface of the workpieces will be after planing. You can choose for use devices with a rotation speed of 6 - 10 thousand revolutions per minute. The weight, design of the thicknessing machine, as well as the compactness of the thicknesser directly characterize the ability to move the equipment. Compact machines that weigh 27 - 39 kilograms are the best choice.

At a certain distance of the working table from the knife shaft, the workpiece is planed to the size shown on the scale mounted on the machine bed. Clamps are installed on both sides of the knife shaft; they are able to prevent vibration of the workpieces. The chip breaker, which is located in front of the knife shaft, helps break the chips and presses the workpiece against the table, forming a cavity for accumulating chips along with a clamp.

Operating principle of a thickness planer

The principle of operation of the thickness planer is based on the method of flat planing of boards. The main working tool of a thickness planer is the knife shaft. Workpieces for processing are fed onto a horizontal work table manually or by rollers, which press them against the table and pull them into the processing area. The material is planed from above with knives, and the result is parts that are absolutely identical in size. Many thicknessing machines have an automatic system for feeding workpieces at a certain speed in order to accurately and accurately remove the required layer.

You can purchase a single-sided or double-sided surface planer. The first thicknessing machines have one knife shaft; double-sided machines also have an additional knife shaft on the work table. Before processing parts with a surface planer, they must already be planed in a jointer. In design, in principle, the two machines are very similar to each other. Often, a double-sided thicknesser and a jointer are combined into one mechanism. Such equipment has two tables - for a jointer on top and for a thicknesser at the bottom.

Usually, on a thickness planer, workpieces are planed with a length slightly greater than the distance that was formed between the feed rollers, as in the video about the thickness planer. In the case of using backing templates (tsulagi), you can plan workpieces (boards, bars, boards) with non-parallel opposite edges on a thicknessing machine. The surface of this template must be tilted in such a way that during the horizontal planing procedure of products, the desired taper can be obtained.

In some models of thicknessing machines, manufacturers have increased the length of the table for convenience. Therefore, the timber or have a significant support area, and the products are processed more accurately. To ensure that the workpiece slides optimally on the table, special grooves are made in them to reduce the friction force. Similar models were previously used mainly in production, but today these principles are widely introduced into household surface thicknessers.

One of the main advantages of a thickness planer is the high quality of processed surfaces. The thickness of the resulting parts is set using a lifting mechanism when the table moves upward in relation to the knife shaft. But it is worth considering that with a high cutting speed of workpieces and a large cutting depth, the quality of the machined surface deteriorates. Therefore, in order to achieve a smooth surface, it is necessary to make finishing passes at a shallow depth and at a low speed of rotation of the knife shaft, if the machine provides adjustment.

The thickness planer is one of the most highly productive woodworking machines. It is worth adjusting the dimensions of the workpiece being processed once using a ruler and a lift, and the entire batch of products will be the same, within the permissible limit. On thicknessing machines you can process parts with a width of up to 1250 millimeters and a thickness of 5 - 160 millimeters, in addition to special machines designed for specific work.

Manufacturing of thickness planer

All owners who are faced with the manufacture of construction carpentry, lining and furniture from wood have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to have at least the most primitive thickness planer in their use. Without such an installation, it is extremely difficult to obtain calibrated workpieces according to the thickness of the workpiece, in addition, the procedure will take a lot of time. Not everyone can afford to buy industrial equipment; the prices of thicknessing machines are steep, so craftsmen decide to make the installation themselves.

Before you start making a thickness planer, it is worth studying the process of using and storing a thickness planer. Miniature machines do not require much space. The structure should be positioned in such a way that it can be walked around for convenient supply of material. You can install similar equipment in front of a garage or house: the main thing is that the surface under the machine is level to avoid vibrations. The dimensions of a surface planer are often no more than a meter in width and thickness, so the equipment can easily fit in a barn or garage.

For home creation, the following design is proposed. The frame and work table of the machine are welded, made of a 50 by 50 millimeter angle and a 40 by 40 millimeter square pipe; larger material can also be used. Remember that excessive massiveness only increases the stability of the thickness planer and reduces vibrations that occur during operation. To manufacture the machine you need: a lathe and drilling machine, an angle grinder, a welding machine and a drill.

The next mandatory design element is the knife shaft. It is advisable to purchase it ready-made with axle boxes, because homemade shafts are absolutely not always well balanced. In the version we presented, a three-hundred-millimeter shaft with three knives was used. The engine and shaft pulleys should be stepped to select the optimal shaft speed, within the range of 4000-7000 rpm.

For a shaft of this size, an asynchronous motor with a power of 4-5 kW is quite suitable; there is no need to use larger pulleys, in addition, a motor of similar power can be started from one phase using known methods. It is recommended to grind the pressure rollers or use ready-made ones from the squeeze of old Soviet washing machines. The roller frame is welded, it is secured on one side with spring-loaded bolts, and on the other, a piece of steering rod from a Moskvich is used for fastening. Experience shows that it is a good idea to use two such fasteners on one roller.

The table, according to the drawing of the thicknessing table, is installed on adjusting bolts. To avoid the need for adjustment, each bolt is equipped with welded bicycle sprockets that are connected by a chain. Take the springs from the truck engine valves. Unfortunately, this thickness planer provides for manual feeding of workpieces. In the future, if desired, you can use a mechanical one.

Before starting work, it is necessary to check the correct location of the knives, as well as the sharpness of their sharpening. Remember that the knife shaft must be fenced. It is not allowed to process a workpiece with a length less than the distance between the rear and front shafts. It is prohibited to clean, repair or adjust the thickness planer while it is moving.

The workpieces must be fed end to end, using the entire width of the table. Remember that the material after processing should not have tears, pins, or marks. Hairiness and mossiness are obtained when processing raw material or planing with dull knives; non-gouging is observed when the workpiece is not tightly pressed against the table by rollers, the thickness of the workpiece is unequal and the blades of the knives unequally protrude from the shaft.

Setting up a thickness planer

Thicknessing machines must be carefully adjusted before work. Any adjustment inaccuracy will cause processing defects or lead to a decrease in machine productivity. Most often, the following omissions are observed in setting up thickness gauges:

  1. Distortion on the desktop. The planed surface will not be parallel to the planed side.
  2. The grooved roller is located very low and presses too hard on the surface of the parts at a shallow planing depth. Planed surfaces are obtained with transverse dents.
  3. The lower feed rollers are placed above the table level higher than necessary, by 0.1-0.2 millimeters. As a result, the workpiece vibrates under the blows of the knives, and thinner parts bend. Planing is not straight and not so smooth, the ends of the products are more drawn out.
  4. The rear pressure block presses on the workpiece. For this reason, the product stops as it exits the front feed rollers due to the reduction in feed force. Since the knives will continue to rotate, one place is planed on the surface of the part, and as a result, a groove appears here across the entire planing width. In general, grooves are formed during any stop of the product, even the shortest. Stops often occur while parts are being fed into the rear rollers. This happens when the top rear roller is placed too low and puts too much pressure on the material. Reasons for a short-term delay or stopping of a part can also be insufficient pressure on the product of the feed rollers, an excessively high position of the lower rollers, or severe contamination of the table when processing pine parts with resin.
  5. Chips get under the rear smooth roller due to improper installation of the cap or exhauster malfunctions. For these reasons, dents appear on the planed surface, sometimes delaying the part.

Therefore, when setting up a thicknessing machine, it should be remembered that when the table is significantly filled, for example, when planing a wide board or simultaneously feeding products across the entire width of the work table, the pressure of the feed rollers should be increased, because in these cases the cutting resistance greatly increases. When planing narrow parts or when the table is lightly filled, you need to reduce the pressure of the feed rollers to avoid crushing the wood.

The most common ones in the woodworking industry include jointing, milling, planing and thicknessing machines, which are intended for planar, volumetric and profile milling of straight and curved blanks made of solid wood and wood materials, for cutting lugs and tenons in the bars of door frames and window blocks. If you plan to do only plane planing, then you should give preference to a thickness planer. You can purchase this machine at a retail outlet or assemble it yourself using the information provided on our website and our step-by-step instructions.

However, it allows the master to significantly expand his capabilities, since he allows him to process workpieces, giving them a given thickness. In this article we will tell you how to quickly and easily make such a machine using a drill.

Introduction

The designs of thicknessing devices can be very different, but they are united by the main principle and purpose of the machine itself - leveling the workpiece in thickness. For example, if a sawn solid wood or sheet wood board has different thicknesses or any surface defects, then using a surface planer you can level them out.

Based on the principle of wood processing, two main types can be distinguished:

  • cutting;
  • grinding.

The design of cutting thicknessing machines uses a shaft with several knives, which, when rotated, cuts off a layer of wood, and grinding machines use shafts with an abrasive coating (material), which, accordingly, grind the surface of the workpiece to a given thickness. In this article we will analyze one of the design options for a homemade grinding-thicknesser machine; step-by-step instructions for manufacturing such a machine will be described, accompanied by a description, comments, and photos. Making a thicknessing machine with your own hands using the video posted at the end of the article will greatly simplify your understanding of the sequence of actions and manufacturing technology. In addition, at the end there will be drawings of a homemade thickness planer.

Original idea

The essence of the original idea is that the described machine will be made on the basis. In addition, on the basis of this, you can build other devices: grinding machines. Their description is presented in the following articles:

These articles, like this one, detail the entire sequence of their creation and technological operations, and include photo and video materials. The fact that you can make some kind of universal base and, as necessary, give it the desired functionality, replacing only some elements, while getting a set of machines: thicknesser and grinding machines, makes this idea very valuable.

This solution is convenient, universal and unified.

Preparing for work

As always, the preparatory stage is very important, since it is before starting work that you need to be completely familiar with all technological operations and plan the sequence of your actions. It is important that it does not happen that at some point it turns out that the necessary material and tools are missing, therefore all the material in the article is disclosed in detail, each technological operation is described and information and reference materials are attached (photos, videos, tables, etc.).

Tools

To make a thicknessing machine with your own hands, you should have the following tools at your disposal:

  1. or .
  2. Angle grinder (angle grinder or simply “grinder”).
  3. Drill or .
  4. Additional hand tools: hammer, clamps, square, screwdriver, marking pencil, etc.

Materials and fasteners used

To make the described homemade thicknessing machine, you need to prepare the following materials and fasteners:

  1. Plywood 15 mm thick.
  2. Pine massif;
  3. Wing nut;
  4. Fastening: M6 bolt, self-tapping screws of various lengths.

Main structural elements

The design is homemade or consists of parts:

  1. Base:
    • Frame;
    • Spindle box;
  2. Bed with movable table;
  3. Grinding shaft;
  4. Drill (or);

Making a thicknesser with your own hands

To reflect the entire technology for creating a homemade thickness planer, we will divide the entire process into a set of sequential technological operations for creating the main parts and their further assembly.

Base (Frame and spindle box) of the machine

It was said above that these structural elements will be used from those previously described, so we will not repeat them with a detailed description.

Therefore, we believe that the frame and spindle box have already been made and look like this.

Bed with movable table of thickness planer

To make the sides of the bed, you need to take two 15mm thick blanks measuring 120 x 160 mm and give them the shape of an equilateral trapezoid.

Next, we drill through holes for the shaft axis. It is important to note that when drilling, you need to place the workpieces in the design position - the way they will stand during work. And since we use the future base and frame as our base, the required centers of the holes can be easily determined. To do this, we simply fix the workpieces using a clamp.

Then these same holes need to be drilled out or in order (but not through!!!) to make seats for the bearings.

Now let's start making the base of the bed. It is load-bearing, so it needs to be made strong and strong. To do this, we glue two blanks measuring 230 x 200 mm together and install the finished sidewalls to the resulting base. We fasten with wood glue and self-tapping screws.

Next, you need to make a movable table on which the workpiece should slide. The table is made movable (lifting) so that the distance between it and the rotating shaft can be adjusted. This distance will determine the thickness of the workpiece being processed. To make a table, just like when making the base of the bed, you need to take a workpiece measuring 230 x 200 mm, but only it can be made single-layer.

To ensure its lifting, you need to make two holes in the corners and install wing nuts in them, having previously countersunk them or to recess them “flush”.

And install the wing nuts.

The fastening of the table to the frame of the thicknessing machine must be movable, so we make the connection on a hinge, although the best option would be to mount it on one, but on two hinges for greater structural strength (or use one piano (long) hinge).

The bed of our homemade thickness planer must be securely attached to the frame using a special guide. The guide has dimensions of 330 x 30 x 40 mm. It is attached to the frame with glue and additionally pressed with self-tapping screws.

Grinding shaft of thickness planer

The grinding shaft is made from several layers. To do this, you need to cut out (or in common parlance with a “crown”) 7 blanks in the shape of a circle with a diameter of 85 mm.

Next, they all need to be glued together to form the grinding drum of a thickness planer. An M10 pin with a length of 290 mm will be used as the drum axis. Therefore, in order to tightly fix all the workpieces, they can be assembled directly on the future axis. To do this, you need to press wing nuts onto the outer blanks.

Then we screw on the first blank, lubricate the surface with wood glue, put on another blank and then with all the blanks we assemble a pyramid, like in childhood, stringing rings onto a pin.

Now it is necessary to grind the future drum to give it precise geometry - the same diameter along its entire length, and also to get rid of rough drilling defects. To do this, install the drum in the bearing seats of the side frames of the frame. In this case, it is necessary to install two locked nuts on the axle on each side of the drum to fix it between the bearings to prevent lateral displacement.

It is important to control the diameter of the shaft so that it does not become tapered, and the evenness of the surface itself is also important, otherwise the future workpiece may have flaws. After grooving the shaft, you need to make a small modification to it so that you can attach sandpaper (sandpaper) there. To do this, you need to make a longitudinal groove on a circular saw.

The shaft groove must be drilled long at both ends so that the sandpaper can then be secured with a screw or self-tapping screw.

To make the fit as tight as possible, you can wrap the shaft with tape or put on several dozen rubber bands. Then we screw screws or self-tapping screws into the holes previously drilled in the groove. In this case, the screw-in screw will securely fix the sandpaper to the shaft.

Assembling a homemade thickness planer

Now we have made all the necessary structural elements for the final assembly of our thickness planer. It is necessary to install the grinding shaft in the support bearings, install the drill, clamp the shaft axis into the drill chuck and the machine is ready. Adjustment of the thickness of the processed header occurs by rotating the adjusting screws, which understand and lower the movable table.

Conclusion

Bottom line

We completed all the operations and made a real thicknesser grinding machine from a drill with our own hands. This article contains all the necessary photos of technological operations and drawings of a thickness planer that will help you easily make yourself a real assistant in the workshop.

Overall dimensions of the machine

Here is a table with the overall dimensions of a thicknessing machine made with your own hands from a drill:

Drawings of thicknessing machine blanks

Below we indicate drawings of the parts that are needed for the manufacture of the machine.