Anyone have experience with thicknessers? Any you'd particularly recommend? In the £400-600 vicinity.

The Scheppach HMS 1070 looks interesting. Never heard of them before. I was also looking at the Makita 2012NB or the Dewalt DW733.

Just spotted one on ebay:- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/dewalt-planer-thicknesser-dw-1150-/251267836000?pt=UK_BOI_Building_Materials_Supplies_Carpentry_Woodwork_ET&hash=item3a80bae860#ht_25wt_1251

John

We had a Felder at work, seem to remember that the blades did not last long, were expensive and after a change, the whole thing needed setting up again.

I have an Elektra Beckum HC260 which has worked perfectly since I bought it in 1996. Mine is the genuine 'Made in Germany' machine and not one of the iffy looking Chinese copies. It is a hobby size, 260mm wide x 160mm depth. The fence could be better as it takes a bit of fiddling to ensure it is square to the planing table (when in Surface planer mode). You need a healthy extractor rate to make sure the shavings are cleared. It makes a mess of the face of your workpiece if it gets clogged. You could opt not to gather the shavings with an extractor but it is very messy. The drive rollers are steel and can mark easily bruised timber like Western Red Cedar. Blades are cheap and easy to get but there are at least three versions of the blades so care is needed when ordering.
Before the EB I had an Elu EPT1901. It was OK, slower feed rate but a better finish to the face. Better fence and a clever articulating guard. It had rubber drive rollers and left no marks. However, the Elu had a reputation for having a delicate drive train. I had no problems at all with mine but only had it for about 5 years before it was stolen. I was completely happy with it but I am not that demanding.

The Metabo is the same machine as the Elektra Beckum HC260. Metabo bought EB in 1999. There are a few changes like the switch position.
Look on Ebay, there are always a few going. If you want a planer thicknesser (and Beau is right, you need to be able to square two adjacent faces before you thickness) the next thing you'll want is a router with router table followed by a chisel morticer.

Posted By: BeauI ask as if using building grade timber and you just want to get it's thickness down a bit you may have trouble as so much of it has warped when you buy it and this can prove problematic when thicknessing.

I got two bales of 45 x 70mm timber starting my house, one bale of 2.5 metre long lengths and the other 3.6m.

At least 30% of the 3.6 metre lengths were totally unusable and another 20% I had to cut down to 2,4m to get usable timber from them.

Given the energy that has gone into producing and transporting them that has now gone to waste, not to mention my money, I really do wonder if it would be better overall to use steel profile for the inner walls, it may not be renewable but at least it can be more easily recycled at end of use and will involve less waste.

How much warped and twisted timber goes to waste in the building industry every year? And what's the best use for the stack of it I have?

Posted By: Chris P BaconAnd what's the best use for the stack of it I have?

Sometimes you can make up frames using pieces with opposing bends or twists. I had to do a lot of this on a job last year. I found screwing it together made pulling things straight relatively easy. The worst pieces I used for noggins. I had one bundle with almost every piece had the same twist along it's length so not so easy to find a home for these.

I don't know how CLS timber is processed but I can guess. It looks like the wood is sawn to size then put through a thicknesser and finally dried. To me this is all @rse about t1t. It should be cut then dried then planed and finally thicknessed but this would obviously waste wood at the processing stage. But you do wonder if lots of wood is unusable and gets tipped that it might be best to just do things the old fashioned way.

Sorry this is something that really bugs me. Quite a few timber merchant offer a planing service for joinery pine and hardwoods which sounds really handy but reality normally works out otherwise. You pay a fair bit extra for some not quite dry wood to be planed then you leave it sitting in the dry for a few days or weeks to find the damn thing has moved all over the place and now you have to plane it yourself anyway. O and now it is too thin for the job

Beau

Yeah I have used some of the twisted timber for door openings where I can laminate it together to straighten it out. A carpenter could probably make better use of the poorer timber but as a rank amateur I'm really only comfortable using the straightest stuff.

One of my neighbours is an 84 y.o. retired commercial fisherman who keeps his hand in putting out nets up and then. He has been getting all my offcuts for his fish smoker, so I'll probably end up chopping up what's unusable and give it to him also.

Table is not long enough, but you can make your own extensions.
The Planer/Thicknesser I had at work got me out of many a hole and was one of the most useful bits of kit I had.

What sort of blades does it have and how much are replacements?

Or for small quantities, take it to a local timber yard and get them to do it for you on professional machinery.

I bought a second hand thicknesser/planer, Elu?, 20 years ago and I would not be without it, one of the best bits of kit I own. I would get one with an induction motor, less hassle in the longrun and sooo much quieter.

Agreed Beau the original ones were Swiss made. I had the 1/4"; the 1/2"; the hand held planer and the small chop saw of theirs. Sadly I had the 1/4"; nicked some time ago. B&D/De-Walt took them over and it was generally downhill from then on. Certain bits were simply Elu copies just in a different colour, you can still interchange them. The old broken handle of my Elu chop saw is now yellow, it goes well with the grey Elu body.