Lunchbox thicknessers with induction motors?

[bourbon]

When you have finished using your lunchbox thicknesser, Attack it for a few minutes with a good vacuum. Cleaner it is, the less the strain on the bevel gears underneath. I know having refurbished my mates ancient Rexon, the plastic gears had chewed the teeth off in a couple of places. The spares are still available and not that expensive. Dewalt have metal gears but I would think that my advise still stands as they look like aluminium to me.

 

[sunnybob]

Oscar, yes. I did quite a lot of reading up and wanted the makita for several good reasons, but I use it so little that I could not justify the 100 plus extra so I bought the Jet from axminster. Its good in all respects except i just cannot completely eliminate the snipe at both ends.

I've had the jet apart (because I'm nosy, not because it broke) and its all steel sprockets and chains and everything is very heavy duty under there.
I vacuum out all the chips after every use but not to the extent of obsessiveness.
What I did do was enlarge the extraction port to 62 mm so i could plug the hose from my system straight in. The silly little 50 mm jammed up with wide shavings.

final reminder, these things make chips like you cannot believe, you will need to empty the bin almost every time you use it.

 

[custard]

In deciding between one lunch box thicknesser and another, an important thing to look at is the mechanism for raising and lowering the cutter head/feed roller assembly, if it's supported at each corner, or has a substantial mechanism, then that's a positive. The next thing to look for is some simple method of locking-off the cutter head, this stops the feed and pressure rollers riding up and causing snipe. The DeWalt DW733, which I used and I think Mark has got, came out joint top in a FineWoodworking test in terms of snipe and parallelism (virtually undetectable), but you paid a price on the DeWalt in that the locking mechanism was pretty clunky and required a fair effort every time the thickness setting was adjusted.

It's important to remember that snipe isn't necessarily a problem for all woodworkers. An on-site shopfitter, feeding through long lengths of softwood, would be unlikely to object to a bit of snipe, and he might be more concerned about the extra weight required for a really robust locking mechanism and cutter assembly. Fair enough, different users different priorities. But I'd often be feeding through furniture components that had already been cut to final length, so for me snipe was one of the top priorities.

I also see Mark has invested in a digital thickness readout. I didn't have one of these on my original DeWalt, but having used them subsequently I wouldn't want to be without it. The big benefit is that it allows you to go back at a later date and cut an additional component. You can get 0.1mm repeatability without a digital readout, but it's a lot of faff.

The final thing I'd say about any of these machines is that they're only good as the sharpness of the knives. Unfortunately most hobbyists I meet run their planers and thicknessers far beyond anything sensible in this respect. It's actually harder to judge when to sharpen on a thicknesser than it is on a planer. On a planer you'll feel when feeding the workpiece becomes harder, and you'll see blunt knives start to lift the workpiece causing obvious "flutter". With a thicknesser you don't get either of these clues. But you'll still get much better results with sharp knives, so it makes sense to have a spare set and to practise knife changes until you're really slick and it's not such a burden that you continually put the job off.

 

[sunnybob]

The jet doesnt have a lock off mechanism. strangely, of all the reading up I did, that was never once mentioned.

Too late now.

 

[Bodgers]

Would you recommend it?

The dilemma everyone faces Oscar is that for roughly the same money you can either get a good quality lunchbox/bench top thicknesser, or you can get a really low grade planer/thicknesser.

If you go the bench top thicknesser route you face the twin problems of planing one face reasonably flat by hand then edge jointing by hand.

Consequently many hobbyists decide on the poor quality planer/thicknesser. It's their money so their choice, but personally I think that's a mistake. These cheap as chips planer/thicknessers generally have cheap ali extrusions for fences which are often twisted and won't hold a setting, the tables are pretty rubbish too, a long way from flat and difficult if not impossible to set correctly. Add in lower quality motors, poor knife blocks and a poor knife changing process, rubbish dust extraction, thicknesser tables that won't hold flat during rise and fall, etc etc.

But, they look okay and promise a lot (without actually delivering much), so I guess they'll continue to sell in their thousands.

Sadly as a rookie woodworker I've already learned the painful lesson of a cheapo PT! I got this god awful Titan thing from Screwfix for £127, a bargain I thought. The thicknesser mode isn't too terrible but the planer/jointing mode is just comical with problems just as you describe, I can't get to make anything remotely flat! I think the fence is actually made from cheese. It now sits on the naughty step under my bench.

I had the Titan. It is pretty bad, but it served its purpose for a while. My tables were actually pretty flat and co-planer.

It is very loud and the planer (jointer) mode is very limited due to vibrations as it doesn't have enough mass.

I sold it for a Metabo thicknesseser, despite it having a similar universal motor it is quieter and can cope with larger stock. I now use hand planes to do initial flattening/jointing then run through the Metabo.

Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Bodgers]

In deciding between one lunch box thicknesser and another, an important thing to look at is the mechanism for raising and lowering the cutter head/feed roller assembly, if it's supported at each corner, or has a substantial mechanism, then that's a positive. The next thing to look for is some simple method of locking-off the cutter head, this stops the feed and pressure rollers riding up and causing snipe. The DeWalt DW733, which I used and I think Mark has got, came out joint top in a FineWoodworking test in terms of snipe and parallelism (virtually undetectable), but you paid a price on the DeWalt in that the locking mechanism was pretty clunky and required a fair effort every time the thickness setting was adjusted.

This is an area the Metabo is really good on. The head lock is easy to do -it has a clearly coloured, large lever pull which locks it firmly in place, reducing snipe.

Only real draw back of the Metabo is the price of blades.




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[MarkDennehy]

The next thing to look for is some simple method of locking-off the cutter head, this stops the feed and pressure rollers riding up and causing snipe. The DeWalt DW733, which I used and I think Mark has got, came out joint top in a FineWoodworking test in terms of snipe and parallelism (virtually undetectable), but you paid a price on the DeWalt in that the locking mechanism was pretty clunky and required a fair effort every time the thickness setting was adjusted.

Locking what now?

goes away, finds copy of manual online, reads it fully

I'll just be over here... kicking myself...

I honestly just thought they'd made the screw stiff to keep everything steady

 

[Zaltab]

I'd say your best bet is one of the small Electra Bekums such as the one in this video, induction motor plus you get the planer as well as the thicknesser for a small footprint

Thanks for this advice, looks nice!

 

[loftyhermes]

The Makita head is self locking.

 

[sploo]

Sadly as a rookie woodworker I've already learned the painful lesson of a cheapo PT! I got this god awful Titan thing from Screwfix for £127, a bargain I thought. The thicknesser mode isn't too terrible but the planer/jointing mode is just comical with problems just as you describe, I can't get to make anything remotely flat! I think the fence is actually made from cheese. It now sits on the naughty step under my bench.

You can improve that machine greatly with a DIY fence, similar to what Marius Hornberger built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTjFkFWQ51g

I made one for mine and it works pretty well (though my planing tables seem to be pretty flat and parallel, so I got lucky in that regard).

In terms of noise and induction motors, I've got the Titan (which I only use as a planer), the Metabo DH330 lunchbox style thicknesser (which I think is pretty good), and I've recently acquired an old 12" cast iron monster with an induction motor (still in the process of being restored).

I don't think the induction motor model is really that much quieter - the head/blades noise is large, and as noted by others, it's the cutting (and dust extraction) that really makes the racket.

A spiral head may be better, but obviously that gets really pricey.

 

[OscarG]

Thanks Sploo, nice to know that the Titan can be fiddled with, I'll check out that vid.