ey_tony
Established Member
Hi guys, my name is Tony and live in East Yorkshire.
This is my first post so it's both an introduction and a little background info about me to aid any answers.
My first woodworking experience was at the tender age of 15 when I was apprenticed and served my time as a 'church organ builder' - yes I know, looking back now it's rather quaint and archaic but it was a heck of a grounding in the skilled use of hand tools.
However, since the age of 21 I pursued other career options but kept my hands on my tools over the years with home renovations and the occasional cabinet work/reproduction furniture for personal use - my love has always been to use hand tools with as little reliance on power tools as humanly possible.
I still have most of my tools from back then...several 20 odd inch Record steel planes, Marples chisels etc etc and all still serviceable.
Over the years I have acquired a substantial collection of aged timbers ( one example is a dozen or so superb figured oak boards over 100 years old up to 18 inches wide x 1.25 inches thick x nearly 8 feet long) plus many more which I'd planned to use upon retirement to make up some accurate repro 16th-18th century furniture pieces but unfortunately health issues ( partial heart failure and COPD) have got in the way of sticking religiously to hand tool use and I'm faced with having to acquire a few bits of machinery to make up for my lack of puff/stamina - in particular, a thicknesser or P/T which would save me an awful lot of body stress and take the hard work out of thicknessing once I'd ensured that there was no twist in the timber ( you can't beat a set of winding laths) :lol:
So with that in mind, I would like anyone who owns a Metabo DH 330 thicknesser to give me their valued opinion of this model - the other two contenders are the Makita 2012NB and the DeWalt 733 but I do like the specs of the Metabo ( particularly the planing width which is 330mm/13") - it's trade rated and|I've owned some Metabo tools for nearly 40 years which have given sterling service during that time.
I'm not bothered about a jointer as my steel planes and long steel straight edge are more than good enough for that so it's mostly down to accurate thicknessing to take the hard work out before getting the final finish on the boards with the hand planes. I've also built a very accurate bench saw ( certainly accurate to within 1/32" in overall width of cut) so jointing is relatively a piece of cake as the blades I've used are high quality and give a near perfect finish even before planing off.
As I'm out of touch with modern equipment there are other pieces of machinery which I'm sure would make life easier and I'd value your opinions on those but for now I'd like to purchase the most pressing for health reasons which is the thicknesser.
Thanks in anticipation and any comments welcomed.
Tony
This is my first post so it's both an introduction and a little background info about me to aid any answers.
My first woodworking experience was at the tender age of 15 when I was apprenticed and served my time as a 'church organ builder' - yes I know, looking back now it's rather quaint and archaic but it was a heck of a grounding in the skilled use of hand tools.
However, since the age of 21 I pursued other career options but kept my hands on my tools over the years with home renovations and the occasional cabinet work/reproduction furniture for personal use - my love has always been to use hand tools with as little reliance on power tools as humanly possible.
I still have most of my tools from back then...several 20 odd inch Record steel planes, Marples chisels etc etc and all still serviceable.
Over the years I have acquired a substantial collection of aged timbers ( one example is a dozen or so superb figured oak boards over 100 years old up to 18 inches wide x 1.25 inches thick x nearly 8 feet long) plus many more which I'd planned to use upon retirement to make up some accurate repro 16th-18th century furniture pieces but unfortunately health issues ( partial heart failure and COPD) have got in the way of sticking religiously to hand tool use and I'm faced with having to acquire a few bits of machinery to make up for my lack of puff/stamina - in particular, a thicknesser or P/T which would save me an awful lot of body stress and take the hard work out of thicknessing once I'd ensured that there was no twist in the timber ( you can't beat a set of winding laths) :lol:
So with that in mind, I would like anyone who owns a Metabo DH 330 thicknesser to give me their valued opinion of this model - the other two contenders are the Makita 2012NB and the DeWalt 733 but I do like the specs of the Metabo ( particularly the planing width which is 330mm/13") - it's trade rated and|I've owned some Metabo tools for nearly 40 years which have given sterling service during that time.
I'm not bothered about a jointer as my steel planes and long steel straight edge are more than good enough for that so it's mostly down to accurate thicknessing to take the hard work out before getting the final finish on the boards with the hand planes. I've also built a very accurate bench saw ( certainly accurate to within 1/32" in overall width of cut) so jointing is relatively a piece of cake as the blades I've used are high quality and give a near perfect finish even before planing off.
As I'm out of touch with modern equipment there are other pieces of machinery which I'm sure would make life easier and I'd value your opinions on those but for now I'd like to purchase the most pressing for health reasons which is the thicknesser.
Thanks in anticipation and any comments welcomed.
Tony
