hi guys ryan here with the london craftsman again thanks for coming back
and today's video is all about this planar thicknesser behind me
i know recently um i haven't been doing any woodwork sort of videos just because i've
been repairing the roof above if you have a look repairing that so that's been on my mind getting
the roof sorted and also we've been doing a lot of spraying videos just because at the moment
it's easier for me just to go in there while i'm doing the spraying and make a quick and easy video
not only that i'm giving you a few tips of um how to use the airless sprayers anyway so hopefully
there's some useful information there without further ado let's talk about this machine behind
me which i bought ultimately for my ultimate workbench which i'm going to be building very soon
um you've probably heard about that that is going to be sort of like a 3.6 meter by 1.6 meter bench
being built so that was bought with the intention to have it inside but it's been laying around in
a box and just taken out every time i actually need it and we actually need it today so as you
can see to my right we've got a piece of a lot of random pieces of oak this was a coffee table
all solid laminated pieces of course little staves you can see it's glued up in little pieces um i'll
show i'll put a picture up now right now hopefully it's up there so you can see what it looked like
we've split it apart because ultimately we've got a job which is solid oak
and there's nowhere around near me where i can buy it any oak without driving 100 miles or waiting 10
10 days turnaround time plus unbelievable prices for five planks as you can see this size planks
there's one more to come i was being charged at like 280 pounds just for the oak itself so
the reason i bought this unit this coffee table is because it had a top and a bottom which i
can cut out some nice solid pieces um lovely oak i'm going to show you planing one up in a moment
these are all the offcuts which i don't need but i should still be able to utilize them at some point
i did get four pieces out of this furniture um all without any holes this one had to
be clamped and glued together in two pieces so these are gonna get cut off
just so i can get my five planks without any holes anyway i think there is one board without
with holes but that's going to be placed in a way where you won't see it right at the top
i'll show you what we're actually making it's not a very good drawing at the moment it's just
it's enough for us at the moment it's a very simple unit it's a little vanity unit
so it's got a top a middle shelf and a bottom shelf and two sides the interior is veneer so
we didn't need to worry about that and we've got three mirrored doors on the front and with like a
little cubby scene and there we go so we needed to get the top this middle shelf the bottom and
the two sides out of the solid if you walk around here this is all veneered stuff already been made
this is oak veneer so the backing was oak veneer
and the doors were open here just to keep costs down obviously we didn't want to make the doors
out of solid because you know solid can move and bow on you they had to be nice and stable
also it would have been too expensive to make all these pieces out of solid oak so one thing
we were worried about was color because solid is a lot more dense than the veneer itself
um so we were hoping you know we didn't really test it to see if we get the colors right but
we have just tested it for the video with an off cut this is solid and we're really tough
to say that we can match the solid up with the veneer with the oils and get it spot on
really happy about that the osmo is exactly the same color on the veneer that is on the solid
that's when the customer came around and tested the oils with me and the workshop a few weeks back
we were testing it and we noticed that the veneer was taking up the oil a lot darker or a lot more
soaking up a lot more than the solid so we really really polished this up with we went 120 240 320
and i think sean even went over with something like 480 or something like along those lines so
we're basically polishing the surface so it wouldn't take as much so when we come to sand
these pieces up we're going to sand them with only 240 just so we're balancing it so external parts
the doors for example their veneer and the backing is veneer and these internal shelves their veneer
too okay that said let's go back on to the machine show you there all the offcuts you can see the tan
color and you can see the tan color of the oak how it came you know all these oak units
that come pre-made they've always got a coat of lacquer on the top which makes some sort of like a
caramel color oak which is not the color that we want we needed it to be sort this color the
same as the oak if you just stay there i'll get you an off cut this is an off cut of oak veneer
you can see over here it's mdf in the center but real wood on the top we needed it to be that
color or close to be able to once we'd ordered it for them to have any chance of matching so
when i bought this unit to break down and cut up and plane up this is the color that they were okay
we've only done one side so what i'm going to do is show you the machine going um
skimming a tiny little layer off when you're planing oak or you're planing anything solid
hardwood you really need to take off minimal it's got on the machine how much you can take off so it
does have a little sign here so anything under 150 wide you can take off three millimeters max
um anything between 150 and 240 1.5 mil and anything over 240 you can only take a mill off
this is probably all softwood sizes and when you go oak just don't try and take too much off
so what i'm going to do is i've got that set up i'm going to just take a tiniest amount more off
um drop that down half a mil we haven't got a dust extractor i have bought the extractor
is it worth showing you do you want to see the hood yeah look let me quickly get the hood
come through because this is my whole kit so the machine came in a box like that
and i didn't think it was going to come with and a hood but it did so i ended up buying a spare one
oh where is it now i mean where's the preparation john didn't prepare for this video did i
it's probably buried down there sod it let's just let the offcuts um just flat
at the end we're going off a little bit off track again aren't we that's what i do best
yeah yeah i'm tempted to just go back and show you my collection come on let's have another
look i want to show it you might have seen a picture on instagram have a look at those
quickly go through because i might even make a video we've got a 390 we've got a 390 pro step a
595 a 695 a 390 pro step and a 390 again basically the pro steps are the same as the 390s so these
are all the same but this has got a different shape it's got a frame and you can stand on it
and then you've got one of my favorites it's the smallest but my favorite it's the ultra max the
one that sprays all base paint solvent based so that'll be another video i'm not going to
spoil that for you but i did want to share because i spent probably 100 hours cleaning
paint off those machines in the last couple of weeks so going back to the thickness again
each quarter turn if you have a look up here um is half a millimeter so that'll be half
half half so you can gauge how much so if you want to do increments without looking at the gauge
you just you know for example if you want to just drop it down a quarter of a mil half a mil you've
got that guide on the top and also tells you which way is down so the arrow is showing you this way
it's got 1650 watt motor nice and powerful it doesn't give you any of the with the little dips
that most planers give you right at the end i don't seem to be getting that right at the end
and to be honest i don't even need to really sand this is that smooth i don't know what it'd be like
if it was all knotty um and the grain was a bit gnarly sort of like european oak or something like
that but with this nice i think this is possibly american oak um it planes up really nicely so
let's turn it on it's not that noisy that's what it's going to be like
i don't know if you'd get any better shots how's that in the light
you do any close-ups
it really is a brilliant machine it's one of those machines that is just going to get you
out of trouble for example if i didn't have this thickness up for this particular job
where i had to take all the lacquer off i'd be sanding that with a belt sander
with the belt sander you'd be getting curved edges the board would be completely square
i can also just run it through the machine like so so shall we give you this uh shall
we give you a little demo on that as well how big did i say that was can't remember
one two five
okay that's one two five
and i think you can register it for warranty as well
extra warranty i believe with the makitas so i did that so this is a table saw cut
with a relatively rough blade um i will need to do both edges and get them to the
right size but i've i've got enough on here to show you and demo it like glass again
so as long as you're starting with a square piece of timber obviously if it's not square
you're only going to be planing up to the same shape as what the piece of timber is you'll
need a jointer for that but if it's square it's going to give you lovely crisp faces and edges
it's like a brand new board again we compare it against that piece of furniture showed you earlier
so what it is now um considering like i said these um i was being charged in 250 or something around
that number for five boards you know not only that we're up cycling there's a lot of good points to
reusing this piece of furniture and having a machine like this just up cycling it makes
it possible doesn't it take pieces apart plane them up nice and easily how wide does this do
maybe that is the maximum size because it's got a little lip here on the tray
so it can't veer off yeah 300 i'm guessing is the maximum size and it goes up to 160. um
so nice chunky pieces you know for example you could get a scaffold board in there just put
that straight through as long as the banding's taken off right so dropping this down to 35
so if you know if you've got this machine and you're planing up scaffold boards
you know you've got brand new pine underneath there basically
should we get back to nice new
so there we go
now this piece of timber is a little bit stained but you've gone from there to there and it just
possibilities are endless aren't they where the thickness are
and just for the sake of being portable take it on site you can get 110 versions you get 240 versions
i always stick with makita anyway you know if you've got i know there are some cheaper brands
but if they're 50 60 70 quid cheaper i would say just go that extra mile go makita um let's open
these up and get rid of the dust anything else to say john see you in the next next video yeah
hope you enjoyed it guys i hope it's been some use any questions give us a shout take it easy