How to make a thickness gauge from an electric planer. Do-it-yourself thicknessing gauge from an electric planer

Another device that is available in the workshop of Alexei Kuznetsov. These are additions to a conventional electric planer that turn it into a machine tool.

The first addition is a jointer for planing the edges of boards. This is an addition to the above. A stand is attached to the workbench on the side with a pair of bolts, on which the emphasis for the planer is also fixed with a bolt. Closer to us on the frame there is an adjusting screw that allows you to adjust the tilt of the planer sole vertically.

The handle of the tool is put on this stop and fixed from above with a clamp. In this case, the handle itself rests on the adjustment bolt. By twisting it, we tilt the sole towards the table, twisting it - vice versa.

Another photo from a different angle.

But in the course of operation, shortcomings were identified. The cut walks and long workpieces cannot be processed smoothly. Therefore, the mount will be redone (Alexey promised to throw off the results).

The second extension was the thickness gauge (device for planing shields of calibrated thickness). In this way, you can process a shield of any length and width. The guide rails are fixed to the table with clamps, thereby setting the width of the surface being processed. If the shield is longer than the stroke of the carriage, it's okay. First, as much travel is processed along the length, then the shield simply moves forward, the shield is fixed and further processed.

Thickness adjustment is made using calibrated strips 1, 2, 5 mm, which are placed between the planer mount and the carriage or directly under the shield, depending on the thickness of the shield.

In principle, the design is clear from the photo: there are two even bars - guides along which the carriage rolls back and forth.

The carriage itself, in turn, also consists of a pair of parallel guides on which the cradle moves in the transverse direction (I will call it that) with a plane fixed in it.

It is not for nothing that the thickness gauge is considered one of the most commonly used tools in the woodworking industry. With it, you can perform large amounts of work quickly and, most importantly, efficiently. It is quite possible to make the product with your own hands at home from an electric planer. The main thing is to know certain subtleties and follow the technology of the process. More on this.

Planer thicknesser: design features, application

Planer - exclusively important tool for any carpentry workshop. A high-quality copy makes it possible to work with lumber quickly, efficiently, with a minimum amount of wood waste.

The result of working with a thicknesser is a perfectly smooth, even lumber, suitable for the manufacture of various wooden jewelry interior and furniture items. This high-quality thickness gauge consists of the following structural elements:

Desktop.
Working shaft (in some cases - two). The thickness gauge, equipped with one shaft, is designed to process a wooden workpiece from one side only. With a twin-shaft, you can process the floor ready product from two sides.
Pressure rollers that serve to fix and pull the workpiece into the processing zone. Usually the thicknesser is equipped with either two rollers in the upper part, or has one roller each at the top and bottom.
Regulating system.
Workpiece backstop protection system.

The thickening machine is very relevant for large-scale construction, since it can be used to quickly and easily process a large number of wood blanks various sizes. In addition, it will be possible to control the depth of the cut, and make perfectly clear lines on almost any surface with a minimum of errors.

Advice. Before working on the thicknesser, it is necessary to pre-process the wood blank on a planer. To work with polymers, plastics or insulation, only a product with feed rollers covered with a layer of rubber is suitable.

Making a thickness gauge with your own hands

To make a thickness gauge from an electric planer, a simple set of tools and materials is enough:

old electric planer;
equipment drawings;
bars and plywood (for the body of the product);
clamps;
hairpins;
pads, etc.

Attention! It is very important to clearly understand for which workpieces a surface thicknesser will be used in the future, since, based on their size, a product is manufactured with certain dimensions (this includes the width of the body, the length of the guides, the width of the stud, etc.).

The process of creating a thickness gauge looks schematically as follows (before starting work, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with detailed photo and video materials):

Plane plan

The first step is to make the base for the desktop. For this, ordinary plywood is used (its approximate dimensions- 40x50 cm).
Stands are also made from plywood. Then you need to fix them for the platform with the electric planer.
Assemble the structure with screws and attach it to the thickness gauge base.
Cut out a platform for installing an electric planer and fix it on it. Do not forget to make a special hole in the center of the platform, which should ideally match the dimensions of the planer.
Fix the threaded screws with gears on the finished platform. For these purposes, planks on screws are suitable.
At the corners of the thicknesser base, install screws that will serve as fasteners for the mechanism that moves the platform up and down.
Install the thicknesser platform on special stands, and then fix it together with the electric planer.
Lay electrical wiring. It is important to take into account the possibility of damage to it and take all measures to prevent such situations.
One of the last stages is the installation of a handle that controls the thickness gauge platform from an electric planer.
Set up a gauge bar and pointer to get accurate measurements of your workpieces.

After the assembly is completed, you can proceed to a preliminary check of the performance of the finished product: the planer should work without failures, and the workpiece after processing should not have bevels and other defects.

When creating a thickness gauge from an electric planer at home, you need to have an idea of some of the subtleties in order for the result of the effort and time spent to be worthwhile:

In the manufacture of the fixing roller, it must be positioned correctly: it must not be set too low, otherwise transverse dents may form on the workpieces being processed.
Make sure that the tool table is perfectly level. If there are distortions, the finished product will not have a smooth, even surface.
Make sure that the back thickness pad is correctly positioned: it should not put too much pressure on the workpiece. In this case, the feed force will decrease, while the knives will work. As a result, grooves may form on the machined surface.
It is also worth paying attention to the cap product. If it is installed incorrectly, chips will fall on the lower roller during operation, and dents will certainly form.

That's all the nuances that you should know in order to create a high-quality and durable thickness gauge from an electric planer at home. Good luck!

Do-it-yourself thicknesser: video

Few people in childhood left indifferent the first visit to the 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 thicknessing machine, magical transformation several clumsy boards with a scratchy surface from protruding fibers into an elegant stool.

The result of the work of the thicknesser was perfectly even lumber, which was suitable for the manufacture of many such interesting and beautiful things.

The design and types of thicknessing machines

Of course, the thicknessing machine 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 planer drum, was almost always available. And then a simple device that allows you to control the uniformity of pressing the workpiece to the surface of the desktop, brought the planer closer in its functionality to the planer, which in skilled hands provided almost the same result, although somewhat more expensive both in work and in time.

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

But what is a real gage equipped with?

Thicknessing machine 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;
rolls for clamping and pulling the workpiece (a pair from above or two - from above and below), with electric or manual drive;
table height adjustment system;
backstop protection system.

In the option of finalizing the planer, some of the listed systems are missing. But also, dual-purpose machines are industrially produced - planer-thickness planers.

In them, under the working table for jointing, there is a height-adjustable working table of the thicknesser. The processing of the workpiece is carried out by the same drum with knives as jointing. In this case, only the upper part of it is processed. During the operation of the machine as a thickness gauge, top part the machine is closed with a protective overlay, in order to avoid injury.

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

Schematic diagram of the operation of the thicknessing machine

Why make a thicknessing machine with your own hands?

The scheme of work for most home craftsmen should be clear even without visualization, but for ease of understanding the tasks of self-manufacturing a thickness gauge, it will not be superfluous.

Motivation for self-manufacturing any equipment - two:

desire for self-realization;
desire for savings.

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

first of all - money due to the abolition of auxiliary functions, without which it is quite possible to do without in a home workshop;
in the second - electricity by reducing the number of electric drives;
in the third - a place in the workshop due to optimization and sizing.

If we talk about a full-fledged thicknessing machine, then, based on the three-dimensional drawing 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 for a two-knife drum rotating at a speed of 5 - 10 thousand rpm;
manual chain adjustment of the level of the desktop;
manual chain coupled feed of the workpiece with two lingering pressure rollers.

But you yourself accept the concept of your thickness gauge. Consider 3 approaches to implementing the idea of self-manufacturing a thicknessing machine.

High-tech method of manufacturing a thicknessing machine

There are 3 independent electric drives, which are:

drive the cutting drum,
are pinch rollers,
adjust the position of the desktop.

Torque is transmitted to the drum by means of a V-belt transmission, and in the remaining two versions - by a chain. Moreover, the uniformity of the pressing of the rollers is regulated by interconnected spring-loaded intermediate sprockets, although in our opinion, such a system will still not allow to avoid some temporary weakening of the chain at the moment the workpiece leaves the feed roller.

The tension of the drive chain for adjusting the height of the desktop is carried out by two rigidly fixed sprockets.

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

Such a machine will not turn out to be cheap, and an abundance of fairly complex nodes will require constant Maintenance. But, apparently, this is exactly the case when it was precisely the desire for self-realization that came to the fore, because for the same money it would be quite possible to find a used thicknessing machine and, having slightly repaired it, provide a solution to the same problems.

Do-it-yourself thicknessing machine from an electric planer

It is this approach to solving most tasks for the thickness gauge that arise in the conditions of a home workshop that seems to us the most interesting.

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

By installing an electric planer on a platform with a variable height, we get almost the same thickness gauge. True, it regulates not the position of the desktop, but the position of the working tool in relation to the workpiece being processed, but the essence of the process does not change from this. The role of the table here is performed by a flat powerful board with width limiters on the sides. They also serve as a place of attachment of the main node. But first, let's talk about him.

On the planer, we will change the back support plate to a home-made one made of OSB or plywood, with a thickness that provides the same level with the front plate, which regulates the necessary clearance (1 - 3 mm) for chip removal. Its width should correspond to the width of our impromptu desktop.

On the sides of this plate, rails are screwed for attaching the legs, the height of which is dictated solely by common sense. Obviously, based on standard width planer knives of 82 mm, the thickness of the workpieces to be processed should not be more than 100 mm, so the distance between the axes of the leg mounts can be taken equal to 110 - 120 mm. Accordingly, their total length will vary 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.

The installation of the assembled movable upper assembly with an electric planer on the desktop is carried out in place, so that the fastening is strictly on the same level. This is done to parallelize its movement relative to base surface, which will ensure the accuracy of the workpiece processing.

The height in the process of work is most easily set by selecting rails of the appropriate thickness, screwed onto the width limiters of the desktop, or using other supports.

And the clamping of the working tool should be provided with spring ties or a tourniquet, 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 the application of a thickness gauge assembled by one's own hands:

Budget version of a homemade surface gauge

This is the simplest method of using an electric planer as a thicknesser. Of course, it is unlikely that anyone would think of calling this design a thicknessing machine, but in terms of the function it performs, this is exactly it.

We deliberately chose the option for wide blanks. Indeed, in this form, he performs work that is beyond the power of most industrial thicknessing machines 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 barbarous fastening of an electric planer - a rather expensive tool - to a movable platform. Where more interesting option fixing it, described in previous section article, but using a wider platform and the removal of the rails in width, and not along the axis of the tool. In this case, the risk of damaging something important inside the planer body is reduced to zero.

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

Height adjustment is carried out by installing calibrated bars on the sides of the working table, two sets of which will allow you to process an unlimited number of workpieces on both sides in the size specified in thickness.

Before proceeding with the consideration of making a thickness gauge with our own hands, let's find out what it is and what it is for.

raismus

They call a woodworking machine, which, with minimal loss of material, plans a beam to a given thickness.
It is important to distinguish a planer from a planer, since the workpiece must be planered before planing.

Planer removes uneven wood and makes the surface even, and the thicknessing machine is designed for finishing and is used to obtain exact dimensions timber or boards.
In this regard, it is necessary to understand for yourself that you will drive a deliberately prepared timber through a thicknessing machine to obtain the appropriate dimensions, and not a piece of wood without any preliminary processing.

Consider the device of a do-it-yourself thickness gauge.

- The most important thing is an electric planer, the choice of which must be approached with all seriousness, depending on the tasks set.
- Some ordinary plywood, the thickness of which depends on the design you choose.
- A handful of self-tapping screws for fastening to the base assembled from a board 60x200x1000
- And two rails as guides.

The simplest design that can be assembled in 30-40 minutes right now.
An example of how to make a thickness gauge from a planer and improvised means is shown in the photo.

Fast, simple and affordable. If you are not looking for great accuracy, then this option, which is quite suitable for you.

This video explains in detail how to do it.

Since the number of parts for the manufacture of a thickness gauge is not so much and they do not differ in some intricate shape, it makes no sense to make drawings. While you are drawing them, a neighbor, after watching this video, will already assemble a thickness gauge.

Another example of how you can assemble a thickness gauge from an electric planer with your own hands.

True, in this case, you will have to spend much more time on manufacturing and will require you to have a jigsaw, 10 mm thick plywood, M10x1.5 studs for making an adjusting screw, self-tapping screws and patience.

But the detail at the output will be more accurate, it is easier to adjust the equipment to the desired size, it is more pleasant to work, however, a wide board can no longer be processed.

In any case, it's up to you, it all depends on what you need for this moment. And one more example, which is not difficult to make. True, the maximum possible dimensions of the workpiece on this machine are limited to a height of 100 mm, a width of 110 mm.

And one more option. Which one to choose is a matter of taste and depends on availability suitable materials, time and desire.

If, nevertheless, none of the options I suggested fit you, you need large volumes of wood processing, or you just don’t want to do it yourself, think about purchasing a stationary thicknessing machine.

They sent a link to a video with a homemade thicknesser, I could not resist, I posted it on the site. Enough simple design and very practical. There is a nuance in the precise manufacture of frames, but if you try, you can do everything accurately and beautifully. Also, this thicknesser can be easily turned into milling machine, which is important in our crisis time. See, try, do!

For processing wooden products can use a special thickness gauge from an electric planer made independently and designed for finishing wood blanks. To make a thickness gauge with your own hands, you can use an electric planer, which was used for work enough long time, but retained all its performance characteristics.

The design of the thicknessing machine

The composition of the thicknessing machine includes:

working horizontal table for processing wooden products;
working processing shaft;
pressure rollers for feeding the workpiece into the processing zone;
table height adjustment system;
safety device that prevents the workpiece from returning.

Thicknessing machines are manufactured at industrial enterprises and are used in production, where finishing of the surface of wooden blanks is required.

The use of a thickness gauge significantly reduces the processing time of workpieces, but with a sufficiently high sale price of the machine and performing one-time operations, it is better to make the unit yourself with your own hands. Using an electric planer that has been used sufficiently long time it is possible to make a thicknessing machine, on which it is possible to process various products with enough high quality and accuracy.

In order to make a thickness gauge from an electric planer with your own hands, you need the following units and components:

electric planer;
wooden bars;
plywood 10-15 mm;
clamps;
barbell;
hairpins;
pads.

The principle of operation of the machine is to carry out the operation of processing a wooden workpiece, fixed with clamps and fed into the zone of the working shaft of the planer.

Machine manufacturing

For the manufacture of a thicknessing machine, several operations are carried out in the course of which work is performed:

The base for the desktop is made of plywood (10-15 mm), 400x500 mm in size.
The stands for the platform with the electric planer are being fixed. Plywood is used to make stands. The assembly of the structure is carried out using screws with fixation to the base, followed by the installation of an electric planer.
A platform for mounting an electric planer is cut out. A planer is attached to the platform, taking into account a special hole cut exactly in the center, coinciding with the size of the planer. For fastening, special strips are used, which are fixed with screws.
Threaded screws with gears are mounted on the platform. A special mechanism is installed to raise and lower the platform. 4 screws are mounted at the corners of the base.
The platform is mounted on ready-made stands and, together with the electric planer, is fastened with screws. Electrical wiring is laid to power the planer, taking into account the possibility of preventing damage to the wiring when processing workpieces.
The platform control handle with an electric planer is being installed.
A bar with a scale and a special pointer are installed. The measuring bar is necessary for accurate measurement workpieces and compliance with specified dimensions.

After the assembly of the thicknessing machine is completed, a check and adjustment is carried out. After work, the electric planer must necessarily undergo cleaning and lubrication of working parts.

Features of the manufacture of surface gage

Initially, before the manufacture of the thickness gauge, a drawing of the machine is made indicating the exact dimensions of all parts.

The dimensions of the structural elements of the machine are precisely set, which must be done, observing:

guide width;
guide length;
pin length,

determining the dimensions of the processed workpieces.

The installation of the pin is marked, which should be located between the two handles exactly in the middle, which ensures the convenience of working on the machine. To shift the stud, a bearing is mounted in the upper part of the housing cover, and a nut is welded to the plate to adjust the height of the workpiece processing.

It must also be taken into account that the length of the guides made of bars should be greater than the base. Due to this, a parallel flow of the workpiece during processing relative to the knives of the electric planer is ensured.