Dave's Wood Working Site

Delta Thickness Planers

Delta 13'' 2 - Speed Planer Doubly good! The dimensioning speed (60 CPI) gives you the desired thickness. The Finishing Speed (90 CPI) gives you a smooth final finish. Patented cutter head lock virtually eliminates snipe. 2 doub.. Delta Thickness Planers

Whether you are working with rought sawn or finished lumber you will need a jointer and a thickness planer to make all four sides square to one another.

The jointer consists of an infeed and outfeed tables with a cutter head with cutting knives mounted in between. The depth of the desired cutting pass is set by lowering the infead table. Generaly 1/16" to 3/32" of wood is removed with each pass. This means that the infeed table is lowered by this depth.

Thickness planers are really a companion tool with the jointer. It takes both to make a board 4 sides square. Once once you have an edge and a face square to each other the thickness planer makes the second face of the board parallel to the first while it planes to the desired thickness.

It is quite difficult (but not impossible) to do this on a jointer alone. Most people simply don't have the skill to mill a board so it is square on four sides without using a thickness planer and jointer.