wood planer

Will @ Trilogy

Will @ Trilogy

Joined
May 22, 2022
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Location
Broomfield, Colorado
I'm wondering if anyone has used the Proxxon mf 80 wood planer?
I presently rip using my band saw to get the general size and then use a Brynes sander for the finished dimension. This has worked but is very time consuming, creates tremendous dust, and is hard on the sanding media. So a planer that would allow me to make sheets that then could be but into .8mm or thicker strips would be ideal.
 
Will, are you sure there is such a model planner made by Proxxon? There are AH80 PROXXON 27044 planer.

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Is this the one you are looking review?
 
The tool pictured is a jointer (American English usage) not a planer. It is used to true up one surface. While it can be used to reduce thickness of plank, it is easy to wind up with a planed surface that is no longer parallel.

A planer is a different machine used to reduce the thickness of a plank. It runs the plank through a closed housing. Rubber coated rollers while bkeep it pressed against a flat platen while being milled to ensure parallel surfaces. Small (12 in wide) portable planers are available today from well known power tool manufacturers. Mine is a DeWalt.

I have a 4” Delta jointer bought new in the late 1970’s. It is a wonderful machine built like a tank from machined cast iron. New blades are available from companies specializing in jointer and planer blades. If I were buying a small jointer today, I would try to find a used Delta like I have.

Roger
 
Will @ Trilogy said:
I presently rip using my band saw to get the general size and then use a Brynes sander for the finished dimension. This has worked but is very time consuming, creates tremendous dust, and is hard on the sanding media. So a planer that would allow me to make sheets that then could be but into .8mm or thicker strips would be ideal.
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Perhaps I misunderstand your description, but it appears to me that you are "doing it the hard way." Am I correct that you are resawing on a band saw and then thickness-sanding the re-sawn pieces into .8mm or thicker strips from the flat .8mm thick sheet? If so, you might consider resawing a flat plank with a thickness of the width of the strips you wish obtain, and simply saw off strips of the thickness you desire. With a thin-kerfed slotting saw blade, as on the Byrnes saw, sawing your strips off the edge of a plank rather than off the face of a thickness-sanded sheet should be a lot faster and produce a lot less sawdust.

I have a 14" wide free-standing Rockwell/Delta thickness planer which is rather larger and more powerful than the "bench-top" or "lunch box" thickness planers that are popular these days, so I may not be the best authority on the subject, but if my experience with my 14" thickness planer is any indication, I think that obtaining a thin sheet out of a planer at the sizes and tolerances customary in ship modeling is probably expecting too much of planers designed to mill softwoods to much greater thicknesses. At best, success in working with smaller pieces of wood might be had by attaching the piece to a much larger plank with two-sided tape in order to obtain an even feed through the planer.
 
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Bob Cleek said:
With a thin-kerfed slotting saw blade, as on the Byrnes saw, sawing your strips off the edge of a plank rather than off the face of a thickness-sanded sheet should be a lot faster and produce a lot less sawdust.
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But after that you still have to put your .8 mm strips through the thickness sander. Table saw blades will not leave good surface finish. Also you will have to saw off some strips a bit thicker than desired.8 mm to allow for thickness sanding.
 
I reread my post and I misspoke about what I was doing. Yes I use Byrnes to make planking strips but still use the Brynes sander to smooth and get perfectly even thickness. All said a planer would make it faster, quicker, and easier on my life I think.
I've lusted over the Proxxon DH40 but it comes in 220V and I have 110V. I keep hoping the make a 110V.
 
YT, I have a homemade 4" "table"saw that I use for cutting planks. The planks that come out of it are actually smoother and flatter than if I run them thought the thickness sander. I credit the saw blade more than the saw. I cut big stuff into roughly1/4" thick boards with my big crummy table saw, run those through my thickness sander to get the 1/4" right ( you may not have to do this if your big saw cut well) and then cut the final planks off the edge of the boards with the homemade saw. They come out smooth as a baby's bum.
 
I bought three Thurston 3" 80 tooth(I think) slitting blades about 10 years ago and they still cut great. $6 each. To bad they aren't in business any more. I have found that that brown stain that builds up on the blades will affect the cutting. It's easily removed with Easy Off oven cleaner.
 
I have no experience with the Proxxon planer so the following may not apply.

Every planer that I have used including the one that I currently own make two things in addition to what they are supposed to- huge amounts of noise, and sawdust and shavings. I can quickly fill a large wheelbarrow. Because of this, my planer is on casters and I wheel it outdoors. To do its job requires a lot of torque at high speed. Torque x rpm= power = noise.

The Proxxon planer therefore seems like a contradiction. Either it’s a noisy dirty machine like other planers or it’s so low powered to be ineffective. If your domestic situation is such that you can tolerate a planer and you live where they are available, one of the 10-12in portable planers would be a better choice.

Roger
 
Specialty woodworking sellers now offer accessories that allow full sized table saws to be much more useful for model making applications:

Blades- The Byrnes Saw uses high tooth count blades without SET to produce smooth cuts. Hollow ground, high tooth count blades are available for full sized saws.

Zero Clearance Inserts- Cast resin blank (without blade slot) inserts to fit common make saws are also available. These can be easily cut to match the blade.

Thin Rip Guide- This allows thin strips to be “sliced off” away from the blade (the NRG now sells one for the Byrnes Saw).

Roger
 
Y.T. said:
But after that you still have to put your .8 mm strips through the thickness sander. Table saw blades will not leave good surface finish. Also you will have to saw off some strips a bit thicker than desired.8 mm to allow for thickness sanding.
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Au contraire, mon ami! :) This is an instance where the proper tool is required to obtain the proper result. An accurate modeling table saw should produce strips no different than sold by the modeling wood suppliers "right off the blade" without any thickness sanding. The use of a properly sized sharp saw blade of the correct design should leave a perfect surface finish. The Byrnes table saw will consistently yield measured cuts accurate to tolerances up to a thousandth of an inch and perfectly finished without any requirement for further processing the offcut.

This capability is in large measure what justifies the expense of a dedicated modeling micro-saw such as the Byrnes model. A narrow-kerfed slotting saw blade that can produce strip wood without further thickness sanding required results in a major savings over milling expensive wood stock when the sawdust waste is half or more the volume of the milled wood yield, not to mention the savings in labor. (See: http://byrnesmodelmachines.com/pdf/sisreviewmay2008.pdf Note that the PDF pages are out of sequence.)
 
Y.T. said:
Does this mean teeth are not bended a bit of left and on right?
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Yes. Using a blade without set to cut wood requires attention being paid to the proper setting of the blade height to best accommodate clearing sawdust from the gullets for best results.

Y.T. said:
Can you explain how this works of better provide picture or a link to it?
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See: https://thenrgstore.org/collections/guild-products/products/thin-strip-saw-jig

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See also: https://cdn.wildapricot.com/278718/...pv--zA-lVojS-ErA__&Key-Pair-Id=K27MGQSHTHAGGF
 
Bob Cleek said:
Au contraire, mon ami! :)
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You speak as Hercule Poirot - world best detective. This is one of my favorite series.

Byrnes saw is no longer available. You know. I have other type of small table saw. It is good enough to keep the cutting workpiece firm and parallel to the edge. I am sure that mostly it is not the saw manufacturer that ensures a good cut of the workpiece on table saw but how sharp the blade you use is.
Bob Cleek said:
See: https://thenrgstore.org/collections/guild-products/products/thin-strip-saw-jig
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This contraption I long time as made up myself and using it all the time. Actually I have two (2). One is made up and one purchased. I use them at the front and rear part of the blade.
 
Using one of these guides BEHIND the blade would seem to defeat the purpose. The idea of the guide is to exert pressure on the wood being cut as it enters the blade. It then floats free behind the blade. This is unlike the usual method for ripping where the strip being cut is pinched between the blade and fence. By placing a guide behind the fence it is still pinched against the blade after being cut.

Table saws are simple machines and there is no reason why a saw other than a Byrnes cannot be “tuned up” to produce acceptable results. The main problems are usually a lack of power and the fence. A flimsy fence that cannot be adjusted parallel to the blade will not produce precision work.

Roger
 
Roger Pellett said:
Using one of these guides BEHIND the blade would seem to defeat the purpose. The idea of the guide is to exert pressure on the wood being cut as it enters the blade. It then floats free behind the blade. This is unlike the usual method for ripping where the strip being cut is pinched between the blade and fence. By placing a guide behind the fence it is still pinched against the blade after being cut.
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As indicated in the instructions for use, this type of guide (which is easily made for any table saw) only serves as a "width measuring stop" for setting the fence, which is why it's set in front of the blade. Once the sheet of wood is butted against the "width gauge" and the fence is set, the workpiece is held against the fence, not the gauge. This sort of gauge is only useful when one is using a fence that easily adjusts while remaining perfectly parallel to the blade. (The Byrnes saw fence is angled at 5 degrees from the arbor to the back of the table to prevent binding and kickback.)
 
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