I Need A Planer.

[Blackdog]

I do not have ANY planer at the moment. I need some to plane a body blank, to plane a fingerboard or neck FB surfaces.

I have been checking prices and I don't quite understand:

A pretty decent electric planer goes for about eur150, while that kind of money isn't even in the ballpark of the price of a good hand planer.

What am I missing here ?? There seems to be something mystical about hand planers...

What can you do with the hand tool that you cannot with do the power tool ?? Waat is each one good for, then ??

Can someone please enlighten a newbie ??

TIA

[brewu22]

I do not have ANY planer at the moment. I need some to plane a body blank, to plane a fingerboard or neck FB surfaces.

I have been checking prices and I don't quite understand:

A pretty decent electric planer goes for about eur150, while that kind of money isn't even in the ballpark of the price of a good hand planer.

What am I missing here ?? There seems to be something mystical about hand planers...

What can you do with the hand tool that you cannot with do the power tool ?? Waat is each one good for, then ??

Can someone please enlighten a newbie ??

TIA

Not sure where you are getting your pricing from, can you give us some links to what you are talking about.

[ray]

an electric hand plane will not give you a flat surface - all it will do is roughly dress the boards - it will leave tiny ridges right across the board. Ok for house framing and rough carpentry. A good handplane will do a quality job but takes lot of skill to use. It needs to be well sharpened with the correct bevel and radiused ends if appropriate. It won't be ready out of the box unless you buy a high end neilson or veritas. Once you have your plane sharpened you will need to learn how to to make a flat level surface on a piece of timber with it. half the battle is in the blade preparation. there are many types to choose from but I would recomend an old stanley or record #4 or #41/2 smoother, which can be had off ebay for under $40.00 any day of the week or in your local junk shop.

For guitar work a router sled or a 8" jointing machine is the way to go. The sled can be built cheaply and used with any decent hand held router while the 8" jointer will cost 6 times more.

[Blackdog]

an electric hand plane will not give you a flat surface - all it will do is roughly dress the boards - it will leave tiny ridges right across the board. Ok for house framing and rough carpentry. A good handplane will do a quality job but takes lot of skill to use. It needs to be well sharpened with the correct bevel and radiused ends if appropriate. It won't be ready out of the box unless you buy a high end neilson or veritas. Once you have your plane sharpened you will need to learn how to to make a flat level surface on a piece of timber with it. half the battle is in the blade preparation. there are many types to choose from but I would recomend an old stanley or record #4 or #41/2 smoother, which can be had off ebay for under $40.00 any day of the week or in your local junk shop.

For guitar work a router sled or a 8" jointing machine is the way to go. The sled can be built cheaply and used with any decent hand held router while the 8" jointer will cost 6 times more.

Thanks for the replies,

I bought a Stanley #5 and a smaller one. I'm still learning but already starting to find my way around them.

I don't know what you mean by "router sled" instead of a jointer, etc. Can you please clarify this a little more (or point me to the right tutorial...) Thanks !!

With repect to the prices I was referring to some Lie Nielsen (and some others) handplanes, that are well above 300 euros around here...

Thanks again.

[Rick500]

A sled for a router is just a flat piece (of wood, aluminum, whatever...as long as it's dead flat and will not flex--can be a slab or a couple of rails) attached to the router base. It in turn rides on two flat rails on opposite sides of a workpiece, so that the bit can be run over the entire surface of the workpiece to make a flat surface.

You can make the rails and sled out of pieces of hardwood very inexpensively.

[Mattia]

Well, you've seen my planes at work; it's mostly about a good setup and a SHARP blade (Google ScarySharp for details). If you want the address for that second-hand/used old tools salesman I can send it to you.

I still use my router for some thicknessing jobs, for example headplates and fingerboards; two 'rails' taller than the piece to thickness (scraps of MDF are good, remain flat, even thickness), and if necessary a wider base for the router. This allows you to set the bit to a specific height. There's a pinned tutorial about a router planer jig somewhere here, either under tools and jigs, maybe references, that has pictures. Handplanes are faster for most levelling work, though, if you can get it set up and working correctly. Also leave a lovely smooth gluing suface (admittedly not an issue if you're using epoxy, but otherwise important).

[ray]

here is a simple router sled

[Blackdog]

here is a simple router sled

Thanks for the info.

A picture is worth a thousand words !! Now I get the picture.