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I'm not into laminated and backed bows in a big way, but decent Yew is scarce so its good to make the best use of the available wood. That means using billets and backing bows sometimes, this is fairly arduous, so I hit on the idea of using an old power plane I have to make a thicknesser.
The plane was bought years ago on special offer from one of those German supermarket chains (Aldi I think) but you can get 'em for about £25 anyway. I've only ever used it a couple of times (it's a 900watt one).
I scoured the internet taking ideas from various DIY bow lamination sanders etc.
When I took it apart I noticed the fixing holes for the sole plate were asymmetric and there was enough room to drill 4 holes and screw a couple of 15mm plywood side cheeks onto it and then to re-fit it. That allows a 2" width to pass through which is plenty for most types of bow.
That's basically the crux of the whole thing. It's then a matter of mounting it onto a base and making an adjustable platform to raise or lower the work-piece.
I've tried it and it works, it needs some fiddling and fettling to improve it, but as with most things its a trade of between simplicity, versatility, complexity, reliability, cost etc. I'll play with it and let it evolve. Ideally the platform should raise and lower parallel to the sole, maybe I'll look at that.
The pic above shows the adjuster, it's taken from a bolt and captive nut that was holding the feet onto our old sofa . The adjustable platform was a rail from the sofa too. Gotta recycle stuff.
Below is the hinge at the back end of the platform, it's just clamped to the base so that spacers can be added to accommodate different thicknesses etc.
The big pain is the interlock on the power switch trigger which means you only have one free hand to manoeuvre the wood. I'll rewire that to a nice big accessible switch.
The big reason for doing all this is that I'll be able to machine tapers on billets. How it's done is:-
You make up a tapered sled that the billet rests on and then the pair of 'em go through the thicknesser.
It's easy to make up a sled to any taper you want.
Say I want 1.5mm every 6", I get two bits of 2"x 1" 36" long with a 9mm spacer between them at one end and no spacer at the other. Glue and screw 'em together and the job is done. Could even make an adjustable sled.
Anyhow that's the principal, it needs some more work yet, but it could be a V useful low cost addition to the workshop.
Gotta sort out an adaptor so my dust extractor will suck up the chips.
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Re: Del's DIY Bow Making Thicknesser
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