Woodworking

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A handmade home for woodworkers and admirers of woodworkers. Our community icon is submitted by @inquanto@lemmy.world, winner of the Christmas 2025 gift contest with a lovely series of hardwood cutting boards.

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captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works

How can I saw a board into thin sheets? (feddit.org)

submitted 1 year ago by alleycat@feddit.org to c/woodworking@lemmy.ca

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For a small musical instrument I need a thin sheet of spruce (1.5mm). Normally I'd just buy a guitar or lute top, but for this one I need the highest quality I can get, with very narrow rings. So my idea is to saw down a blank for a violin top (25mm at its thickest point). I need to do this with as little waste as possible, because a good spruce top can cost 100-300€.

Is there a way I can do this with hand tools?

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

The way that occurs to me to do this is to resaw it on a band saw a bit over-thick and then use a wide belt or wide drum sander to take it to final thickness. In moon landing units you want a veneer that's 1/16" thick. I wouldn't trust a thickness planer to that, it would be so flexible it would just pull it up into the cutter head and grind it like a wood chipper. My thickness planer doesn't even go thinner than 1/8" (~3mm).

With hand tools...Maybe make a jig that guides a frame saw - something like a giant miter box, and then I think you'd double-sided tape it to your workbench and go at it with a smoothing plane