On 19 Feb 2006 08:22:38 -0800, wrote:

For anyone looking for a full-on planer-thicknesser I bought the
scheppach hms260 about a year ago (after umming and ahhing about a
dewalt and electra-beckum instead) - and found it ideal

Only Scheppach stuff I've used in the last 10 years struck me as awfully
tinny. Bit too likely to bend it like an Elektra-Beckum.

(though 300mm width would be useful now and again, the price stepis significant).

I don't have a combi machine, I use a separate thicknesser and jointer
for just this reason (Axmonster CT330 and CT150). Almost all my
thicknessing is 13" boards, which the Axminster handles and a DeWalt 733
won't. They're coming off a bandsaw with an operator who believes in
"baker's dozens" on width. A 10" wide combi would be a _very_ big
limitation on what I do and what I do it out of.


How do people cope with thicknesser only?

Very well indeed.

Surely the moment you encounter some bowed boards you're stuck with an irregularity only a
surface planer can remove?

Nope - you knock the high spots off with a scrub or a (spit) electric
planer, then you stuff them through the thicknesser. Do the convex side
first until it's a wide enough flat to be stable, then work each side in
turn. Takes a bit of a knack to do it well or quickly, but it certainly
works and it saves buying a 12" wide planer that would probably require
3 phase.

The one thing you can't cope with is a twisted board - but then decent
timber doesn't twist and so you're probably trying to save soemthing
that's better housed on the firewood pile.