It was somewhere outside Barstow when Paul Mc Cann
wrote:

Now you're just being silly.

I just don't see how you can argue with this thing (Heath Robinson
lashup though it might be) being a drum sander.

Incidentally, if he is hitting nails etc with his floor sander in his
quest to save damage to the blades on his thicknesser,

It's not the proud nails that are the problem - you can see those
beforehand and punch them through. It's the ones that snapped off at
the surface that you don't notice.

I'm intrigued to know how he feeds this contraption and what, if any,
accuracy he gets with the thicknessing.

Pushing from the end. Don't let go, or it _will_ fire the board back
outwards. I never claimed it was safe !

And lastly I would imagine most church pews would have a quite good
finish on them

Except for the ends, or any supporting bracketry. It's not _just_
pews either. The main reasons for thicknessing pews are to get the
finish off, and to bring them to a consistent thickness. In the same
workshop they also build furniture out of some of them.