Acoustic Guitar Construction

I'll take the glove off.

On setting up one of these contraptions - just how exactly perpendicular to the planer must the drill press table be? I cannot get mine to take off even .10" on soft wood. It's sharp, the blades are going the right direction.
If I push the wood cross-grain into the blades, I get somewhat better results. Push all the way to the fence though, and it dogs down the press....so I've spent a half a day leveling the table to the planer as close as I can get it, and still no joy.

Any ideas? I'm may have done something stupid, so you won't hurt my feelings if you point something out. :-)
Thanks

A tenth of an inch is deep for this tool. I am not sure how much I take off at a time but it is less than that. I know people talk about an eight. How big of a drill press do you have? I was wondering about the getting bogged down.

Shopfox table top, top speed 3100 rpm. Not a lot of power but should be sufficient for this.

Just burns the wood, does not cut it.

I was under the (mis) conception that 1/8" in hardwood would be easy; but as I said, if I bring the table up to the blade so the blade is just kissing the wood and the wood goes through unchanged, then put a .1" piece of paper under the wood, it is too much.

I'll re-check the belt tension on the press tomorrow, maybe there is something there..

Dave Bagwill wrote:On setting up one of these contraptions - just how exactly perpendicular to the planer must the drill press table be? I cannot get mine to take off even .10" on soft wood. It's sharp, the blades are going the right direction.
If I push the wood cross-grain into the blades, I get somewhat better results. Push all the way to the fence though, and it dogs down the press....so I've spent a half a day leveling the table to the planer as close as I can get it, and still no joy.

Any ideas? I'm may have done something stupid, so you won't hurt my feelings if you point something out. :-)
Thanks

I place a piece of sandpaper under the table so that the left side of the table is higher than the right side. I don't take off more than a 1/16" at a time.

Dave,
Robbie O'brien shows in his little u tube video to do like Tim just said and I've done the same thing. You want to raise your surface just a little bit on the feed side of the planer, so that as it touches the material, it is only the leading edge of the cutters that make contact. We are talking about a .005 to maybe at the most .010" shim, like a piece of sandpaper. If you clamp a board with a fence to your drill press table to work on, it is a simple thing to shim that left side up. I think you will find that then you can cut pretty easily, but keep it small as the others have said. I've done the back of headstocks and neck shafts this way.

Kevin

I will do the shim thing! I just spent another hour out in the shop trying to make the thing workable, but it does dog down when the entire surface of the tool is on the wood - thus the shim, which I had not thought of, should take the burden off the press.
I'll keep you posted.