bow builders tool question

[madness522]

I am looking to buy one of two tools for grinding lams.  One is a planner and the other is a drum sander.  I have about $600 to spend on this tool and wondered what your thoughts were.  

Which one would buy and why?

Thanks....Barry

[onemississipp]

I say build a thickness sander and buy a planner!
Get them both.

I'm getting things together now to start building my thickness sander.

Check here

 http://www.roberto-venn.com/Thickness%20sander.htm

[Crooked Stic]

I have used a home built thikness sander and have found it is hard to get a constant feed speed to get the results I was looking for. Plus the fact if the piece gets away from you it could be dangerous. If you have a bandsaw or tablesaw you can get by fine with a thickness sander that has a good feed system on it.

[Holm-Made]

Can't do thin lams with a planer.  I have a thickness drum sander by performax.  It is around 700.00 plus shipping I think.  Works okay for a hobbiest.  Chad

[Bowjunkie]

I've made a bunch of bows and never used a planer for any of them. I have to make my tool selections carefully because of limited space. I just ordered thickness sander a week or so ago, and it should be here any day. I'm anxious....

[Shaun]

I picked up a thickness sander on the auction site. Don't think you will need a planer for laminate bows.

[ChuckC]

Dustin... nice  do you have a dust collector system inetgral to that sander ?  You can probably cobble up something that works very well quite easily.  

I also built one, from a design I saw on the internet.  Takes  bit of tweaking to get to know your system but it works quite well.

I do not believe you can get laminations anywhere near as fine using a table or band saw as you can with a decent thickness sander.

Planers are great, but not for real thin laminations like you often use in bow building.

ChuckC

[madness522]

Thanks guys!  I was leaning toward the sander and think it will be the better way to go.  Then I could start filling up the half gallon Quervo bank with coins again.

I have been looking at the Grizzly drum sander and like it but will also check out the Performax Chad mentioned.

[onemississipp]

A dust collection system could be put on pretty easily..

Here a couple more links to others...

 http://members.cox.net/elarson5/sander.htm

 http://www.ukuleles.com/BuildingHowTo/sandthck.html

[Dave Worden]

I have a Performax 10-20 and I don't remember it costing $700.  Chad may have a larger one than mine.  The 10-20 is plenty big enough for bows, but because it is open on the one side, it can handle stock as wide as 20" if you're into other kinds of woodworking.  If bow is all you want to make the Grizzly would also be a good choice, but as it is enclosed on all four corners, 10" is the max width you can sand.

[ChuckC]

Dustin...the one on Cox net is the version I copied.  I like it a lot, but as I said, you have to get used to your system before you get good tapers.
ChuckC