Thicknessing Jig

Posted 30 May 2014

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Working on a fine project and struggling to plane all your stock to the same thickness? Here’s the solution, a neat little jig that guarantees accuracy!

56 Comments

  10. Im sorry I feel stupid for asking this question but the bottom board how wide was that in reference to the width of your plane. ? I looked for a drawing download but didn’t see one. If fact I need to do this exact thing right now for runners for my drawers on an assembly table I’m building as I speak now. Again sorry for the question I think I know but just would rather be sure. Thanks for sharing this and again just the width of the bottom board I have the rest under control!! ” I Think” ha ha Christopher oh yeah Paul an acquaintance of your told me yesterday that you use a belt sander for cleaning up old vintage hand saw plates is this true or was he messing with me mind? Thanks

  18. Paul- Suppose I have some small pieces like you show that I want to be the same thickness, but I don’t care exactly what that thickness is (because I’ll mark my joinery to my thicknessed stock). Could I clamp a baton across the bench to use as a stop, place all my pieces against the stop side by side, and plane them together? Then they’ll come out the same thickness. Would that work as an even quicker technique (no carriage to build) when the exact thickness is not critical?

    1. Hi Ed,
      If you where to do that, you would not have anything at the start or at the sides to stop you from going thinner there, so it would be the same as plaining normally. And you might have problems with the boards moving.

      You could make a guide as in the video and make it in such a way that you can alter the thickness for different projects.

      Hope it goes well,
      Phil

  21. Very nice. I’d actually thought about something along this line and even one for a wide board. I’ll make one of these for my lamp when I get to it…. Thanks Paul!

  22. My god, you do make woodworking accessible. I decided some time ago to take to building a bench for a kitchen table mostly with hand tools as I don’t have many power tools. I’ve fell in love with the concept and you’re taking the nervousness out of me with simple approaches with each and every video.

    Thanks again!

  25. Perfect and so simple.
    Great for all those small trim pieces that are difficult and a little dangerous to handle on a power joiner or planer.
    Excellent
    Thank you for that idea

  26. The Paul Sellers thickness planer is a clever invention and will be the most used appliance in my workshop. I bet not long after this video release tool makers will be coming up with their version and will charge a hefty price for it. I can see the market potential in this little invention. Great idea Paul keep em coming old mate keep em coming.

  27. Dear Paul,
    I’d like to thank you for your very inspiring work. I’m following your posts as much as I can. Here again I find a great solution to thickness planing. Makes me think of a shooting board in some way. My little workshop starts filling up with all those “little helpers”.
    Knowledge not only is a deep pleasure, it makes us richer every day of all those hours swimming in a see of scrolls and shiny shavings.

  28. This is the meat and potatoes of what I need to progress, coming to the thing late in life, no talent or skills to speak of, this simple jig gets my raw material to the same spec. as that of the “naturals”. Now all I need to do is perfect the setting up of a No.4. I’m very grateful, thanks.

  30. Very neat little item! I looked on YouTube and found this little gadget made by another wood worker which was also intriguing since it was seamlessly adjustable in height:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQVw82ofqqs
    Would take very careful layout and adjustment to build properly but I think I’ll try this approach since I have great difficulties in not complicating things! =)
    More seriously it’d be a huge time saver being able to not have to plane the side carriers to thickness for each thickness you’d like.

    1. Yes it’s a great idea and so good of Mr Sellers to make a video for all to see.
      I have one almost identical I made about 40 years ago for thicknessing my ebony guitar fingerboards. I was shown it by a very generous luthier I know who was happy to share details of his many jigs.
      Luthiers are a great source of info for small accurate parts jigs.

  34. I don’t suppose that there is a similar style of jig for something that is a bit wider than the plane blade? For instance, if you needed to have a bunch of 4 inch wide boards all planed to the same thickness…..

  35. First time I have seen you use a bevel up plane. I just ordered one. I am new to wood working.
    I thought bevel up low angle planes were for tough grain woods. I have some rough sawn oak I have been working and it has some very squirrely grain witch seems to change direction from end to end and some times side to side. I thought this plane might help with this.
    Maybe you could touch on this in one of your Q&A video’s.

    1. Hello Dave,
      Paul has blogged on this topic quite a bit, so I think that is a good starting place:
      https://paulsellers.com/?s=bevel+up+planes

      He also discusses it in the following video:
      https://youtu.be/10RPOPBTwZA

      We don’t use bevel up planes often, and don’t find them to work any better on tough grain. Often the opposite can be true. They are nice to have for using with a shooting board and plaining edges for edge jointing. Thank you for the Q&A suggestion, we will definitely consider it.

      Best, Phil

  37. Made a small change to the Paul design. Wanting the jig to be used for all sorts of thicknesses I was concerned about the end stop. It needs to be lower for thin material but if you are thicknessing thicker stock you need more meat in the end stop. So, I made an end stop. Cut two long grooves vertically and then used two coach screws and very large washers to hold the end stop in place. Slackening the screws off a little the end stop can slide up and down on the end of the jig to end up just under the level of the work you are trying to achieve.

  40. I’ve made myself one of these but am struggling a bit! The small length of wood I am thicknessing had a bow in it, and is also relatively ‘springy’. All I seem to have achieved is a beautifully thicknessed but similarly bowed piece of material. What am I doing wrong do you think?

    1. Hi Pete,

      Paul says: It sounds like the wood is springing back up into the plane as you cut so i’m afraid you’ll have to find a straight piece of wood. You could use a piece of double sided tape in the mid section to hold it down while you plane it.

      Kind Regards,
      Izzy

  41. Hey Pete,

    One idea I’ve used is to stick down the work with a couple of small pieces of double-sided tape. Reduces the flex and bowing as you plane.

    Be warned it can be hard to get off, so test on scrap first – I use a very thin card scraper and it takes a bit of patience working at it from several angles.

    Cheers, Andy

  42. Struggle to see how a thicknesser would remove a curve like that. Seems to me you have not done anything wrong in the use of the thicknessing jig. If the piece is springy enough to flex to the base of the thicknessing jig, then it would probably glue down straight, but that may not be what you want this piece of wood for. If you would like some help with how to flatten this piece, then let us know what you are trying to do with it.

    If you wanted to use this type of jig to flatten a piece, you would be better to put some shim in the middle of the inside of the curve, then put that in the thicknesser jig, then you would be able to take the top off of the curve and start flattening the piece. Then, take the piece out, remove the shim, put two pieces on each end of the outside curve to stop it rocking in the thicknessing jig, and plane material off of the two ends.
    I guess this does not help for the piece you have now, but may do in the future.

  45. I’m late to the party. This is a wonderful idea, Thank you team Sellers again. I’m In the early design stage to use my 4.5 and 5.5. Not sure if ill ever need that width but gives me the option In the future. Im limited on space, so i can’t collect a few of these. Im doing mine out of left over birch ply.

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