Brynes thickness sander

[GouletPens]

I saw the Byrnes thickness sander and I'm quite intrigued. I had a Jet 16/32 but it took up too much room for how often I used it, but a small one would be really nice. It would be nice for laminating blanks, use on small pieces of lumber, veneering small boxes, etc. At $350, it's way more affordable than the Jet tabletop sander which is something like $800. The one drawback I see is it's required to hand-feed, but that's workable to me. Anyone ever used one or have any input?

 

[KenV]

Brian --

I paid under $600 for the small jet drum sander (about 10 inch) on a Jet sale -- I see them for street price of $700 now. Need a dust collector with even the small one, but it does work well for small thin pieces and such. I like the good thickness control I can get as well as a fast cleanup of band saw resaw surfaces.

Byrnes makes good precision tools for modeling, but they are built for fine work where the drum sanders will work with rough cut wood. Go Byrnes for small pieces, fine precision, and not for much stock removal or leveling.

You have good choices available, just not one that does all things for all times.

 

[mickr]

I have contacted Mr Byrnes about the thickness sander..I was interested in how SHORT a piece I could get thru..he said any length...I am still considering purchasing one and I read what was avail on website, but I'm still considering the purchase..

 

[hewunch]

I have the mini grizzly. I like it use it all the time.

 

[Kaspar]

I just got mine a few days ago - which completes my troika of Brynes Machines. Both Byrnes sanders are more for fine tuning pieces rather than heavy stock removal. The compound miter on the disk sander is very, very useful for creating certain effects.

The thickness sander is excellent for getting uniform thickness on small pieces, which is an absolute must for complicated segmentations. It's also great for leveling off veneer strips that the Brynes Saw doesn't quite nail to my satisfaction. The Byrnes Saw is very powerful and brittle acrylics get eaten up between the blade and the rip fence if you try to get too thin. With the thickness sander, I successfully achieved a .008 thickness on a piece of black onyx that the saw destroys past .03 thickness. (I used the method where you glue the strip at each end to a piece of wood, run it through carefully, then debond it.) A piece of paper is .004 thickness and I think it could get to that, if needed.

Another great use for this sander is the creation of custom "pickguard" laminates, and also for getting that last 5% of accuracy in squaring up blanks for drilling on the lathe.

It's a worthy addition.