Thicknesser Stand

This is a trolley that I made for my thicknesser (a Makita 2012NB). It is mostly made out of 30 mm × 30 mm × 2 mm box section steel, with plywood sides and drawers and some 20 mm × 20 mm × 2 mm box section "wings" to provide material support. The rear has some simple brackets to hold dust extraction accessories for the thicknesser.

This shows what the trolley looks like with the "wings" raised. The rollers on the end of the wings were made out of some aluminium tube (actually my next-door neighbour's old TV aerial pole) with some bearings pressed into some aluminium bushes in the ends.

This photo shows a close-up of how the support arms for the "wings" meet the body. The bracket attached to the body is a bit of angle iron that had one side shortened and then a weld bead run along the inside corner to provide a 45° ledge for the arm to rest on. In the end of the arm is a cap screw and locking nut that allows the height of the wings to be adjusted until exactly level with the bed of the thicknesser.

I also made an auxiliary bed for the thicknesser. This was made out of two sheets of 18 mm moisture-resistant MDF glued together (I used the moisture-resistant variety as I had some left over from a DIY job). The top surface has been coated in some UHMW film, which provides a very smooth and low-friction surface for the wood to run on and helps to reduce snipe a bit. There are some cleats attached to the ends underneath that hold the bed against the wing-rollers at either end.

Due to the limited working space that I have available, gluing the two pieces of MDF together was a challenge. In the end I did it on my dining-room table (currently re-purposed as an office desk thanks to pandemic-induced home-working). I used clamps around the edge of the dining-room table and saucepans full of water where the clamps wouldn't reach! Incidentally, you can see my monitor stand in situ behind the clamped MDF.

This photo shows where the thicknesser trolley lives when not in use. It had taken me a lot of thought trying to work out where the thicknesser could fit, but I'd recently moved my tool holder storage for the lathe to be ceiling mounted and that freed up some room underneath.

The trolley took some careful thought to ensure it was the right size. As you can see in this photo (click for a bigger view) it just squeezes in between the table saw (tucked as far under the bench as it will go) and my motorcycle (depending on how accurately I've parked the motorcycle, I sometimes have to tilt the spring-loaded foot-rests up to allow the trolley to pass - that's how tight it is). The height is such that it just slides underneath the blade protection block on the outside of the fence of my cross-cut sled.

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