mdf through a thickness planer

fin · Post by **fin** » Wed Feb 24, 2021 6:18 pm

im fitting mdf skirtings etc through out a house currently. part of the job involves taking the moulded part of the skirting (in this case ogee) down the stair stringer. would be easy but the plasterer who boarded and skimmed the walls left a fliping tiny amount of th stringer showing on the main stair case and on the small upper case the entire stringer showing....

to keep it looking as close as possible i was thinking about planing off a few mm off the back of one lenght just to keep it as tight as possible on the main string.

will the planer actually do it neatly? ive accesss to a dewalt dw733 planer thicknesser so ill use that if itll work,.

big-all · Post by **big-all** » Wed Feb 24, 2021 6:31 pm

just take it out the back from say 8mm[or whats required] to zero over say 8" rather than the full length

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Wed Feb 24, 2021 6:39 pm

I have never put MDF through my planer thicknesser as it tends to bugger the knives up. The construction of the board is a mix of wood particles and a resin binder. I can see your problem but I am not sure if the owner of the planer would be too happy afterward. Any chance of sourcing a length of softwood Ogee skirt as that would machine far better?

DWD

fin · Post by **fin** » Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:05 pm

its howdens ogee so its a bit different from any timber moulding. ahh i might have to either just use a battery planer on it or just fit it as it is and have the slight over hang of the rounded part of the moulding

oz0707 · Post by **oz0707** » Sat Mar 20, 2021 2:45 pm

My bosch 4mm planer has planed plenty of MDF in its time Fin. The blades are relatively cheap so i'd be going handheld planer first

Rebate function means you can plane over the width of the blade in stages. Do skirting board in 2 passes for this situation maybe 2mm at a time

arco_iris · Post by **arco_iris** » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:36 pm

@Oz0707, Maybe, a month on, Fin has dealt with that paying client's job & moved on to other business!

fin · Post by **fin** » Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:37 am

haha im actually still at that house. rather a long term project i think. been fitting english oak window sills this week hence my other post about the curved window sill. i cant finish the downstairs skirtings off till after the parquet floor has been laid by my mate. and the dining area and kitchen is having i think.... a slate tiled floor fitted. but the rest of the house is basically complete.oak veneer doors, frames, skirts, architraves, loft hatch, stud walls, upstairs window sills, pocket door to the bathroom, standard sized 2ft wide oak veneer door cut down to 1.3m for under stairs cupboard

in the end i decided against the planing option. it makes the ogee wayyyy to thin at the thin points. chopped a bit plaster back on the high points and basically had to make do with a slight overhang of the stringer on the ogee moulding.

as it happens i did have to plane a couplea bits of architrave to get over some of the plasterboarding.... obviously ya dont want door linings fitted on the p*ss like. id noticed my battery planer was digging into mdf when i planed it. swapped the blades round and its back to brand new.