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I used a piece of hardwood in the pix for illustrative purposes.

The metal I bough off the rack at Ace for $4 each 24" piece. it comes with holes all over it which come in handy.
The metal comes at exactly - to the limit of my measuring, anyhow - .100". This is the thickness I want most of my tops.
I glue 60 grit to a straight sanding board, and put strips of tape - usually 2 strips thick - along the metal to offset the thickness of the sandpaper.

Thicker top? A few more strips of tape.
Thinner top? A few sheets of newspaper under the top.
I sand until I'm starting to wear away the tape, measure, make my decision on further sanding or stopping.

Cierp's mdf cauls with dowels and holes drilled wherever I want in my exorbitantly expensive work surface $60 - but you can screw/glue the metal down anywhere flat and make it do.

It works and gets me to the thickness I want - and quickly.

Just an idea. There are better ones, and more elegant, but this works and a method I came up with.

DaveB

Last of the pix. A couple are sideways. My bad.
DaveB

I like it!

Very resourceful.

Jim

You clearly need to spend more on your sander! Lol
Nice job.

Very nice Dave. A Cordless Thickness Sander!

Cordless - and it's pretty quiet too. :-)
If I ever need a machine to thickness stuff I will get one - but I don't now, building at 6-8 instruments a year. I would have to get up to pretty heavy production to justify it in my case.
But mine sure does not LOOK cool :-(
DaveB

Tony_in_NYC wrote:You clearly need to spend more on your sander! Lol
Nice job.

Absolutely! "The Official Brotherhood of Cork Sniffers" EVERYWHERE will tell you at least a $1000 or it won't work and it's obvious it's not WIDE enough..sheeeeesh!
And beyond THAT I'll bet it takes at least 30 minutes to get it where you want..then you gotta set it up and take it down and well there is just so much WRONG here...:0)>

Good Job by the way! I love it IT really shows there's always more than one way to skin a cat...
( I know....I KNOW ...no cards, letters...and death threats PLEASE...I love cats...one has ruled my life for 8 years and he STILL has 3 lives left!) :0)>

Powered by armstrong!

I'd be concerned that the board flexes in the middle. Could you use a piece of metal for that? One that is thicker than the other ones?

rgogo65 wrote:

Tony_in_NYC wrote:Good Job by the way! I love it IT really shows there's always more than one way to skin a cat...
( I know....I KNOW ...no cards, letters...and death threats PLEASE...I love cats...one has ruled my life for 8 years and he STILL has 3 lives left!) :0)>

I like Cats too...just can't eat one by myself anymore. ;')

I try to keep my hands toward the outside of the board but yeah, a metal piece would be good, the stiffer the better.

I can see the back window of the house from my shop, and our little female cat sits up on a bookcase and just stares out the window at me all day. Just stares and stares and......creepy. Reminds me a bit of a short story the plot of which you do not need to know because the ending is:
Mother (knocking on the bedroom door) : "Johnny? Johnny? Are you okay or does the cat have your tongue?"

p.s. he was not ok. :-)
DaveB