Most planers can cut wood to about ¼” thick. When wood gets thinner than this, it becomes too light and flexible. As a result, there’s a chance it can be sucked into the planer’s blades and, ultimately, it’ll turn into wood chippings!
Let’s say that you’re making veneers, though. What do you do when you need to cut wood thinner than a ¼” thickness. The best tool for doing this would be a drum sander.
However, there is a way of getting super thin cuts of wood using a planer. You can create a homemade sled out of ¾” plywood and a couple of pieces of solid wood scraps.
Below, we’ll take you on a step-by-step guide:
Find two small pieces of solid wood and glue attach them to one end of the ¾” plywood sled to form an L-shape
Place the wood you want to create a thin strip of onto the sled, and secure it in place using a small amount of glue so that the end sits neatly into the L-shape
Run the sled through the planer until the wood has been cut to the desired thickness
By glueing the piece of wood in place, you stop it from being sucked up into the planer and obliterated. And, once you’re done, it can easily be removed using a wallpaper scraper.
The above technique should allow you to cheat the system and cut your wood to a thickness of ⅛”. It’s not a good idea to try and go any thinner than this though, otherwise, you simply risk damaging the wood and having to start all over again.