# plastic through planers?



## tbone74 (Aug 6, 2011)

I have a Dewalt 735 planer and I got my hands on some 3/4" plastic cutting board material and I was wondering if it could be put through my planer to give it a glass smooth finish. I plan on making table saw inserts with it. It cuts like butter through my table saw, I just don't want to ruin a $60 set of blades on my planer for a few dollars of plastic….

Thanks for any input!


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## Rustic (Jul 21, 2008)

I would not try it. But that's me.


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## StumpyNubs (Sep 25, 2010)

I disagree. You can cut that stuff just fine on a table saw, so why not a planer? It's not going to be in there long enough to melt, and it won't gum up the blades nearly as bad as pine does. I say go for it, and if it blows the thing up, I'll pitch in a dollar for the new planer…


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## rawdawgs50 (Feb 20, 2010)

Its a toss up….run a profile router bit on it. If it starts to melt then it will melt in the planer. As long as it does not get jammed you *might* be okay. I wonder if the planer can handle it… That stuff does not exactly shear off like wood. A spiral head could do it…but those straight long knives could get you into trouble real quick.. If it does work it "shiny" seems like a long shot.

Good question..looking forward to the results.


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## tbone74 (Aug 6, 2011)

I can cut it nicely with a profile router bit, still nervous about the planer…. Speed one or two on the planer? I will only remove a 32nd


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

if you have a narrow piece, try that first. At least the cleanup would be minimal, but i think it may be ok.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I've tried it. My experience wasn't that good. Results were
uneven in my experiments. Better to double-face
tape it to a carrier board and cut to thickness with a table saw.

A drill-press mounted safe-t-planer might do well on plastic.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

You also thickness plastic by making cuts to depth with the table saw
and cleaning up the rough surface with abrasives and scraping. Many
plastics do scrape well with card scrapers or razor blades.


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## Pimzedd (Jan 22, 2007)

I taught Plastics Mfg. for 34 years. Never tried any plastic in a surface planner. As Loren said, I don't think you would have a good experience.

We modified all cutting tools to work plastics and the shape depended on the type of plastic. The problem with most wood cutting tools is they tend to take a bigger and bigger bite as they go along. Eventually you start getting chunks instead of shavings and chips. If the planner cutterhead starts to take too big of a bite, the plastic may get pulled up into the cutterhead. That would be BAD!

I like Loren's idea of the drill press mounted safet-t-planer. Take thin cuts. Double stick tape the plastic down using multiple strips of tape.

Just my thoughts/


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## tbone74 (Aug 6, 2011)

Ok thanks for all the input, I will NOT be putting it through my planer


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## Tootles (Jul 21, 2011)

You could most likely plane it quite successfully by hand.


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## BillWhite (Jul 23, 2007)

Let us know ahead of time so we can duck. You'll never get all the chips and crap out of the planer or the shop.
Bill


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## Sawkerf (Dec 31, 2009)

I certainly wouldn't do it. If you've ever run plastic thru a table saw, or cut it with a jig saw, you should have seen that it melts as much as cuts. Lots of ragged edges and stringy shavings that are usually pretty hot. I don't even like to think about what a planer (or jointer) would do.


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## reggiek (Jun 12, 2009)

I would not use a planer for this - just my overall caution. I would worry more about the heat melting the plastic and coating your blades. I had some semi dry glue on one of my boards and it took forever to get it removed from the blades and the transfer rollers.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

Of all the flags going up the flagpoles here, I'm voting for the router bridge.

I regularly buy these use polyethylene cutting boards at thrift stores for various uses around the shop. I've always hesitated to stick 'em in the planer, and now I know why.

Actually I have a router duplicator, and now that I get that in my head, I think it would do a great job, using the stylus on a piece of MDF. Variable speed router might be the best, but I don't think there's one that would fit in the fixture on my machine.

Kindly,

Lee


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

I would not have a problem running it through my planer. I wouldn't take real big cuts either.

Comparing a planer to a router to a table saw is not a good comparison IMO. A planer doesn't tend to heat materials up like a router does. Do a comparison of the surface speeds of the cutting blades if it bothers you. As for the planer sucking it up into the blades, it should act no different than a piece of wood (at least until it gets real thin). Just my 2c.


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## usnret (Jul 14, 2011)

I have tried planing cutting board materialbefore. It didnt cause any problems with the planer, but the material is so slick the feed rollers have a hard time gripping it. I use a feed board and pushed it through, butthe milling marks were pretty obvious. In the end just use a hand plane it owrks fast and does a realy nice job and becaus ethe material is slick the plane glides right over it.


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## NiteWalker (May 7, 2011)

I'd go for the router bridge method as well.


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## StumpyNubs (Sep 25, 2010)

I just ran one of those plastic cutting boards through my planer this afternoon and a sandwich with all the fixins' came out the other end!


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## RetiredCoastie (Sep 7, 2009)

I just finished using the same material for my INCRA template organizer and I've used it for other shop aids and tools and it works very well with a router, tablesaw, band saw, lathe and drill press although with the lathe it does throw out ribbons and they have to be cut free from time to time just like when turning acrylic pen blanks. Yes it's very slick material and would probably not have enough friction for the feed rollers to advance the stock. If your planner uses conventional knives then it wouldn't work very well because of the ribbon effect like on the lathe but with one that uses the spiral cutters it would probably work fine if you can overcome the feed roller issue. It was suggested above to use double sided tape to adhere it to a piece of wood and then cut it on the tablesaw but that won't work because nothing and I mean nothing sticks to the this material. Re-saw it on the table saw on it's own. I will say this though, given the cost of the plastic Vs the cost of the plastic inserts I would think the inserts would be cheaper in the long run. Keep in mind the thinner this stuff gets when you resaw it, it has a tendency to bow so make sure you have a splitter installed and be very carefull this stuff is slipery and hard to hold on to.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

All I know is when I tried to cut similar plastic on my BS and had a great time cleaning up the blade afterwards, as the plastic liquified and coated the BS blade. Considering that a planer blade/cutters move much faster, I would think it unwise to try planing the plastic. Just my 2-cents


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