When I originally bought my lunchbox planer, it came with a stand. I used this stand on a mobile base for three years, but I was never happy with it. A couple of things irked me:
- The stand was lopsided, and no matter what I tried to do to fix it, the machine always sat at an angle. Not a big deal on it’s own, but if you’re setting up infeed or outfeed support for a long workpiece, you’ll run into trouble real fast.
- I’m a big advocate of setting up tools so that they are always ready to go. I used to keep my planer parked in a corner, so I had to pull it out, set it up, use it, clean it up, and put it back in it’s place when I was done. That wasted a lot of shop time… which is something I don’t get a lot of.
- I had no good solution for supporting long boards and eliminating snipe.
To resolve these issues, I built myself a permanent planer workstation that is always ready to go whenever I need it. And the best part? I was able to build it completely out of components that were already lying around the shop… and it only took a couple of hours. If you’ve got some space, this is something that you can put together quickly and cheaply.
Here’s a wide shot of my milling station.
In the picture, the infeed in on your left and the outfeed is on your right. As you can see below, I left a few feet between the wall and the planer so that I can easily walk back and forth between the infeed and outfeed.
The infeed and outfeed extensions are an old metal shelving unit that was gathering dust in my basement. I used to use this guy in my garage, but I didn’t really need it there anymore. It was intended to be a single tall unit, but I separated it into two units, one with two shelves, and one with three. I replaced the stock particle board shelves on the top of each unit with some melamine scraps that I had on my lumber rack. I cut them to size on the table saw and then rounded the corners slightly with a rasp to get a nice tight fit. The melamine is a slick and durable surface, and it’s also easy to clean.
I ditched the old planer stand and replaced it with this:
Another tool stand! LOL. A couple of years ago, my local Menards had these Wolfcraft tool stands on sale for $10 each. I picked up two of them, not really having a purpose for them at the time. Well, let me tell you, looking back, I wish I had bought 10 of these things. These are really strong, stable, and best of all… they don’t lean. So, I re-purposed this one to be my new planer stand. Using this as my planer stand, however, presented me with two challenges.
The first issue was securing the planer to the stand. I don’t feel safe using the planer when it is not bolted down, so I needed to come up with a new mechanism to do this. The metal framework of this stand interferes with the bolt holes on the planer, so I couldn’t just bolt the machine directly to the top of the stand. Here is my solution:
I took some scrap 1/2″ plywood and made two sled feet. I drilled holes through the plywood to accept the bolts and I cut a large recess around each hole on the underside of the sled feet to house the head of the bolt. I fed the bolts up through the sled feet from underneath and secured them to the planer. Once that was done, I positioned the machine and drove screws up through the MDF top of the tool stand into the plywood. This secures the planer to the stand.
The second problem I had was leveling the planer to the melamine extension tables. I needed a way to micro-adjust the height of the planer, and unfortunately my $10 tool stand did not have leveling feet. So, I dug around in my hardware bins and came up with this solution:
A lag bolt, two nuts, and a protective pad creates a homemade leveling foot. There is a nut on the underside of the tool stand’s foot to help support the weight and a nut on top to lock the bolt in position. The protective pad gives the foot a little more surface area and protects the paint job on my floor.
So there you have it. I built a custom planer workstation for free by using materials that I already had lying around. Always take stock of what you already have before buying something new. This strategy will save you money and can also yield a much better custom solution.
It’s a wonderful thing to be a cheapskate! Of course, I prefer the term frugal:D As I start setting up the shop, I plan on using a bunch of solid core doors I’ve kept for counter tops.
I always struggle with the question of how small does a piece of wood have to be before it’s thrown out. Of course it depends on the type of wood, but I’ve kept small scraps of plywood for ages, thinking…jigs, hold-downs, or some sort of
spacer (as you have done under the planer). I’m sometimes pathetic! Thank god my better half isn’t near the pack rat I am.