Carbatec 13 inch thicknesser review

[chook]

If you are considering purchasing a new thicknesser the following information might help you.

[Optimark]

Very interesting and very helpful, this is something I have been considering for a while now, with the advent of the newish cutting heads, spiral, and whatever this one appears to be, the time could be about right to check them out in the Melbourne show later this year.

One aspect though does concern me, I work entirely in metric, apart from some steel rules with their dual measures, metric and inches, nothing I have is in inches. Am I to understand that this machine is set by using inches and/or increments in fractions of an inch only?

That would be a bit of a bother.

Mick.

[Alby123]

Hi, this would have to be one of the best tool reviews I've ever seen. Many of us on a very small budget for buying tools etc for our sheds can not thank you enough for the time and effort put into writing a review. As it happens I have been looking into getting a thicknesser for some time, any way over the last six months I have been able to source timber from large packing crates and framing timber for the cost of going there and picking it up. So now that I have 2 cubic metres of timber I will now be able to warrant the purchase of a thicknesser for my shed.
Thank you very much for the review it has made my decision on which one to buy.:2tsup:
Cheers Alby :)

[chook]

Very interesting and very helpful, this is something I have been considering for a while now, with the advent of the newish cutting heads, spiral, and whatever this one appears to be, the time could be about right to check them out in the Melbourne show later this year.

One aspect though does concern me, I work entirely in metric, apart from some steel rules with their dual measures, metric and inches, nothing I have is in inches. Am I to understand that this machine is set by using inches and/or increments in fractions of an inch only?

That would be a bit of a bother.

Mick.
The cutter head is infinitely variable up or down and can be set to any depth of cut you like, millimeter or centimeters. What is fixed in inches is the fixed depth stop. You are not required to use it and once I get a digital depth readout fitted it will never get used.

[chook]

Hi, this would have to be one of the best tool reviews I've ever seen. Many of us on a very small budget for buying tools etc for our sheds can not thank you enough for the time and effort put into writing a review. As it happens I have been looking into getting a thicknesser for some time, any way over the last six months I have been able to source timber from large packing crates and framing timber for the cost of going there and picking it up. So now that I have 2 cubic metres of timber I will now be able to warrant the purchase of a thicknesser for my shed.
Thank you very much for the review it has made my decision on which one to buy.:2tsup:
Cheers Alby :)
Alby it did take some time to do but apart from sleeping and eating and cutting timber I like writing best of of all so it was no problem to me.

A word of caution though. The opinions I expressed should be verified by you before you part with any cash. It is late May and I am due to make at least one error this year and the review might contain it.

[Optimark]

Once again, thanks for the specific reply addressing my concern.

I concur with Alby, on one of the better (far better actually) write ups of machinery, specifically written and commenting upon actual parameters for the market the machine is intended for.

I also will now very closely look at one of these units, with a very possible purchase at or after the Melbourne show; where hopefully one can physically check it out.

If I can be so bold, when you get your digital depth readout widget affixed to this planer, maybe a further review of the review! :D

Mick.

[woodsurfer]

Thanks chook for your excellent review. I took the plunge last week and bought the machine home and it performs as well as you describe. used a hand trolley to get it down the 54 steps from carport to workshop. on my machine , there is no removable off/ on switch arrangement as described and illustrated in the manual, the discount runs to the end of the month but may surface again at the Sydney wood show ,Rossco

[DiRob]

Alby it did take some time to do but apart from sleeping and eating and cutting timber I like writing best of of all so it was no problem to me.

A word of caution though. The opinions I expressed should be verified by you before you part with any cash. It is late May and I am due to make at least one error this year and the review might contain it.
Hi chook I have the thicknesser my question is this. I can't get wood to go under the kickback fingers on the right of machine is this normal I don't have any issue on left but I couldn't possibly put 13 inch through and I wonder if this is a fault. No point trying to get carbatec to help bloody hopeless

[chook]

Hi chook I have the thicknesser my question is this. I can't get wood to go under the kickback fingers on the right of machine is this normal I don't have any issue on left but I couldn't possibly put 13 inch through and I wonder if this is a fault. No point trying to get carbatec to help bloody hopeless
I do not have this problem on m machine at all. Sounds like a fault with the machine to me.

[DiRob]

I do not have this problem on m machine at all. Sounds like a fault with the machine to me.
Hi Chook found that kickback fingers were not attached correctly at assembly wow what a job to replace the fingers major disassemble have new ones but being so far from Carbatec I will have to repair myself ,bugger apart from this great machine.

[Chief Tiff]

Thanks for the review Chook; I do enjoy listening to the voices of people who have shelled out their own coin and are willing to pass on their experiences, both good and bad.

I read magazine reviews of tools and have often made purchases based on their outcomes but sometimes my findings were somewhat less than the writers'. As a couple of examples the Ryobi D-handled biscuit jointer and the blue Bosch 10" compound mitre saw both got very good reviews in AWR; I found the Ryobi has WAYYY too much slop in it's sliding parts and the saw was a spectacularly badly set up piece of junk.

I'm going to be in the market for a new thicknesser in the next couple of years when I finally kill my GMC POS, thanks to your writing I now have a machine to use as a benchmark.

[Xanthorrhoeas]

I have had one of these machines for about 9 months now, for occasional weekend use. I have minimal previous experience with electric thicknesser planers so that should be taken into account in my comments. I have been very happy with the noise levels and general performance of the machine. However, the speil abut the spiral head and that it doesn't affect ornate/twisted figure/grain doesn't really hold true. I have found that if your wood is hard and has very ornate figure this machine will rip chunks out of it like any other simple blade thicknesser. MAYBE a bit less, but still bad. Careful, thin layer thicknesser then drum sander is required. Or else a good hand plane and lots of elbow grease!

A possible maintenance issue concerns the base plate. In mine it is no longer quite flat but has developed small "optical dimples" so it may be a bit lightweight /thin for what I am doing, though I would not think that is hard work.

[chook]

I have now had the machine since May and I have had time to put some work into it. I am making a new workbench and It was used to clean up the large laminated tops. My initial impressions stand. It works perfectly for me. I get very clean surfaces with either no snipe of almost none (mostly none) and I continue to be very glad I got it.

[hellofellow]

I recently got this machine.

I must admit its really quite good. Mine did however have a little oil on the blades to start with.

I found leveling the table to be quite difficult. Its near perfect, but adjusting the lock bolts cause the whole outfeed table to come up causing an acute angle, the part that I found had minor problem was between the base and the outfeed table itself there is maybe 1mm ( not much I know) thats impossible to level out. Its almost as if the out-feed table and infeed table is set 1mm lower than the body of the machine. I cant physically tighten the little lock bolt any more to try to reduce this gap. Loosening it only results in causing an angle. Is yours like this?

I must admit I haven't played with the depth stop yet. You were every specific in your review sating you made changes of say 1/16 of an inch. I so far have just turned the handle lowering the cutter height and only been able to look at the front measure.

How exactly does the depth stop work? If I put it on say 1/8 inch... the blade will make a cut of 1/8 inch deep? or the table can only be lowered to 1/8 of an inch? It seems as if its the latter... this is a little redundant seeing there is only about 6 heights it can be set to?

Thanks

[chook]

The depth stop is just a stepped block. A set screw hits up against the steps and prevents the cutter going any lower. If you pull the side panel off you can easily see how it works. I hardly use it.

My thicknesser has now had a lot of timber pass through it and I remain very happy with it.

[hellofellow]

The depth stop is just a stepped block. A set screw hits up against the steps and prevents the cutter going any lower. If you pull the side panel off you can easily see how it works. I hardly use it.

My thicknesser has now had a lot of timber pass through it and I remain very happy with it.

And how did you find leveling the table?
I can not make it perfectly level, as I said it just sits just below the table regardless of the stop screws ( which just change the angle)?

[mark david]

This in anteresting point you make.
I would be intersted to know if it a true spiral head or is it like their top of the range machines which are not true spiral heads but merely have a spiral groove milled in it.

The 10x8 combination machine I purchased fro them is a true spiral head, the cutters are offset from the axis of the cutter head and shear correctly accross the timber,
I have put a variety of hard timbers throught it including some very wildly figured and very hard Tasmanian blue gum and it is possible to get a finish so good it almost doesnt need sanding.


I have had one of these machines for about 9 months now, for occasional weekend use. I have minimal previous experience with electric thicknesser planers so that should be taken into account in my comments. I have been very happy with the noise levels and general performance of the machine. However, the speil abut the spiral head and that it doesn't affect ornate/twisted figure/grain doesn't really hold true. I have found that if your wood is hard and has very ornate figure this machine will rip chunks out of it like any other simple blade thicknesser. MAYBE a bit less, but still bad. Careful, thin layer thicknesser then drum sander is required. Or else a good hand plane and lots of elbow grease!

A possible maintenance issue concerns the base plate. In mine it is no longer quite flat but has developed small "optical dimples" so it may be a bit lightweight /thin for what I am doing, though I would not think that is hard work.

[Xanthorrhoeas]

The cutting head has a helical/spiral line of rotateable and replaceable tungsten carbide cutters. Is that what you mean?

[asheddie]

I also have this machine. I have found it to be very good but not without some issues. My locking knob doesn't do anything and also found some devastating tear out on hard figured timbers. Apart from this its been very reliable.

[Arron]

I also have this machine.
In comparison to my old H & F T13 - which I guess is its lineal predecessor, I find:

Snipe is about the same (ie bad).
The 'snipe lock' - which is just a carriage lock that some marketing type decided to rename, is close to useless. It appears to only lock the extreme rhs of the carriage - and only weakly.
Dust collection is about the same. There is a 100mm port on the right but there are sufficient restrictions on the exit track that its really just a 50mm port. At least it stops you having to purchase an adaptor.

Those are the cons that disappointed me - I just wanted them on record because I have read reviews of this machine that over-rated the snipe thing.

Generally, though its a good machine. The holy grail for me is a woodworking machine that renders the next step in the processing chain redundant. This machine leaves a surface (on non-figured timber) suffiently smooth that if I take the stock to a drum sander loaded with 240 grit then the sander makes it worse not better. I therefore usually buzz the stock quickly with a ROS fitted with 320 grit, which improves the surface sufficiently to justify the step and because its a fine grit I dont have to worry that its rounding over the edges too much - so I guess the thicknesser is producing a surface finish that is somewhere between 240 and 320 grit. The side to side and end to end difference in stock thickness is usually not more then 0.1 mm - which is good too and better then I was getting out of its predecessor.

Also, its quieter then it predecessor. I sometimes use it without ear protectors which I would never have done with the T13. Idling, its about the same, but under load it doesnt generate that terribly load squeal, which is important in our noise-sensitive neighbourhood.

Cheers
Arron

[Xanthorrhoeas]

Yes, I have had the machine for about a year now. Overall, for a portable machine it gives a great result. I have now had the opportunity to compare some dual cutter machines and I must say that Carbatec has an absolute winner in this machine by comparison. It is quieter and cleaner in its cut - ideal for a weekender like me or a retiree. The finish is so clean that little or no sanding is required, unless you have really twisted grain and nothing that I have seen does that perfectly. I have read on the forum some debate about whether this is a "true" spiral cut machine or not. I don't have the expertise to answer that, but, for the cost and size i do know that it does a great job.

The only thing that would make me part with this machine is a need for a jointer and a space limitation so that a combination machine (with a spiral head) might work better for me at sometime in the future.

Regards

David