Most people use a thickness planer for the obvious: smoothing and evening out rough timber. You feed a board through, take off a bit of material, and get a flat, consistent piece of wood. But if that’s all you’re using it for, you’re missing out. Here are a few lesser-known ways to put your thickness planer to work.
1. Get Perfectly Matched Boards for Panel Glue-Ups
When gluing boards together for a tabletop or panel, any mismatch in thickness can cause uneven joints and a ton of sanding later. Instead, run all your boards through the planer to the same final thickness before you glue them up. It saves time and gives you a flatter finished piece with less effort.
2. Clean Up Reclaimed Wood (But Be Smart About It)
Reclaimed wood can be beautiful, but it’s often dirty, warped, and full of old finishes or even nails. After you make sure there’s nothing metal left in the board (a cheap metal detector is worth the investment), you can use your planer to remove surface grime and expose the clean wood underneath. Just go slow—reclaimed wood can be hard on blades.
3. Make Consistent, Custom Veneers
If you’ve ever needed thin strips of the same thickness—say, for edge banding, inlay, or bent lamination—you can slice your material a bit thick on the bandsaw, then run it through the planer until it’s dialed in. You’ll get consistent, repeatable results that are hard to match by sanding or hand planing.
4. Dial in Jigs and Sleds with Scrap
When building jigs or shop fixtures, precision matters. Instead of fiddling with shims or cutting pieces multiple times, use your planer to get a scrap piece to the exact height or width you need. It’s quick, and it saves your good material from trial-and-error cuts.
5. Reset Boards with a Slight Cupping or Twist
No, a planer won’t fix serious warps, but if you’ve got a board that’s just slightly cupped or twisted, you can take light passes on one face, then flip it and take more. With patience, you can flatten boards that might otherwise be unusable—especially if you don’t have a jointer.
6. Use a Planer Sled for Jointing One Face
If you don’t own a jointer, a planer sled is your next best friend. Build a simple sled from plywood, shim your warped board so it’s supported flat, then run the whole thing through the planer. It’ll flatten the top face. After that, flip the board and run it again without the sled. Now both faces are flat and parallel.
7. Fine-Tune Stock for Specific Tools or Projects
Some tools and setups work better with non-standard stock thickness. Maybe your table saw cuts best when your sacrificial fence is exactly flush, or maybe a project calls for 7/16″ stock and you only have 1/2″. A planer makes these adjustments easy and consistent, with no guesswork.
Final Tip: Be Gentle
Remember, planers are meant to shave off small amounts, not hog through heavy cuts. Take light passes and keep your blades sharp. And always check for nails, staples, or grit in the wood before feeding it through.
If you treat your planer as more than a one-trick pony, it becomes a precision tool for shaping all kinds of wood—not just flattening it.
Got a clever planer trick of your own? Share it—half the fun of woodworking is learning from each other.