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We have a 3/4″ thick spoilboard (MDF). It works fine, but when you plane it down, it get thin fast. Does anyone use a 1″ thick spoilboard? If so, does it have the same vacuum suction or does the thicker material really cut down on the quality of the suck?
Thanks in advance,
Andy
We use a 1 1/4 thick board made out of ultra light MDF. Plenty of suction . We have a 40 hp decker Vac pumpI think I am going to try the 1″.
Do you cut the bottom with a grid pattern to allow the suction to spread evenly?
We just lay the sheets on the machine. Our AXYZ has an aluminum grid to distribute the vacuum evenly under the spoilboard.
Paul
I used to start with 1 1/4″ like Mr. Olson then plane down each side to we were down to 1 3/16″ We found that we got better suction between the 1 3/16 down to 1″, below that and we could tell. We ran down to 3/4 before replacing.
We typically run the board down to about 1/4″ before discarding. We haven’t found any significant loss in suction at this thickness, but we have found that it’s harder to keep flat due to moisture warping it. OPur weather is constantly changing as far as temperature and moisture in the air.
Paul
We don’t bother with the bottom, but plane the top to make certain it’s level. After two or three plannings on the top we turn the boards over and plane the top again. At this point both sides have been planed.
Paul
Thanks for the information. One last question. Do you have a source to purchase one large 60×144 sheet or do you do it in sections? If in sections, how to you do the joints?
For our Thermwood Cnc we get 1 1/4x60x144″spoilboard from WoodworkersWholesale.com (we also utilize a 1/4″ thick Ldf wasteboard on top of the spoilboard which saves spoilboard wear).These usually come a little heavy and need to be trimmed to fit.
Our machine is 72″ wide x 145 long, so we can’t do it in one piece. Even if we could get it that big it would be a monster to handle. We make ours from three 72×48 pieces. The table is devided into 9 vacuum sections with seals about 1″ apart at the joints. The joints can fall anywhere in that 1″ space and not affect vacuum.
Paul
Posted By Keith Neal on 10 Dec 2009 12:17 PM
For our Thermwood Cnc we get 1 1/4x60x144″spoilboard from WoodworkersWholesale.com (we also utilize a 1/4″ thick Ldf wasteboard on top of the spoilboard which saves spoilboard wear).These usually come a little heavy and need to be trimmed to fit.
Thanks, I’ll check them out. Would be nice to just have one piece of material instead of three.
I believe you are always suposed to surface both sides of your spoil board when starting a new sheet as the surface of MDF is not only a little denser but also sealed, at least this is what I have been told, and you can see a notable difference after milling the surface the first time.
If you spoild board is going quickly try not cutting as deeply through the material. We cut as little as .01mm into our spoild board and they last for a couple of months. This is cutting more cabinet materials than solid surface which we are just getting into. We can cut hundreds of sheets of material with one spoil board.
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