John

I've been working for some time now trying to figure the best method to use in cutting thin slabs from a board. The table saw was down right dangerous and I didn't even give the radial arm saw a try. The thing that worked best for me was my band saw. I broke down and bought one of the hi tech 3/4 inch wide blades (hi tech = any blade that will cost me over $30) designed especially for re-sawing. The secret seems to be going extremely slow with the cut and by doing this the blade doesn't tend to follow the grain.
        
Rough sanding is another story. I still haven't come up with a good way of getting the job done. It doesn't take much of an error to cut a portion of the wood too thin. The best method so far has been to tape the thin board to a larger board (using carpet tape) and then running it through the top portion of a 12 inch sanding disk. I have been looking at a small circular plainer that fits in a drill press. Sort of expensive little things and I'm not sure if they would be any better than the sander. I usually finish up using a scraper.

Mooh ~ I looked up the moon mandolin at hobglobin. It's a might nice looking instrument and similar to what I want to build. I play mostly celtic music on the fiddle and tenor banjo but would like switch over to the mandolin at times. I'm bothered a bit with carpal tunnel and find that changing instruments as often as possible seems to help.

I have red and sugar maple. Wonder what type of maple you are using. Around here sugar maple is usually referred to as hard maple and red maple as soft.

Cap't Bob