NETMAK KA 400 Thicknesser

What the KA 400 does

The KA 400 takes a board that already has one flat reference face and planes the opposite face parallel to it at an exact set thickness. Stock up to 400 mm wide and 250 mm thick passes over a 420 x 790 mm table while a four-knife cutterhead of 110 mm diameter, turning at 4500 rpm on a 4 kW motor, removes up to 8 mm in a single pass. A polyurethane feed roller pulls the board through at either 7 or 14 m/min, the slower rate for hardwood and figured grain where a finer finish matters, the faster one for softwood dimensioning.

Who the KA 400 suits

The KA 400 is sized for a furniture workshop or joinery whose components are cabinet parts, door rails, frame stock and solid tops up to 400 mm wide. It is the practical partner to a surface planer: the planer establishes the first face, the KA 400 makes the second parallel and brings the whole batch to one dimension. Any shop buying rough-sawn timber rather than pre-dimensioned stock will use the KA 400 daily.

How the KA 400 compares with the KA 500

The KA 400 and the KA 500 differ mainly in width and power. The KA 400 planes 400 mm wide with a 4 kW cutter motor on a 420 x 790 mm table at 620 kg; the KA 500 planes 500 mm wide with a 5.5 kW motor on a 520 x 890 mm table at 740 kg. Maximum thickness of 250 mm, 8 mm chip depth, four knives, 4500 rpm and the 7-14 m/min feed range are identical on both. Choose the KA 400 when 400 mm covers your widest panel and the smaller 800 x 1000 mm footprint helps.

What is standard and what is optional

The KA 400 comes as standard with a monobloc steel body, a guard-cover safety interlock circuit, an electromechanical brake and the polyurethane feed roller. Three features are listed by NETMAK as options rather than standard equipment on the KA 400: motorised automatic table height adjustment, a digital height indicator and a helical cutterhead. On manual-table versions of the KA 400 the 0.25 HP table motor is absent and the net weight differs from the quoted 620 kg.