So during a current project of mine I ran into the issue of needing to plane down a good portion of a wooden piece (about a 1/16th - 1/8th). Now the key issue with this piece was the size and the shape of it. The piece is a relatively small circular like shape, about the diameter of 2.5 inches, and has a few 3/8th holes in it.
Now normally I would have planed the piece to the correct thickness from the start, but the piece has already been cut and plans have changed.
Ideally I believe the best option for this fix would be to use a drum sander, but as I do not own one as of now and need to fix a lot of these pieces I am trying to use what I have at hand(planer) while avoiding having to just go hand sand these all down using say a belt sander 1 at a time. I believe if I were to put all these pieces down on a board in which they would not slide on, grain running the same direction, I could get away with using the planer by feeding that board in the planer making extremely shallow cuts, but am not 100% sure and thought I would come here.
So after coming to this problem I realized I have never actually formally learned the do's/do not's of using a thickness planer and was wondering what these were, as well as any suggestions, alternatives, or wisdom for my current dilemma.