Planing soundboards?

If anyone out there uses a planer to thin soundboard prices, how thin do you go before resorting to sanding? Do you use a backing board? Just looking for some help avoiding destroying nice wood.

Thanks

It depends on how tear prone the piece of wood is. A safety planer in a drill press is a good way thin the wood to .150" or so for guitars, .120" for uke wood. If the safety planer is doing a really clean job I might go a bit thinner. As a rule I avoid a real planer altogether as I have access to a Timesaver thickness sander, which also makes the safety planer redundant.

I've not tried a planer because mine leaves a little gouge, or snipe if you will, on one end and the planer can't go thin enough to do me any good. I'm afraid the planer might tear stuff up too. I use coarse paper on my thickness sander to get it down and then finish with lighter grit. If I didn't have the thickness sander I'd go with a good hand plane and finish by hand.
I've done it with hand belt sanders, hand planes and the safety planers but the best for me is the thickness sander.