How to avoid or minimize tearout on shedua (ovangkol)?

[Niels J. Larsen]

I'm currently working with a lot of shedua (here we call it ovangkol) and I'm seeing a lot of tearout when jointing/planing the stock.

I know that the grain is interlocked, but I get a lot of tearout even if I take off as little as 1/10th of a milimeter.

My jointer/planer is a Hammer A3-31 and the tables are properly aligned, the knives are brand new (and self-adjusting) and I'm using a very slow feed rate (by hand) when jointing.

Still I get tearout...

Can I do anything to avoid this or is there no other alternative than to either hand plane it after glue-up or take the glued-up panels to a wide drum sander in a local cabinet shop?

[Chris Padilla]

I have no direct experiece with shedua but on some very curly maple I had doing about the same thing (MM FS41-Elite here, Tersa head, new knives), wetting the maple helped quite a bit (but not totally).

The theory, to me anyway, is it will soften the top layer a little bit and allow the fibers to pull away more easily. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Sharpen up that smoothing plane! :)

Oh, you may wish to use filtered or deionized water in case tap water might stain the wood. Just be careful.

[Paul Atkins]

I used a bit of it a few years ago - never again! It's just tough stuff to deal with. It has 'dust ' in the pores that gets everything black, or dirty looking even when hand planing. Not having a planer at the time, we used a planer at a local door shop and was told to quit after a couple of boards went through because of the dust and knife dulling. Hand scraping was the final solution and my arms ached for days. And the slivers! I guess wide belt sanding would be the 'best' in this case. Good Luck!

[Niels J. Larsen]

Well, I took a long break from this project but I'm planning to continue it soon.

More advice on the subject is much appreciated! :D

[Karl Card]

i just won a few auctions of shedula... after i did i heard about how hard it is to work with... rats... i will try turning it with some very sharp tools..

[glenn bradley]

I wouldn't want to turn it but, I have made items out of it. The material I have is just from my local lumber yard and was about as much trouble as red oak. Sounds like your material is a little worse so I am no real help.

[Jim Becker]

Mark Singer has used a lot of this species in his project work...hopefully, he'll notice this thread.

[Thomas love]

I happen to like this species and have worked with it quite a bit. Hand scraping works well though labor intensive. I fortunatly have a widebelt which I use for dimensioning then go to hand scraping. Maybe a belt sander after the planer. Don't give up .
Tom

[Niels J. Larsen]

I happen to like this species and have worked with it quite a bit. Hand scraping works well though labor intensive. I fortunatly have a widebelt which I use for dimensioning then go to hand scraping. Maybe a belt sander after the planer. Don't give up .
Tom

My problem is I get tearout that is 0.5 - 1.0mm deep. The tearout is due to the interlocked grain I believe.

I don't really fancy hand scraping 0.5 - 1.0mm off....

Looks like a widebelt is the only way then *sigh*

[Steve Rozmiarek]

To add to what Chris said, I had a particularly nasty piece of figured walnut a few years ago that would not coopreate with anything I tried. I was working with veneer on the project too, so in a "what now???" moment, I treated the walnut with the Super Soft veneer softener I had right there. I was really suprised how well it worked. I haven't tried it on anything else, but it salvaged that board. Here is a link:

http://www.veneersupplies.com/product_info.php?cPath=86_37&products_id=614

[Mark Singer]

Shedua is a wonderful looking wood but tear out can be a problem. When you glue up a series of boards for a door or table top the grain is most likely reversing from board to board. In this case drum sanding is probably best. Or you can scrape and sand with a ROS to flush. You should go to 320 grit to get the depth of the grain. On individual boards you should be able to get decent results with your machine. Read the grain of the board with the fibers diving down relative to the feed direction. This is best seen from the edge of the piece.

[Niels J. Larsen]

Shedua is a wonderful looking wood but tear out can be a problem. When you glue up a series of boards for a door or table top the grain is most likely reversing from board to board. In this case drum sanding is probably best. Or you can scrape and sand with a ROS to flush. You should go to 320 grit to get the depth of the grain. On individual boards you should be able to get decent results with your machine. Read the grain of the board with the fibers diving down relative to the feed direction. This is best seen from the edge of the piece.

I haven't glued up the boards yet, so the problems I'm experiencing are on individual boards. I read the grain on the edge of the board which results in good results on the majority of the surface, but since the grain shifts direction several times I get major tearout in various spots on the board.

I've tried skewing the boards through the planer to obtain better results, but since my boards are approx. 8-10 inches wide - and my planer can only take 12 inches - I didn't get the benefit I was hoping for.

I've bought the Lee Valley Bevel-Up Smoother and will try with that, but I must be considered a beginner with hand tools, so I'm worried that I'll mess up the uniform dimensions of the board before I'll get done.

This could of course be a valid reason for learning to use winding sticks etc. :D