Michael O'Sullivan
11-20-2009, 5:05 PM
I had my first brush with reaction wood today.
I jointed and planed a 5" wide piece of 4/4 walnut that I wanted to rip into 1" strips to use in some x-mas cutting boards. The wood milled fine and the first rip was perfect. On the second rip, 1/3 of the way in (about a foot), I started to feel a lot of resistance, so I hit the stop button with my trusty thigh. At first, I thought one of my featherboards was set wrong, but then I saw that the wood had completely closed up behind the splitter. Since the first piece had gone fine, I thought it might just be a funky spot in the wood, so I flipped the board and tried to do it from the other side. Same thing happened.
At that point I cut the wood up by hand for firewood.
I jointed and planed a 5" wide piece of 4/4 walnut that I wanted to rip into 1" strips to use in some x-mas cutting boards. The wood milled fine and the first rip was perfect. On the second rip, 1/3 of the way in (about a foot), I started to feel a lot of resistance, so I hit the stop button with my trusty thigh. At first, I thought one of my featherboards was set wrong, but then I saw that the wood had completely closed up behind the splitter. Since the first piece had gone fine, I thought it might just be a funky spot in the wood, so I flipped the board and tried to do it from the other side. Same thing happened.
At that point I cut the wood up by hand for firewood.