fixing cutting board tear out

[Christopher Kanda]

I made a few of the wood whisperer style cutting boards and have some tear out and do not know what is the best way to repair them. Can anyone give a link that shows in detail how to make such repairs? Thanks and happy holidays.

[Bill Huber]

Where is it and what does it look like, a picture would really help.

[Mike Zilis]

I've just completed building 9 of the cutting boards in the style that TWW did in his podcast. Because the top and bottom surface of the cutting board is all end-grain, it's very difficult to use a jointer/planer to flatten the boards after glue up without tear-out or actual chunks of the wood breaking off.

After experiencing this first hand, I brought all of the cutting boards to my local hardwood dealer after glue up. He has a full shop set up for milling work including a huge belt sander. He ran all the boards through the belt sander using 100 grit paper to flatten them all out for me. I did all the final sanding up to 320 grit at home before applying the finish.

-Mike

[Stephen Saar]

You can also use a hand plane to flatten the boards. This way you don't have to worry about tearout as long as you plane in the correct direction.

-Stephen

[Bill Huber]

I've just completed building 9 of the cutting boards in the style that TWW did in his podcast. Because the top and bottom surface of the cutting board is all end-grain, it's very difficult to use a jointer/planer to flatten the boards after glue up without tear-out or actual chunks of the wood breaking off.

After experiencing this first hand, I brought all of the cutting boards to my local hardwood dealer after glue up. He has a full shop set up for milling work including a huge belt sander. He ran all the boards through the belt sander using 100 grit paper to flatten them all out for me. I did all the final sanding up to 320 grit at home before applying the finish.

-Mike

The trick to using a planner is to sand the edge at and angle before you put it in the planner (in feed and out feed ends, top and bottom). You MUST make very very small cuts on each pass. When I say small I mean small, on the first pass or two I sometimes have to push it though with a push board to get it out the other side.

You are going to route the edges anyway so the sanded edge will never be seen, it will be routed away.

Here are a few of my boards.

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/cutting




I have made about 50 now and have used the planner on all of them and they come out very well.

[jim tracy]

All I can say is ditto what Bill said. That is exactly the way I do it.

[Jeff Mohr]

I agree with Bill as well. In fact, I've used a small roundover bit and then go back and forth from the router to the planer and rarely have tearout. I use a large roundover for the final product so the small one is taken care of in the end anyway.

[Christopher Kanda]

thanks for the tips i will incorporate them next time.

[Casey Gooding]

Planers and jointers were never meant to be used on end grain. Even if you ease the edges, tearout will almost always happen. If you insist on burning electrons while you do it, a sander is a must. Large belt sanders will work best but you can get results with a hand held belt sander or a ROS.
A proper hand plane will do a nice (and far quieter) job. It's best to use a low angle plane with a truly razor sharp iron.

[Dan Forman]

Christopher---Where is the tearout? I just completed one, I had tearout along the edge, not the top, when I did the roundover routing for the edge treatment. I forgot to climb cut, went in the usual direction instead. It was a real mess, had to go back to the table saw and trim off about an 1/8" all the way around so that it would be symmetrical, then went back and did it the right way (climb cut), and it turned out fine.

Even with the climb cut, you still have to take little bites. To be safe, save a very small bite for the last one, in case there is any burning from the previous one. Purple heart is even worse than maple for burning. I did mine on the router table, with suitable precautions not to let it get away, since a climb cut feeds with the rotation rather than against it.

Dan

[Christopher Kanda]

yes my tearout is on the sides of the board. I sanded them as best I could but they are still a bit noticeable to me. Marc the woodwhisperer emailed me to try ca glue with sawdust. I suppose regular "crazy glue" from any store would be ok, right?