Having a tuff time with tearout

[Brian Hale]

I'm planning some birch drawer fronts, 2 pieces edgeglued together per front, 14 fronts total. I'm getting minor tearout on several fronts, sometimes in 2 places. Doesn't matter which end i feed into the planer first as the tearout just moves to another spot. This is pretty straight grained wood, minimal figure.

I'm running out of thickness :mad:

Fresh sharp kinves in the planer.
Tried raising the grain with warm water; helps a bit but not enough
The fronts are too wide for my jointer and no drum sander

Should i just get the thickness close and sand the heck out of them?

Brian

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Brian, that one looks like you ran it through against the grain, which looks pretty straight. Is it as bad in the other direction too?

Are you sure your planer blades are really sharp because if you are getting tearout in both directions that is probably the culprit.

Do you have a hand plane? Hand planing beats sanding for speed and surface prep.

[Brian Hale]

I do have a hand plane but it's not something i want to get near any wood :eek:

Yep, if i turn the board i'll get the same thing in another spot. The knives were brand new about 50' ago and they still feel very very sharp. the ones i took out did even worse.

I'm only taking off enough to avoid the marks from the infeed roller

Thanks
Brian

[Mark Singer]

Sometimes sanding is the only way...like Zebra and other woods if the grain changes like Anagre...It should not happen with birch. If you are good with a belt sander it is the way to go unless you have a wide belt or drum sander. Use 100 grit and keep a steady motion ...keep it flat to the surface. A #4 york pitch would do it as well.

[Pete Lamberty]

The only thing that I can suggest is to take as thin a cut as possible with the planer and then use a hand scraper. Other than that you may have to do as Mark suggests and go with a sander. Gook luck.

[craig carlson]

Hi,

This may be your chance to justify a drum sander! With that out of the question I'd probably go with scraping, it does't take that long and if you put a gloss or semi-gloss finish on it, you might (with sanding) see the high and low spots on the finished job.

Craig Carlson
Sebastopol, Ca

[John Miliunas]

In the absence of a drum sander, I'd go with Mark's suggestion, as well. Prior to my drum sander, I would "cure" stuff like that with a ROS, keeping it in constant motion, as I didn't have real good luck with the belt sander (got gouges). :o Got acceptable results with the ROS, though. :cool:

[Brad Olson]

Couple of ideas...

Back bevel your planer knives if they aren't the disposable type. Your planer will then work with more of a scraper motion than cutting motion.

You can also try wetting the wood lightly before sticking it in the planer. Just note that when you are done doing the planing you will want to clean the machine with some WD-40 and reapply any rust protectant you use.

[George Tokarev]

It can happen easily with birch, especially yellow. I've split a lot of birch for my furnace in the last twenty-five years, and, next to elm, it's been the toughest. It has a lot of grain reversals and downright wild flame and curly patterns, which makes it a great turning wood, and a great accent wood, even when it's not spalted as in the attached picture. Best answer I've found is a smooth plane. In my case, a Lee Valley with adjustable mouth to take the finest of shavings. Additional benefit to the Lee Valley is that the design allows clearance for ham-handed folks like myself behind the blade. You don't need a perfect surface if you're going to sand or scrape it, so tune up the iron you've got and slide the frog forward and have at it. Should easily get less peck out than what's in your picture if you keep some skew in the cut.

[Andy London]

Hi Brian:

At first glance I too would guess there is something wrong with the blades, it is rare to have this happen in Birch. Here is something that has worked for me in highly figured exotic hardwoods, freeze it first for a few hours then run it through.

I discover this last year around this time by accident. I had some curly purple heart and was trying to get a christmas present done for the LOML, new blades on a finishing planer still resulted in major tear out....called it a day, went back to the shop the next morning, was probably 12 deg F in there, while the shop was warming up I tried a piece again and was amazed at the result. Have tried it a few times since and it hasn't failed me yet.

Good Luck

Andy