difficult grain wood to test a handplane for tearout?

[James Baker SD]

I want to test a handplane to see how it deals with difficult grain and if it does well in not causing tearout.

What is a really difficult wood I could use for this test?

I bought a piece of bird's eye Maple (many, many eyes--beautiful board) for the test and the plane handled it so well, I am doubting my choice of woods for the test.

Suggestions? Thanks.

James

[David Weaver]

Go look through the exotics and get something that is quartersawn with ribboning on it.

Something where it looks like even when it's sanded, parts of it are blotchy without having finish on.

Birdseye and curly maple and things of that sort are not very difficult to plane.

[Johnny Kleso]

Woods that have INTERLOCKING GRAIN, Croth and knots..

Simple test is to plane the wood from the wrong direction..

[Tony Shea]

David said it best, I have recently been working with some ribbon stripped sapelle and is just impossible to plane. I really can not come up with a way to plane it without tearout other than scraping. And that means a ton of scraping and sanding which is my least favorite task as a neander. Some quartered Zebra also produces the same effect. Anything with interlocking gain such as Johnny stated is nasty as well.

[David Weaver]

It's my (somewhat limited) experience that those ribboned woods will often give you dusty shavings, or a lot of dust period, when you're planing and not getting an optimal cut. It ends up in your nose somehow.

A sharp plane with a tight mouth is required, and some of them are so rotten that they don't even give a nice finish with scraping. I've had my best luck planing diagnoal to the grain. the worse the wood, the more sensitive it is to direction.

For practical purposes, I would put it through a wide belt sander - it becomes too tedious to work with and nobody will ever appreciate the tedium except for the person who goes through it. To everyone else, it'll just look like wood.

[Steve knight]

lets see bubinga purpleheart ipe cocobolo bloodwood are just a few.

[Bob Strawn]

Another good test is cedar or juniper around a knot. The wood is reasonably soft, but the knot is usually quite hard. The grain usually lifts towards a knot, (perspective matters so it could be the reverse) so as you work away from the knot you go against grain and the grain angle shifts pretty quickly. Pine end grain is always a good one to test you sharpening skills against.

Bob

[David Keller NC]

I'd suggest cocobolo - the grain is typically interlocked, the fibers aren't bonded all that well to each other, and overall the wood is harder than granite.

[rick bear]

I'll second that on the cocobolo. Find a piece with lots of figure and a knot or two.

- Rick

[Roy Lindberry]

I want to test a handplane to see how it deals with difficult grain and if it does well in not causing tearout.

What is a really difficult wood I could use for this test?

I bought a piece of bird's eye Maple (many, many eyes--beautiful board) for the test and the plane handled it so well, I am doubting my choice of woods for the test.

Suggestions? Thanks.

James

Elm has interlocking grain which is very prone to tearout.

[john brenton]

Unless you're doing it for a study you're going to publish, I'd say trying it on whatever wood you have would be good enough. It really depends on the cut of wood too. Just recently i had some regular old QS soft pine that was very difficult to plane the end grain on, and I know my stuff is sharp.

End grain has a grain direction too.

[Steve Thomas]

Just about any thing from Australia

[Tom Vanzant]

I'll add almond wood to the mix. It's like planing a braided rope... lots of interlocked twisting grain, loosely bonded. it tears out when planed from any angle.

[Terry Beadle]

African mahogany has grain twisted streaks in it that challenge any plane. Why they called this wood with a name that included mahogany in it is really not fair to the unsuspecting buyer.

Your test of Birdseye is a good one. I'm surprised that it's reported as not....I learn some thing every day. I vote Babinga too. It's got lots of curly grain tied surfaces.

Dem's my 2 c's.