Hand Plane tear-out on Maple

[Mike Vermeil]

This is my first post over here, so here it goes.

I've gotten pretty good with my hand planes over the past couple years, and when I've experienced tear-out, I've usually been able to assign a cause - generally throat too large due to lack of adjustment, wrong grain orientation, etc. But I'm working on some maple right now (which I don't generally work with) that no matter what I do, the only time I don't get tear-out is on end grain, where oddly enough, I've had good success. No matter what direction I plane from, how light I set the cut, how much I skew the plane, etc. the blade just wants to dig into the face grain and tear-out. I'm using an old Stanley block plane with no adjustment on the throat that has served me well on other woods. Is this characteristic of Maple in general, or is it something with these particular few boards?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

[Roy Wall]

Some users moisten the end grain just a touch.........I haven't done this -- but I've heard of it:rolleyes:

[Jerry Palmer]

Could be a couple of things. Maple is harder than a lot of other woods which you may be used to. If it has figure, the grain is probably pretty squirrely and sometimes you've just gotta resort to a scraper.


Also, if the block you're using happens to be a low angle one, a higher angle plane would serve you better. If it is a normal angle plane you might get better results going to a higher bevel. It'll be harder to push, but a final cutting angle close to 50 degrees or so is better for wild grain.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I was working with some tiger maple yesterday while prepping the stock for some bowsaws. I was both jointing the edges and producing smoothe flat and parallel faces. This has to be done by hand with a plane to avoid tearout, mechanized planes and jointers just don't do the job without some tearout. I use a Knight 50 degree smoother with the iron carefully honed before starting. My guess is that you either have the blade set too deep or the iron isn't sharp enough. It's possible that both are the case. Maple certainly is hard, and too deep a cut is an invitation to tearout even on regular grained stuff. Yesterday I did a touchup on the iron about every 50-60 strokes. It takes me longer to walk over to the sharpening bench and back than it does to do a quick touchup on the iron.

[Louis Bois]

Jerry and Dave have it...high angle of attack, a very shallow blade setting (thin shavings) and a tight mouth! Failing that, the scraper will be your best friend.

[Bob Smalser]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=8136&highlight=50-degree+smoothing+plane

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3955069/49343804.jpg