Home center poplar killing my blade edge -anyone else had this? Leftover grit?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I have some poplar from the home center kicking around, the S4S, nominal 1x4 kind of stuff. Was truing it up a bit more with my jointer plane, and smoothing the surface with a plane (the surface sanding they give this stuff is still a little rough for finish work, IMO)

After a little while, I notice my shavings coming up broken, like lots of little parallel ribbons; figure it's just the nature of the wood and the light cut I'm taking, but when I move to my smoother for a few passes, I don't seem to have that trouble. A close look at my blade in raking light indicates some not-quite-chipping of the edge. Taking a heavier cut with the jointer plane does show a few, subtle "track marks".

Don't really think poplar should be doing this. Didn't pay enough attention to my work at the start, so maybe I did a poor job sharpening this blade, but I'm wondering if there may be some leftover grit or dirt or dust from either the surfacing of the lumber, or how it was stored and transported. (either on my end or the home centers) I suppose the best way to tell would be to take one of the longer off-cuts and brush it with a stiff brush and vacuum one side, and see what happens, then do the other (untouched) side.

I remember having this problem years ago with similar home-center poplar, but it was long enough ago I chalked it up to lack of technique in sharpening or something.

Just curious if anyone else has had this experience before. I guess brushing and/or vacuuming the surface of the wood before working it can't really be a bad idea. Never had this problem with the stuff from the lumber yard I usually frequent. (Poplar ended up being cheaper at the home center, and they had stuff closer to the dimensions I needed in surfaced stock and I was feeling lazy)

Didn't turn out to be much of an issue, I dealt with the less than perfect surface from the jointer and cleaned it up with the smoother, but by the time I got to jointing the edges, the cutting action was a little rougher than I would have liked.

[Mel Fulks]

You are correct and to be congratulated for noticing something I had to be shown many years ago. Grit and staples everyone knows about.But many will go back and forth on their own with cutting tools and sandpaper routinely ,not realizing the sandpaper grit is dulling their tools.Blowing compressed air on material you bought presanded won't help much .Alder is a wood frequently sold abrasive "planed" and full of grit .In your machine planer or jointer avoid light initial cuts on gritty wood,take off a whole1/16" (or even more) feeding as fast as possible to minimize cutter damage.This is something counterintuitive but correct .Many will saw, plane, etc. slowly ; mistakenly thinking they are doing the right thing.

[Matthew N. Masail]

That's interesting I never thought of grit contaminating wood... does this happen with any sandpaper and how deep can the grit be in the wood?

[Christian Castillo]

I've only heard of this with regards to truing the soles of wooden planes and that sand paper should never be used because you would contaminate the sole of the plane with grit, which would then dislodge and pre-maturely dull the blade. I never thought much of it, so now that something similar is happening, I am very curious. Can't wait to hear other peoples take on this.

[Correy Smith]

Yup, drum sanders will impregnate surfaces with shedded aggregate and dull the blade within a few passes. I try to use a roughing plane after bulk material removal with the drum sander. Then fine plane with a nice smoother. Other than that a hard tempered blade can micro chip as well. Or even a blade that got too hot when given a rough grind. Japanese planes will often be too hard for the first 3~5mm and get better with use.

[Jim Koepke]

Following sanding with a plane is hard on the plane.

I have had woods that have a lot of grit in them from the area the trees were grown. Rosewood is often full of silica.


(Poplar ended up being cheaper at the home center, and they had stuff closer to the dimensions I needed in surfaced stock and I was feeling lazy)

I find some lumber yards are willing to work with people on prices. There is one in my area that does pretty good on price, but they seldom have more than a few pieces of the wood I am looking to buy.

jtk

[David Weaver]

I've only heard of this with regards to truing the soles of wooden planes and that sand paper should never be used because you would contaminate the sole of the plane with grit, which would then dislodge and pre-maturely dull the blade. I never thought much of it, so now that something similar is happening, I am very curious. Can't wait to hear other peoples take on this.

I know we see this a lot, but I think it depends on the plane and the paper. I have, for years, trued the soles of my japanese planes with sandpaper and had no issues even though they have the most plain carbon steel you could find (which would chip easily). Same with my beech jointers, I trued them on good quality paper and have never noticed any sandpaper issues.

If I was going to work borg wood, though, that had grit in it like what we're talking about here (soft wood especially where stuff sticks in it easily), I would buy a cheap chinese rosewood plane with a high speed steel blade to hog a layer off before I put a good sharp iron to it.

[Mel Fulks]

Good point about the silica actually being pulled up into the living tree. I usually think of true mahogany being easy to work, but some of the real old growth stuff has a lot of it.It seems to be one of the "extractives" that make old growth heartwoods different from just heartwoods.

[Jack Curtis]

I know we see this a lot, but I think it depends on the plane and the paper. I have, for years, trued the soles of my japanese planes with sandpaper and had no issues even though they have the most plain carbon steel you could find (which would chip easily). Same with my beech jointers, I trued them on good quality paper and have never noticed any sandpaper issues....

What wood did you use for your Japanese planes? I've only ever used kashi or hon red oak and have only ever used a sole conditioning plane (a wood scraper plane) for shaping the soles. If you've been able to deal with soles with sandpaper with good results, that opens the process a bit.

[Joey Naeger]

In my job, I sometimes have to work really minerally ebony. This stuff rips my blades to pieces. The best way I've found to deal with it is to sacrifice one blade by taking really thick shavings and roughing the fingerboard as close as possible. Then I refine the surface with as many blades as it takes with a lighter cut. I haven't figured out how to work abrasive material like this without really damaging my blades however. Good thing I have six for that particular plane...

[Harlan Barnhart]

If I was going to work borg wood, though, that had grit in it like what we're talking about here (soft wood especially where stuff sticks in it easily), I would buy a cheap chinese rosewood plane with a high speed steel blade to hog a layer off before I put a good sharp iron to it.

Hey, good idea. I have one and never use it.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I wonder how the new powdered metal blades from Veritas would hold up in this situation.

Good points on the silica content in some woods - the blade in the jointer plane actually kind of ended up behaving like my blades do after working cocobolo. . .

I figure the lumber yard I go to might be willing to bend on price, but they didn't have much of anything like I was looking for, and I was feeling a bit too lazy to deal with roughin stock to the sizes I needed.

[Kenneth Speed]

This is somewhere between a question and a suggestion: Wouldn't scraping the wood with a card scraper or cabinet scraper prior to planing make sense when dealing with wood that has gone through an abrasive planer?

I almost exclusively buy construction lumber from Home Depot and furniture/cabinet grade stuff elsewhere so I haven't run into this problem myself.

Ken

[Tony Shea]

I have recently been having this issue with some maple I have aquired from the Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor that they used on benches in changing rooms. I am incorporating some of this stock into my bench I've been working on and this stuff is really playing havock on my blades. It's actually only when I get into the darker heartwood of the maple when I run into issues and all it takes is one pass through this stuff to render my blade useless. Right after plowing through these sections and I move onto a nice clear patch all I get out of my plane is stringy/dusty shavings. Instantly sends me to my stones. I have never worked such awful stuff and that includes rosewoods and cocobolo.