Working with soft maple…..and planer

[Justin Jump]

This is my first time working with soft maple, picked up some to build some cabinet mock up parts and practice.

Anyways, any advice, up until now, I have really only worked with Ash, Walnut, Polar, Oak……

The one thing I did notice, is that running them on my jointer and planer, I am getting some tear out. I did just replace the blades on both machines (Ridgid 6” jointer and the Ridgid 13” planer) last year, but is it time to freshen them up already?

The planer is easy, I would love to not have to go through the process on the jointer again, but if it needs it,,,it needs it. I am getting just small variations in the cut, I tried to take a picture, but it would not show up on camera.

Also, any advice on how to get rid of the unwanted “snipe”? Until now, I followed the easiest method, and just cut the board 6” longer and cut the snipe off, but I would hate to waste that material on the maple.

Thinking of selling the older style Ridigd 4330 on CL, and getting the new 4331, any one use both?

THX

[Jack Lemley]

This is my first time working with soft maple, picked up some to build some cabinet mock up parts and practice.

Anyways, any advice, up until now, I have really only worked with Ash, Walnut, Polar, Oak……

The one thing I did notice, is that running them on my jointer and planer, I am getting some tear out. I did just replace the blades on both machines (Ridgid 6” jointer and the Ridgid 13” planer) last year, but is it time to freshen them up already?

The planer is easy, I would love to not have to go through the process on the jointer again, but if it needs it,,,it needs it. I am getting just small variations in the cut, I tried to take a picture, but it would not show up on camera.

Also, any advice on how to get rid of the unwanted “snipe”? Until now, I followed the easiest method, and just cut the board 6” longer and cut the snipe off, but I would hate to waste that material on the maple.

Thinking of selling the older style Ridigd 4330 on CL, and getting the new 4331, any one use both?

THX

Shelix Byrd head. Upgraded my DeWalt 735 a year or so ago and never looked back.

Jack

[Earl Rumans]

Make sure you are running the boards through with the proper grain direction. You always want to run the boards with the grain going the same direction that the blades are turning. Going against the grain can cause tearout, no matter how sharp the blades are. Another thing is to take very small cuts, taking larger cuts can also lead to tearout.

[Mark Bolton]

Your going to deal with snipe at some level with nearly any machine. It can often times be minimized but rarely eliminated. Find peace in the small amount of waste. Either that or hand plane.

[Peter Quinn]

Soft maple is challenging regarding tear out. Forget grain direction, it's a rare piece where the grain all goes the same direction over its length, so you are going backward at least pat of the time. Sometimes one direction wlll tear less. Take light passes, moderate feed rate on jointer, and very fresh knives help. Or spiral heads.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Maple, especially soft maple, is notorious for the grain twisting in different directions. Oftentimes, it doesn't matter which way you run the board through, the jointer will find a place to tear out. It tends to be really frustrating and the only solution I've found, short of upgrading to a Shelix Byrd head, as Jack suggests, is to go just as slow as you can, short of burning, taking the slightest of cuts at a time.

Regarding snipe, if it's the jointer, check all your adjustments .. the height and level of the knives, the height and relationship of the tables to be sure everything is lined up. If it's the planer, if height and level adjustments on the rollers are correct, try lifting the board a bit on infeed and outfeed. That sometimes works. There can be a multitude of causes for snipe.

[Mel Fulks]

Soft maple does much better with high grade knives like m2 or t1 ,most of the proprietary quick change knives are low grade. See if someone makes high grade knives to fit that machine. New knives like the ones you have now won't make much difference.

[Justin Jump]

thanks all....

No snipe on the jointer, just the planer.

I thought I had the jointer dialed in pretty good. I'll run a few more test pieces tonight and go slower, but so far, I may clean and throw in new knives,

The planer on the other hand, may spend a few hours cleaning and adjusting.

I wont have to run a ton of soft maple, but enough to do face frames and stiles and rails for kitchen cabinets, the door insert will be 1/4" ply most likely.

[Lee Schierer]

You can minimize or eliminate snipe by lifting the tail of the board as you start to feed it into the planer. Then butt the next board up against the end of the first board so you get continuous feeding and there will be no snipe between boards.

For my lunch box planer, I built a table for it to sit in that has longer extension on the in feed and out feed and I virtually no snipe at all since the tables are slightly higher than the planer bed. The fold down tables on lunch box planers all flex under the weight of the board creating snipe and heavy duty planers don't have long in feed tables so the boards tend to sag, which raise up the first few inches until the roller behind the cutter is on the board. The same thing is tru as the board exits the planer.

[Loren Woirhaye]

You can wet the boards with a sponge. Sometimes that works for tearout.

The other solution, which really works, is to remove the blades and put a 5 degree back bevel on them. It can be done with a Makita wet grinder, Tormek, or similar sharpening rig. Some benchtop planers use knives that may not allow this modification, in which case you can try new knives.

An alternative is to surface the boards by hand using planes with effective cutting angles of 50 degrees or higher. This can be accomplished with bevel-up planes, with a plane designed for figured woods (German wood smooth planes, commonly), or by back beveling the iron in a standard bench plane to 5 degrees or more.

[Erik Loza]

You can wet the boards with a sponge. Sometimes that works for tearout....

This was going to be my suggestion as well ^^^

Also, (if the width board will allow it...), try feeding the piece through at an angle. This gives you a sort of shearing effect that sometimes helps.

Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[lowell holmes]

If you will keep a spray bottle with water in it, you can minimize tear out in soft maple by misting the wood as you feed it into the planer.

[Charles Coolidge]

Two things, go with Byrd Shelix cutter heads, second regarding your snipe buy some cheap Poplar or pine to use as sacrificial pieces, feed a piece of that in first followed by your maple all butted up against each other then a sacrificial piece at the rear, with any luck you will only get snipe on the front of the first sacrificial board and the rear of the last sacrificial board. You could even plane down some cheap 2x4's for this.

[Cary Falk]

For the snipe problem, I adjusted it out on my lunchbox by elevating the ends of the infeed and outfeed tables slightly above the table. I believe the manual for my Delta said put a dime on the table on each side of the cutterhead. Put a straight edge on the dimes. Bring the edge of the infeed and outfeed table up to the straight edge.

[glenn bradley]

A lot of good advice here. Grain direction will minimize tearout. I use a lot of tearout prone woods and so made the switch to spiral heads on jointer and planer. This is not a priority for everyone, your situation may not warrant it. As to snipe, like Cary I adjust it out. The idea that I have to lop off a couple of inches from each end of a board I am milling won't fly with me. I used the "ten cent" method Cary describes on my lunchbox planer. On my floor planer I adjust the tables and platten dead flat and recess the bed rollers. On the rare occasion that I do get snipe from a lively piece of stock that moves while milling, I am always surprised. Zero snipe and zero tearout is the norm for me but, it will happen every blue moon. YMMV.

[peter gagliardi]

Having run a professional shop for 20+/- years, I will tell you that you want to take HEAVY cuts on figured wood, assuming your machinery is all dialed in accurately and sharp. I know this goes against every other post here, but it is perfectly sound advise. Most of my work involves figured/curly/ Birdseye maple and cherry, rarely if ever do I get tear out. If you analyze the cutting geometry of what is happening, you will find this to be true. Having a heavy "ramp" of wood in front of the cutter, virtually eliminates the possibility of tearout.

[Mel Fulks]

Peter, I agree on this. And no matter how deep the cut is ....it's always taking small cut right at the finished surface. What grade steel are you using? I'm guessing it's not the cheapest.

[peter gagliardi]

Mel, I run plain old high speed steel knives. One trick is not setting the knife with too much projection from the face of the gib. One issue the OP may have is that a lot of the newer machines are not designed for, or have enough power to run +/- 1/8" passes over the full width of the cutter head.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks, Peter. But my point was too much is being called "high speed", I don't know of any machines sold with real HS.
Years ago they distinguished between HS and SEMI HS. I blame price shopping on 800 numbers. No info was given to customer as everyone was calling for lowest price...so they got it. Since many had only used low grade that came in machine when new they continued to do so. I have had to make moulder knives and custom order them. One guy I worked for always used same supplier . On my first order there I specd M2 on my drawing Fax. Guy called me back and said they had gone to (insert meaningless name for cheap steel here) I insisted on M2 even though he had to order it.

[Mel Fulks]

Oops hit wrong button! ....and now the exiting end: Ten or 15 years later in another job I have to use the same supplier .
When I specd M2 the same guy said "actually that's the lowest grade we sell" . When I told him of previous order he said
"we got too many complaints about that stuff". I find places without a moulder know less about steel and always buy cheap. The idea of shallow cuts being better is widespread and I don't doubt anyone else's experience but for me the only time that helps is if dust collection is inadequate ,then it at least keeps chips from sandblasting surface.