End Grain

[Bob Yarbrough]

New to hand planes. Bought a couple of Lee Valley's low angle planes, (block & 41/2). I put together a face frame and am trying to plane the edges flush with the box. Suggestions on how to handle the 2 1/2 inches of end grain at each end of the face frame?

[Brad Olson]

You might need to do some practice since part of succes with endgrain is being able to "read" the grain. Once you can read the grain you will be able to tell the angle to attack the grain. This often requires a skewed approach.

A few things that will help. If you are taking off a lot of waste score the long grain fibers with a marking knife and then chamfer the stuff sticking out down to the mark, this will prevent blow out.

If you are having trouble with blow out, especilaly in woods like oak, clamp saccrificial boards to the sides and use them to support the wood as you plane.

Your blades will have to be VERY sharp and touch them up often. End grain planing can do a lot of damage in a hurry and so an ounce of prevention in this case is honing the blade often.

I would suggest a good, well sharpened bench plane as opposed to a block plane as then you can plane into the long grain of the face frame.. If the blade is sharp and you practice you shouldn't have problems with the end grain. The added weight of the bench plane will help, but this is wood specific. It works fantastically in cherry, but not so great in oak

Even thought this is a neander forum, it may actually be easier to use your tablesaw and use a set of jointer clamps or a carrier board to go along your rip fence and then do only small bits of tweaking with a well sharpened plane.