How to plane/surface Birdseye Maple?

[Michael Yadfar]

I'm building a little table to go against a wall, and chose to use Birdseye for the first time to incorporate as part of the top. I was completely oblivious to the fact that it's hard to work, but recently read somewhere it takes special care not to tear out. I couldn't really find all that much info other than that it's preferable to use a wide belt sander or drum sander.

My jointer has straight knives so that tears out even regular wood sometimes, but that's ok because I only joint the bottom sides. For the top, I have a 15" Grizzly planer with a spiral head which cuts like fine grit sandpaper. However, it still lifts wood so I can see tear out. The piece is only 3 1/2" wide, so the only alternative I can see is running a face against the blade on the table saw. However, that often burns the wood and leaves uneven spots.

[Richard Shaefer]

I'm building a little table to go against a wall, and chose to use Birdseye for the first time to incorporate as part of the top. I was completely oblivious to the fact that it's hard to work, but recently read somewhere it takes special care not to tear out. I couldn't really find all that much info other than that it's preferable to use a wide belt sander or drum sander.

My jointer has straight knives so that tears out even regular wood sometimes, but that's ok because I only joint the bottom sides. For the top, I have a 15" Grizzly planer with a spiral head which cuts like fine grit sandpaper. However, it still lifts wood so I can see tear out. The piece is only 3 1/2" wide, so the only alternative I can see is running a face against the blade on the table saw. However, that often burns the wood and leaves uneven spots.

i re saw Birdseye and tiger maple with a 1" blade on the band saw, then sand or scrape. If you have any hand tool chops, then you can use a high angle smoother with a blade made so sharp your eyes bleed looking at the edge and run at a wicked skew over the board. A good cabinet scraper works wonders, too.

spiral head machines are great, but they don't work for everything

[Michael Yadfar]

i re saw Birdseye and tiger maple with a 1" blade on the band saw, then sand or scrape. If you have any hand tool chops, then you can use a high angle smoother with a blade made so sharp your eyes bleed looking at the edge and run at a wicked skew over the board. A good cabinet scraper works wonders, too.

spiral head machines are great, but they don't work for everything

I've resawn a good amount of wood but only with a 1/2" blade because that's the biggest my bandsaw can handle. Obviously the cut was somewhat ruff so it needed a pass or two on the planer. I know people typically use figured wood as veneer, but I'm not using too much so I was just going to go solid which I think will save some hassle. But I can obviously still use hand tools the same way. I would have to buy the tools because all I have is a $10 chisel set, but that's ok. Sometimes people go from hand tools to power tools, but I'm actually planning to go the other way

[Allan Speers]

As Richard mentioned: Bandsaw first, then sand or scrape. You should be able to get "very close" with that spiral head also. A good trick there is to wet the wood first before planing it.

Personally, with such a narrow piece, I'd definitely use a scraper. Just a hand-held card scraper will do. No need for an expensive hand plane right now. The important thing is to learn how to sharpen and burnish the scraper. Lots of good info to be found on this, all over the net.

[Randy Viellenave]

I just used birdsye to build a couple sjoelbak boards with 2-5/8 x 80 side rails, and saw no issues with the planer. I have a Dewalt 13", used the 176cpi (slow) feed setting and took off 1/32 or less per cut and got great results. I would suggest just taking a little at a time and keeping the feed speed slow, but I have never used a spiral cutter. Good luck!

[Len Rosenberg]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades. I've done that with straight knives on my planer and figured/curly maple comes out nicely.

[Erik Loza]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades...

+1 for this ^^^^^

Also, you could try to lightly moisten the surface prior to making the pass.

Erik

[Richard Shaefer]

I've resawn a good amount of wood but only with a 1/2" blade because that's the biggest my bandsaw can handle. Obviously the cut was somewhat ruff so it needed a pass or two on the planer. I know people typically use figured wood as veneer, but I'm not using too much so I was just going to go solid which I think will save some hassle. But I can obviously still use hand tools the same way. I would have to buy the tools because all I have is a $10 chisel set, but that's ok. Sometimes people go from hand tools to power tools, but I'm actually planning to go the other way

I've found that most people I know go from power tools to hand tools. Eventually, you get demanding enough to want a level of stock removal that only hand tools can accomplish. There's not a lot of power tools out there that can shave 0.001" off a board like a sharp Bailey 4.

[Prashun Patel]

Your spiral head should not have a problem on that kind of wood. What do you mean that it lifts the wood? Take light passes. The direction shouldnt be too important on a spiral head, but my perception is that it does make a difference. Also, skew the board as the others mention.

[Erik Loza]

I want to float this out there as well: One thing I have seen is owners falling for the whole "magic bullet"-thing, thinking that this or that cutterhead will give them the exact result they want (or the result that someone else talked about on the web...) on every piece of wood, every time. With crazy stuff like birdseye maple, I could run half a dozen pieces through our planer with fresh set of knives each time and get a slightly different result each one of those times. That's not to say that some styles of cutterhead won't give more consistent results than others but in the end, the actual piece of wood probably has more to do with it than anything else and as someone else mentioned, you still will probably machine it by hand.

Best of luck,

Erik

[Frank Drackman]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades. I've done that with straight knives on my planer and figured/curly maple comes out nicely.

In addition to increasing the shear angle I find that spraying a mist of water really helps with tearout.

[peter gagliardi]

Heavy cuts- 1/8" or more, are your best options with figured wood, if you have equipment up to the task. Light passes is asking for trouble.
I have worked 10's of thousands of board feet of birdseye, curly, and tiger figured woods, maple among them.

[lowell holmes]

As Eric stated, light pass and spray surface with water as it enters the planer. It does work, try it.

[Orlyn Gaddis]

I work with a lot of figured maple (birds-eye, tiger stripe and fiddle back) as well as figured walnut and cherry. I use the planer (straight knives but often feeding the board on a diagonal) making very light cuts and finish up the last few thousanths with a 26 inch drum sander. The abrasive planer seems to eliminate all the unfortunate surprises that result from all other cutting/planing methods I've tried with figured wood.

[Art Mann]

I've found that most people I know go from power tools to hand tools. Eventually, you get demanding enough to want a level of stock removal that only hand tools can accomplish. There's not a lot of power tools out there that can shave 0.001" off a board like a sharp Bailey 4.

0.001" isn't enough to make any difference. However, I do take off 0.005" increments fairly regularly with my drum sander to make a figured piece flat. I need that kind of accuracy for doing intricate carvings with a CNC router. It is one thing to be able to shave off a piece of material you can read text through. It is a much more challenging thing to make a board flat and consistently thick to +/- 0.005". I know there are people on these forums who can do it but I don't have that kind of patience even if I had that kind of skill.

[Michael Yadfar]

I also have a handheld belt sander, but never liked using it. It's very hard to control and ends up either taking off more wood than I want or making one side lower than another. My dad really wanted it and I don't think he used it once. I would imagine that would not be practical in anyway as I would like the thickness to be even with the other boards

[mreza Salav]

just be aware if the "spiral cutter head" on grizzly is a true shear cutting like Byrd or is it the grizzly version? the grizzly version is simply a straight knife cutter head stacked in "spiral" form. So you won't get the shearing cut unless you feed the board at an angle.

[Art Mann]

I also have a handheld belt sander, but never liked using it. It's very hard to control and ends up either taking off more wood than I want or making one side lower than another. My dad really wanted it and I don't think he used it once. I would imagine that would not be practical in anyway as I would like the thickness to be even with the other boards
I am not sure whether you were responding to my comment about a drum sander but it is a very different tool than a belt sander. A drum sander is more like a thickness planer than a belt sander, except that it is capable of very fine and accurate dimensioning and smoothing of wood that is already pretty close - like veneer for example. You don't control a drum sander. You feed the wood into one side and retrieve it from the other. Feed rollers move the wood under the sanding drum and through the machine. The biggest drawback to using a drum sander to dimension a plank is that it only removes 1/64" or so with each trip - and that is with 80 grit. It will take a long time to remove 1/8" but you will not get any tear out no matter what species or figure you are dealing with.

[Michael Yadfar]

just be aware if the "spiral cutter head" on grizzly is a true shear cutting like Byrd or is it the grizzly version? the grizzly version is simply a straight knife cutter head stacked in "spiral" form. So you won't get the shearing cut unless you feed the board at an angle.

I do have the Grizzly one and you're right about the knives facing forward. Although on regular lumber it makes no difference whether it goes in straight or angled, I typically send shorter stock through that way anyway

[Chris Fournier]

Your spiral head should not have a problem on that kind of wood. What do you mean that it lifts the wood? Take light passes. The direction shouldnt be too important on a spiral head, but my perception is that it does make a difference. Also, skew the board as the others mention.

I'm not sure that I understand your thoughts here. A spiral cutter head won't allow you to ignore grain direction, the cutting edge still should be entering a rising grain, into the face of a hill so to speak. Have I misunderstood your post?

[Prashun Patel]

Since I've had my spiral cutter head, it's so good, I find I don't have to be as careful about selecting the direction of feed into the machine. I have read that others have had the same positive experience. BUT, I don't find that it works ALL the time; I do find that direction matters in some cases.

[Patrick Walsh]

Straight off a spiral head.

Maybe its time to rotate your knives?

I do agree with Eric, you will get a difderent result board to board. For instance i was milling up a piece of highly figured curly or tiger maple on the same machine and for whatever reason i was getting some tearout. Then all the sudden i just stopped getting tearout on that specific piece of tiger maple. Seems to me i had hit a soft or hard who knows vein of figure or something.

On a side note just about any plane i own even when not crazy sharp will plane this wood so long as i read the wood right.

331770

[Chris Fournier]

Figured wood has radial and tangential grain intersecting the face which creates the figure as each refracts light differently. As we remove the surface you can imagine that the intersection of the radial and tangential grains changes turning trouble zones into harmless spots and areas where we had no trouble becomes a trouble. Light cuts and dampening the surface/sit/mill will get the best results.

As far as the miracle of the spiral head goes I would agree that in theory you should get better results than straight knives as long as you have knives of equal sharpness and you feed the boards in straight to both machines. Skew the board into the straight knife machine and you can negate much of the advantage of the spiral head. Skew the board into the spiral head machine and you can negate the advantage of the spiral head! I think that most of the claims that the spiral head is so much better than the straight cutter head stems from the fact that most guys were letting their straight knives go way too long as they are a bit of a pain to change and they opted to run dull knives. I have straight and spiral heads in my shop and I'd take a Tersa with HSS knives over a carbide equipped spiral head if I was forced to choose because the former gives me the best results.

A delicate touch and careful attention to grain direction will always yield the best results regardless of your machine or handtool.

Birdseye blows my mind and I enjoy using it every time, I hope that your project goes well!

[peter gagliardi]

Light cuts will get the best results.



A delicate touch will always yield the best results regardless of your machine.

I'm sorry, but this information is blatantly false, and keeps on being perpetuated by those with little or no experience, to the detriment of those looking for consistent solid results.
I mill roughly 3-5000 bf of this material almost every year. I can tell you with reasonably sharp knives, and an 1/8" cut, tearout simply DOES NOT exist on my machines.
Now, granted, some machines do not have the ability to cut this deep, but the results are possible if the machine can.
Light cuts is like pushing a fingernail across a scab.

I'm not singling you out Chris, just the quoted ideas as an example.

[Mel Fulks]

I agree with Peter. I would only add the knives need to be not only sharp but high quality. Real high speed steel,not
"same hardness" as high speed. This is something I'd rather "second" than lead on as there are a lot of smart guys who disagree. I won't argue with their expirience. So many variables and standards. But I have never gotten less tear out with more cuts.

[Bob Grier]

I am not sure how sending a board through at an angle can be considered a shear cut, at least relative to the cutting blade. If the cutting blade is attacking the board perpendicular to the cutting edge of the blade, then wouldn't that be a normal cut. In order to be a shear cut, wouldn't the cutting edge need to attack the board at other than perpendicular to the cutting edge. The board going through at an angle is still advancing perpendicular to the cutting edge in straight knife cutter head unless it is spiral cutter. Does direction of grain make it a shear cut? Is that what people are talking about?

[Michael Peet]

I am not sure how sending a board through at an angle can be considered a shear cut, at least relative to the cutting blade. If the cutting blade is attacking the board perpendicular to the cutting edge of the blade, then wouldn't that be a normal cut. In order to be a shear cut, wouldn't the cutting edge need to attack the board at other than perpendicular to the cutting edge. The board going through at an angle is still advancing perpendicular to the cutting edge in straight knife cutter head unless it is spiral cutter.

I was thinking along the same lines but heck maybe I'm out in left field too. If the blade edge is perpendicular to the direction of feed, it seems to me you won't get a shear cut regardless of the board orientation.

This is how I visualize it from a hand plane perspective (top view, red line is the cutting edge):

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Some planes have the angle built in (skew planes) so you can get the shear cut while pushing the plane straight forward. I think of this as similar to the cutters on a Byrd head, which are oriented at a slight angle relative to the feed direction. Here's Lie-Nielsen's description of their Skew Block Plane (emphasis mine):


[...] this multi-talented tool is designed to deal with difficult woods using a combination of a low angle approach, shear cutting action from the skewed and tilted blade, and extra weight of the bronze body.

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/skew-block-plane-left


Does direction of grain make it a shear cut? Is that what people are talking about?

This too I was wondering.

Mike

[Peter Kelly]

Could always try a router planing sled. Pretty simple to build one and you won't likely get tearing on highly figured woods, end grain, etc.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0SDvKHcL5M

[Art Mann]

I was thinking along the same lines but heck maybe I'm out in left field too. If the blade edge is perpendicular to the direction of feed, it seems to me you won't get a shear cut regardless of the board orientation.

This is how I visualize it from a hand plane perspective (top view, red line is the cutting edge):

331884

Some planes have the angle built in (skew planes) so you can get the shear cut while pushing the plane straight forward. I think of this as similar to the cutters on a Byrd head, which are oriented at a slight angle relative to the feed direction. Here's Lie-Nielsen's description of their Skew Block Plane (emphasis mine):



https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/skew-block-plane-left



This too I was wondering.

Mike

This is the power tool forum. The planer in question is a stationary power tool, not a hand plane. Here is one way to see what is being talked about. Suppose you feed a 10 inch square board through a 15 inch planer. You can feed the board in so that it cuts with the grain, exactly cross grain, or any point in between. You can most certainly produce a shear cut in that scenario and it will definitely improve the results on figured lumber. You can do something like that with longer, wider material but there is a severe limit to the length and width that will feed through without hitting the edge of the planer bed.

[Chris Fournier]

I'm sorry, but this information is blatantly false, and keeps on being perpetuated by those with little or no experience, to the detriment of those looking for consistent solid results.
I mill roughly 3-5000 bf of this material almost every year. I can tell you with reasonably sharp knives, and an 1/8" cut, tearout simply DOES NOT exist on my machines.
Now, granted, some machines do not have the ability to cut this deep, but the results are possible if the machine can.
Light cuts is like pushing a fingernail across a scab.

I'm not singling you out Chris, just the quoted ideas as an example.

I haven't perpetuated any myth Peter but you have made some pretty serious assumptions. I too have machined a mountain of figured material in my day and I'll stand by my assertions, nothing blatantly false claimed by me. The goal in my shop is defect free boards so I will hog then approach final dimension in smaller increments. I do the same thing in my machine shop, it's standard practice and has been for as long as mankind has been milling wood and metal.

I am going to guess that if you are machining as much material as you claim that you have industrial grade equipment and indeed this kind of machinery can take more aggressive cuts and shops tend to run sharper knives than the average hobbiest.

If your cut is deep enough to not leave the infeed roller impressions you are making a fine cut, not pushing a nail across a scab. Dull blades, then maybe but that is operator error.

I try to keep my insights and advice to OPs relevant by recognizing that most are using lighter hobby grade machines.

No offence taken!