"I got minimal tear-out"

[Paul K. Johnson]

"I used such-and-such plane using such-and-such method and I got minimal tear-out."

I see this all the time here, on YouTube and other sites that I read. So he got tear-out.

What do you do about it? Do you keep planing until it's gone, use filler, put the project in the kindling pile and start over or just live with it?

I've gotten some really nasty tear-out on the pine I'm working with - some of it's 1/16" deep. There's plenty of wood if I want to plane all that away but I don't want to. It's a lot of wood and I should have been done with this project three weeks ago.

[Prashun Patel]

With each project, my ability to read the wood improves as does my sharpening ability. I can make it further and further to the finishing step without pulling out the sandpaper.

For me, I caused myself a lot of frustration at the earlier stages aiming for perfection in planing and viewing my resorting to sandpaper as a failure. Now I see that it's a skill (for me) acquired over years, not days. My advice [weekend warrior advice alert ;)] is to push yourself a little further each project, but don't beat yourself up for wanting to take the shorter cut at some point. Incremental improvements.

[Cary Falk]

It's pine, throw it out and get some real wood. :) Throw the planes out while you are at it. :) I would sand it out with a belt sander( I have3 differ sizes) but it seems like many people hate belt sanders like I hate planes. I have not had any luck with wood filler and strive to not use any.

[Paul K. Johnson]

I actually like pine a lot. It's not pretentious. My planes are really freakin sharp. You can always tell when I've been sharpening stuff because I manage to nick my hand someplace every single time and it doesn't take much. Usually I just lightly bump the edge and now I'm dripping blood all over my project.

I also like pine because it's cheap to learn on and the projects I'm using it for don't warrant expensive wood. I have the skill to make a nice box or pretty much anything that's small that doesn't require wood carving artistry. But the big stuff I'm just not set up for.

For example, my current project is still that same stupid chemical cabinet. I made a base and a top that are identical. Basically I'm framing it as one piece. Then I'll cut it apart and line the inside with plywood and then add shelves.

The base is roughly 3' x 4'. I don't have any proper way to hold it while I work on it.

So it's propped up on a counter with same spacers between it and the wall so I can plane it. But it's longer than the counter is wide so I've got a stand under one of the corners which moves to the other corner when I'm working on the other side.

I have one of those little portable wood vise things with dog holes in my shop. I set up a stop on the other end of my workbench and cut a bunch of piers the same height as the vise thing to support the wood. So basically I'm using dogs on the vice to clamp against a stop that's clamped to my workbench (the top of my bench is 1/2" tempered glass) with a bunch of pieces under the wood in between spaced about a foot apart. And it's all way to high to plane properly.

My point is that everything is jury-rigged so it's not coming out all that great and it's way more work than it should be. So instead of screwing up expensive wood, I'm screwing up cheap wood.

Oh.. and there's no room to even work on this project in my shop after any of it is glued together so I'm assembling in the kitchen and planing in the office I'm sitting in right now.

[John K Jordan]

I actually like pine a lot. It's not pretentious.

Ain't nuttin' wrong with pine! In some parts of the world it is in demand.

I visited a full-time woodworker in northern Italy (Merano) who showed me a huge stack photos of decades of woodworking projects, furniture, kitchens, baths, office installations, much more. Beautiful! He "said" (we had no common language, but the photos appeared to back it up) that he uses pine for nearly all work. I think I understood he had a waiting list.

Here he is preparing a thick chunk of beautiful olive wood to fit in my suitcase.

363255

Next time I go I'll try to find out how he deals with pine! Probably like me, with a drum sander...

JKJ

[John TenEyck]

I bought a drum sander. When I don't have tearout problems, I stop about 0.020" from my final target, and take 2 or 3 passes on each side through the drum sander to get to my target. When I have really bad tearout like you described, I'll stop up 1/16" short and endure the drudgery of having to take lots of passes through the drum sander to get down to the target.

The two faster solutions are to get a segmented head planer or a more robust drum sander. I'm looking to trade up to a heavier duty drum sander. If I used pine (never do) I'd probably get a segmented head planer because that stuff is awful in a drum sander.

John

[Paul K. Johnson]

I actually found the knottiest sides of the boards to put them on the outside. I'm hiding the knot-free sides on the inside. Of course that meant planing through knots which hasn't been much of a problem so far.

[John K Jordan]

I've never tried it with a plane, but I wonder if the method I sometimes use on the lathe where chipout is present would work: flood the wood with sander sealer or even thinned sander sealer. Depending on the wood, it sometimes works to "glue" fibers in place.

JKJ

[Tony Leonard]

Well, it happens! A sixteenth is pretty harsh. What I usually do is try and hide that section. In some boards, the grain changes direction and it is very difficult to avoid. Yeah, there are all sorts of tricks to avoid it and with time, you'll get better at seeing it before it happens and employing some of those tricks. If you are planing through knots, you are already pretty good! Depending on the project, yes, sometimes I'l select a new board for that part.

I have used the various tricks to repair and avoid, I hide it, I cuss and holler (it doesn't help!), etc.

Tony

[andy bessette]

Sharply honed HSS blades.

[Lee Schierer]

On every piece of wood you are going to plane down, you want to look closely at the surface before you make the first pass. Try to read the grain, then make a pass through your planer and pay attention to the surface as it comes out. If there is tear out in any area consider reversing the feed direction to see if the tear out is any less. You will also want to reduce the thickness of the cut. Very light cuts are less likely to produce tear out, but your progress toward the desired dimension will be slower. Patience is a virtue when dealing with tear out. If you are using a hand plane, you can feel how the piece is cutting. On any given piece of wood, it will plane easier in one direction than it will in the other. A scribble of paraffin wax on the sole of your plane will reduce the friction and make planing much easier. If your direction of planing is -> then you want the ends of the grain to lean ////////. If the grain is leaning \\\\\ you will get tear out. Take a piece of old tee shirt and slide it along the surface of your board with light pressure, you can feel the grain ends grab the tee shirt more in one direction than the other. AND, sometime the grain reverses one or more times along the length of a board.

[Warren Mickley]

I haven't had problems with tear out for forty years. I use double iron planes. It takes quite a bit of experimentation to get a feel for the double iron, what setting to use and what depth of cut to use, but the results are well worth the effort to learn. It is helpful to plane in a favorable direction, but you should be able to take full length shavings in either direction without tear out.

[steven c newman]

363315
This is Knotty white pine..

There is a knot right under that plane.
I also find that IF I plane away from a knot, instead of trying to plow right over it, no tear-out happens. Look around the knots, read the way the grain runs INTO the knots, and go away from the knot and with the grain.

Panel is the top of a pine pantry cupboard I just finished up a while back...

363317
SHARP tools on the lathe works nicely. Although Pen Turners use a version of Super Glue / CA to seal their blanks before they turn them...

[Jim Koepke]

Was this thread moved here from a different conference?

jtk

[Paul K. Johnson]

Yes. It was in the General Woodworking forum. I couldn't find it until I clicked a link in my email. :)

[Jim Koepke]

Pine is a tricky wood to work, especially around knots. Pine is my main wood because it is inexpensive.

The hardest part is finding a good supplier. Often the boards in the big box stores have a lot of splits or bark. I usually only buy from sellers that let me pick the wood. Thankfully their are enough of those.

jtk

[Nicholas Lawrence]

What do you do about it? Do you keep planing until it's gone, use filler, put the project in the kindling pile and start over or just live with it?


I think Warren is trying to suggest that with experience you will have less tearout. For those of us who are still learning, it does happen occasionally. If you are reading the grain correctly to start with, it will mostly happen in an area where there is a change in the grain. What to do about it? It depends. Is it a gift for somebody? In that case maybe put it in the kindling pile and start over. If you don't want to do that, and can live with something that is not perfect, you can certainly sand it a little and see if you can improve that area. The other option that is often better in my opinion is to use a card scraper. You are not going to want to eliminate a 1/16 problem with a card scraper, but hopefully you are not getting a lot of that.

[Kees Heiden]

Rest assured, antique pieces, even high profile ones aren't always without tearout either. And I was visiting a friend last night, who had a very expensive dining table made from some tropical wood. First thing I saw was a bunch of sapwood and tearout. So far for expensive furniture...

You'll get more proficient when you gain experience. Learn to use the capiron to controll tearout. And when some still happens: there is no shame in using a card scraper and/or some sandpaper. For pine it'll be the sandpaper because it doesn't scrape very well.

[Hasin Haroon]

I typically don't get much tearout from Pine at all. If your plane blades are well sharpened, check the position of your chip breaker - I position mine anywhere from 1/32 or less to 1/16th. And very light finishing passes should give you that characteristic planed pine sheen.

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
And very light finishing passes should give you that characteristic planed pine sheen.

An old wise man once said, "1/16" tear out doesn't often come from 0.001" shavings."

jtk

[Paul K. Johnson]

All my tear-out is from planing in the wrong direction. When reading the grain it was all over the place and I didn't see a predominant direction. When I go the other way it's smoother than silk. My chipbreakers are less than 1/32 from the blade edge and they're seated properly.

The tear-out that prompted this thread was when I was planing down the end of the piece 90 degrees to it and when it became flush it took out a chunk at the beginning of the board where the end grain stopped from the joined board. It's a rabbet joint.

[Kees Heiden]

You mean spelching? I don't quite follow your description. A picture might help.

[Hasin Haroon]

Paul, sounds like you were planing the end grain. If so, the blowout at the ends is pretty common. Couple ways you can prevent this, like planing a light chamfer on the end you expect to get blowout before planing, or by simply clamping another board to the end so that the blowout occurs in your clamped board instead. A light touch helps too.

[Stanley Covington]

So he got tear-out.

What do you do about it? Do you keep planing until it's gone, use filler, put the project in the kindling pile and start over or just live with it?

Assuming I read the wood correctly, but that the grain switches back and forth with contrary areas that refuse too cooperate, the remedial steps I take are as follows, in order of priority:

1. Check chipbreaker setting, and built-up gum. Clean gum off, oil chipbreaker, reset;
2. Check mouth width. If too wide, correct, or switch to plane with narrower mouth;
3. Check blade sharpness and resharpen if necessary;
4. Check blade depth-of-cut setting;
5. If 1,2,3,4 look good, then reduce depth-of-cut setting even further;
6. If 1,2,3,4,5 look good, and localized contrary grain still tears, then take short stopped shavings, in the opposite direction, to remove localized tearout damage. Wet area beforehand with damp rag and let water soak in a minute or so.
7. Finish the entire surface with a very finely-set finish plane. The cuts will skip over the areas of contrary grain lowered in step 6.
8. If this still fails, let wood dry completely, and use scraper.
9. If the scraper fails, finish with sandpaper. Pine finished with sandpaper must be finished with a product like varnish or PU that will stop the shredded wood fibers from rising in subsequent years.

Stan