View Full Version : Will my Byrd-Shelix head planer tear out an end grain cutting board?
Roger Feeley
09-05-2022, 9:10 AM
I have a Powermatic 15hh with a helical head. When I’ve made end grain cutting boards in the past, I leveled the surface with about a million passes through my wide drum sander. Could I have saved myself some grief by using the PM? I would glue some sacrificial boards on the outside edges to avoid splintering.
ChrisA Edwards
09-05-2022, 9:54 AM
I think I've seen MTMwood run his end grain cutting boards through his planer with support/sacrificial pieces glued on in many of his YT videos.
I think results will vary depending upon the wood species used.
I'm a bit of a wimp, after I've spent all the time cutting and glueing up the board, I usually go to my drum sander for final leveling. Don't think I've spent more than about 10 minutes, elapsed, passing the board through it.
I do have a CNC machine now, so my next cutting board I will try that with shallow surfacing passes.
Roger Feeley
09-05-2022, 10:06 AM
I don’t have a CNC. Maybe I should break down and make a small slab flattening setup for my router.
Robert L Stewart
09-05-2022, 1:34 PM
You have a good plan, a router slab flattening setup is easy to make and will get used down the road
Andrew Hughes
09-05-2022, 1:58 PM
I have used my pm planer with the bryd head to level end grain boards. It does just fine it’s not a finished surface. To remove the insert head marks I Hand plane them out.
Im not a wood grinder
Good Luck
Bob Falk
09-05-2022, 2:40 PM
I have made many endgrain cutting boards and use the planer to flatten before sanding on my drum sander. Shallow cuts and gluing a sacrificial board to the edges of the cutting board is the key.
Frank Martin
09-05-2022, 3:46 PM
I have done it using the jointer with super light cuts. Tersa head on Minimax. Cuts down a lot of the sanding.
al ladd
09-05-2022, 9:47 PM
Any planer will work, but shelix is much better and much, much more quiet. Easier than sacrificial end piece is to round all edges significantly with a router roundover bit before planing. This might not be feasible if you want sharp 90 degreeish edges, but most cutting boards benefit visually and handling-wise from a heavy roundover. It's also nice to send the board through on a sled with a supporting cleat to mitigate the action of bed rollers. You will need to follow-up with sanding (wide belt, stroke, drum or orbital in order of preference), but you'll be able to start with 100 or 120 . Made many hundreds this way.....
Patrick Kane
09-06-2022, 3:51 PM
Ive done it, but i remember a fair amount of surface tearout. I dont mean blowout on the back of the cut as it exits the machine, i mean tear across the entire surface. If your glueup is really poor and the joints are 1/16"+ off of one another then the planer can get you closer to a finished surface by having to deal with maybe 1/32"+/- of tearout. I had a drum sander, and that is definitely the preferable means of leveling end grain. If you insist on running it through the planer, then i would slightly wet the surface before planing, and take very light cuts.
I have the 20" HH version of your machine, so i assume our results will be similar.
al ladd
09-06-2022, 10:07 PM
Patrick's post reminded me that some woods do have a tendency to tear some, and feed direction matters, but it's unlikely the same direction will be best for every piece in the lamination. Generally softer woods are worse. I remember certain pieces of cherry being a problem. But woods maple and harder will generally cut almost perfectly, and if your inserts are sharp and well aligned sanding is a snap.
John Goodin
09-07-2022, 12:06 AM
What Bob said. I do stand to the side of the planer just in case there is a issue.
Jason White
09-08-2022, 7:30 PM
Buy a Veritas bevel-up jack plane. Perfect for this application.
Jonathan Jung
09-08-2022, 8:08 PM
40 grit can easily remove 1.0mm in a pass, have you tried that on the drum sander? I kept 24 grit around for heavy levelling when I had my drum sander. That low of grit is just as capable as a planer.
Matt Day
09-08-2022, 8:30 PM
Use the planer with light passes. Glue a sacrificial board to the end of it so that it tears out and not your board. Cut it off when done. Easy peasy. Don’t let the safety nazis scare you!
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