grain question

[Laurie Brown]

I have a question regarding grain and jointing/planing. I'm new to all this stuff, having just gotten my jointer and planer. I have this piece of maple in the below pics. I've heard you need to go with the grain when jointing an edge, but how do I know which direction is with the grain? And do I have to worry about grain direction when I plane, or does it not matter which way I feed it through the planer?

http://www.aerth.org/Downloads/mvc-176s.jpg

http://www.aerth.org/Downloads/mvc-177s.jpg

[Lee Schierer]

When feeding the board across a jointer or through a planer you wan teh grain wehre it meets the surface being macined to be like \\\\\\\ and not like ///////. You will get tear out if you go the wrong way some of the time. It takes a bit of practice to tell by sight and some boards like the one in your photo has grain going both ways along the one edge. You can take and old cotton tee shirt or nylon slip and rub it along the surface. In one direction it is going to tend to slide easily and in the other direction it is going to tend to hang up. Imaging runiing your hand over the top of these: \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\. From left to right the points are going to dig into your hand. From right to left your hand will flow over the points. You would want to feed the right end into the cutter first.

When you do the opposite side or edge the grain normally will be going the other way so you will need to swap ends.

Hopefully this is clear enough.

[Ralph Barhorst]

On a board with an arch shown in the grain pattern, such as the one you show here, you should put the board into the planer so that the tip of the arch enters last.

[Laurie Brown]

That's why I had to ask, because as you can see in the pic, this board has an arch in all four directions, and grain going both /// and \\\ on each side. So how do I know which way to feed it?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Laurie........in the top picture.....I'd feed the end closest to me in the photo into the planer first ............

[Lee Schierer]

That's why I had to ask, because as you can see in the pic, this board has an arch in all four directions, and grain going both /// and \\\ on each side. So how do I know which way to feed it?


The fail safe method is to feed it through one way taking a light cut. If you see lots of tearout, reverse the feed direction for the next pass. On some boards you can't avoid some tearout in either direction, but one direction will result in less than the other. Also wiping the surface with a wet rag will reduce the amount of tear out. Don't get it too wet, just damp. Curly wood is even harder to figure out. If you get tearout, reducing the amount of material being removed helps.

[Joe Chritz]

To make matters even better some boards feed better in reverse. Some don't plane good no matter what.

With a planer turning the board skewed some helps a little.

That is precisely the reason for the new spiral cutter heads on jointers and planers. Maybe someday when I grow up.

Joe