Mesquite planing problems

[Randall Houghton]

I've got a couple pieces of Mesquite that I'd thought I make a couple of small boxes with. Tried to plane it with most everything I had including the following: High angle smoother 63 degrees, regular smoother at 45 degrees and low angle jack at 37 degrees all with razor sharp blades and tight mouths of approx 2-5 thousands and every time the surface felt gritty like sanding dust. Looking for suggestions from any Mesquite experts out there. Oh yea, a sharp cabinet scraper didn't do much better than planing!

Regards
Randy

[John Downey]

Hi Randy,

I've worked a lot of mesquite, but not much with hand planes. Two basic problems, the tree was usually so small and narly that the grains can have drastic changes in direction in just a few inches. Second, it tends to be fairly brittle wood, and tears out very easily. That could be related to the problem you're having. That said, its well worth the effort to get a smooth finish as I think mesquite (Sonoran at least, never tried much Texas mesquite) rivals koa in beauty. So basically, I don't know any way around having to sand it, though you can also put some hide glue on the tearout and sand over it (while wet) to make a perfectly matched filler putty.

Where abouts in NM do you live? I'm about 20 miles from the middle of the state (and thus pretty much in the middle of nowhere!).

John