Tearout during Planing of Sassafrass

[Bob Oehler]

Hi all:
It's been forever since I have been on here just too busy.
I have had about 0 time in the shop also.
The other week my wife said she wanted a nice built in close. Also she said that some trim in our bedroom and her study would be great. I decied to use Sassafrass (spelling?). Every room in our house is a different species of wood. Anyway when planing pannels I am having a great deal of tearout. The wood is plain sawn and of course has a reversing grain. I have tried my #4 stanly, block plains with 30 and 45° bevels and still get tearout. The best luck I have is a millers falls, stanley 60-1/2 low angle block plane and dance it around the wood.

Has any one done much with Sassafrass that could offer suggestions as my fingers are growing tired from scraping out all the tearout.

Take care
Bob Oehler

[Steve Wargo]

Since I hate red oak, I will often do pieces out of sassafrass. It is much, much more workable with hand tools. It planes, cuts and chisels wonderfully. I suspect that if you're getting tear out in sassafrass you need to resharpen. A stanley #4 or equivalent will do a fine job on it. It doesn't scrape very well though.

[Jeff Horton]

How wide is the mouth of the plane open? If you haven't try adjusting the mouth opening down to where the shaving can just fit through. It can make a bid difference. Sharp blade will too.

I don't remember where but I recently saw a drawing of what happens when planning and it showed why this helped. Made so much sense after seeing the drawing. I knew it worked but never knew exactly why. Now I wish I had bookmarked it.

[Bob Oehler]

Thanks for the reply's.

The plane blades are very sharpe and doubble checked. I will try closing the mouth on the #4 a little bit more, it is already set fairly narrow.

Most of my tearout is happening on plain sawed boards that I am using for raised pannels. There is quite a bit of gentle grain reversal. and it is where the cathedrials go in both directions. In oak my #4 just glides over this stuff with just a canting of the plane body.

Thanks again
Bob Oehler

[Mike Chrest]

You could sharpen a small steeper microbevel on the low angle blade or a small back bevel on the #4.

Here is a page from the Lee Valley catalog for the high angle blade that fits in the low angle planes.

I have used these and you can plane against the grain without tearout.

Mike

2-1/4" Blade, 50° Bevel

http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/Bulletins/Caution.gifCaution: Be aware that the blade is sharp; careless handling can result in serious injury.A selection of replacement and optional blades is available for our large bevel-up bench planes. The bevel-up configuration of these planes enables the cutting angle to be varied as desired by altering the blade bevel angle. Having an extra blade of a given bevel angle simplifies this process and does away with the time-consuming process of regrinding back to a lower bevel angle when


http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/Woodworking/Planes/05p3404_figure1.jpg



required. The blade bevels we offer are ideal starting points, but can of course be changed to meet the particular task at hand. The cutting angles stated describe the actual cutting angle where the blade meets wood. This angle is determined by a fine micro-bevel at the edge; the blade’s primary angle is typically a few degrees less. 2-1/4" wide by 3/16" (0.187") thick, A2 tool steel hardened to Rc60-62.

The 50° blade is for smoothing woods with widely varying or reversing grain (e.g., bird’s-eye maple) where tear-out is difficult to control. The resulting cutting angle of 62° produces what is known as a Type II chip (or shaving), one created by wood failure right at the cutting edge, eliminating tear-out on even the most difficult grain patterns. Planing wood at this cutting angle will give you a bit of a workout – but the results are well worth it. http://www.leevalley.com/shopping/graphics/print.gif (http://javascript<b></b>:printdoc();) http://www.leevalley.com/shopping/graphics/close.gif (http://javascript<b></b>:cancel();)

©Copyright 1998 to 2006 by Lee Valley Tools Ltd. and Veritas® Tools Inc. All rights reserved.

[Bob Oehler]

Hi Again:
I have been away on vacation and just got in a few days ago and tried the suggestion on my 60-1/2 low angle plane by putting a micro bevel on the 45° angle. This did the trick and I am going to sharpen my #4 with a micro bevel and give it a try. Many thanks Mike and the rest of the creekers.

Cheers
Bob Oehler;)