A little problem making staves

[Brian Brown]

I am working on my first staved vases for some Christmas gifts. I am having trouble with the final sanding before gluing. When I set up the table saw to cut the staves, I am getting a near perfect angle. I can put the staves together in the vase cone without any light showing through the joints. However, the saw blade leaves some marks that will cause a bit of glue line to show, so the staves need to be sanded. When I sand the staves, I am ruining them. If I use my disc sander (12"), I get a high spot in the middle of the stave. I think this is caused by the sanding disk turning faster on the outside of the disk than on the inside, causing the cut near the outside to be more aggressive. I can flip the stave to counter this, but the middle is always being cut by the same area of the disc, hence the high spot. I tried my stationary belt sander with better results, but still not perfectly flat. This is causing lousy glue ups. When my half cones are done, they are too big to be sanded on a 4" belt, and I get the same problem on the disc sander. I resorted to gluing a sheet of 80 grit sandpaper to a piece of MDF, and am sanding them by hand. This works best, but I still have a slight high spot in the center. I assume that my forward motion on the sand paper gives more pressure on one end, and the back motion gives more on the other. There is also probably more sand paper wear where the center of the 1/2 cone is. Hand sanding has slowed me to a snails pace. At this rate these pieces may be ready for Christmas 2020. I hope I have described this problem so it makes sense. Anybody have any ideas how to work with this? I am tempted to do without sanding, but I know what my glue lines will look like if I do.

[Steve Mellott]

Have you considered a different saw blade? When you set your saw cuts up, you are measuring to the nearest degree or fractional degree. Anytime you try to modify those cuts, you are losing that precision.

[John Huber]

First, use the finest tooth blade you can find. Then set the blade with a digital gage to the exact angle. Set the sled gage to the exact angle. Make one slow pass on the cut; don't retract the sled until the blade has stopped and the workpiece is removed. This will give you smooth edges. If necessary, use a finer grit on your hand sanding setup.

One reason you see contrasting woods in staved vessels is that it hides the glue line.

Happy staving. IMHO staved vessels are more attractive than segmented. But it's just my opinion, I might be wrong.

[Mike Golka]

In the few staved projects I have attempted I found hand sanding the joints with 150 grit paper on a flat surface after cutting with a 80 tooth saw blade worked well. If all you are doing is trying to remove saw marks it should only take a few strokes on the sand paper. Good luck.

[Brian Brown]

First, use the finest tooth blade you can find. Then set the blade with a digital gage to the exact angle. Set the sled gage to the exact angle. Make one slow pass on the cut; don't retract the sled until the blade has stopped and the workpiece is removed. This will give you smooth edges. If necessary, use a finer grit on your hand sanding setup.



I am getting very exact angles on my cuts, but you may be right about not letting the wood contact the blade again after the cut. I also have a problem with my sled sticking a bit as I push it through the blade. This causes a slight jerking motion that is responsible for the rough cuts. I tried to make it extra tight so there would be no sloppiness as it runs through the miter slots. Apparently it is too tight. I may have to sand the aluminum rails a bit, and lubricate it. Would a dry silicone lubricant be a good Choice?

[Bob Hamilton]

Do you have a jointer? Or a hand plane? Any staved work I have done I have used the jointer to fine tune the bevels. Lacking a jointer (or if the pieces are too short to safely joint) you could make a bevel shooting board and use a hand plane.

Good Luck!
Bob

[Bill Arnold]

I've never done any turning like you're planning, but maybe I can contribute something anyway. When I want to be sure to get a glue-ready edge, I use a Freud Glue-Line Rip blade. It works as advertised: no saw marks and ready to glue. I've done this on pieces ranging from flat panels to dual-beveled staves for a column under a table.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Brian, you've received some good advice. You didn't say how long (high) your staves were. If they're 6" of less, with a 12" disc sander, you might try not using the sanding table. Turn on the sander and then turn it off. While it's coasting, just briefly hand hold your surface on the disc, in line with the direction of travel (just an inch or two from the outside edge of the paper). Before doing this, place a few pencil marks on the surface so when you touch the surface to the spinning disc, you can gauge the amount of removal and whether or not you are holding the stave in the correct position. It's tricky, but you can improve the surfaces that way and still keep the half-cone accurate enough for final assembly. As was stated, with contrasting wood colors, a very exceptable surface should be obtainable straight from a well-tuned table saw set-up. This is without a doubt, the easiest way to achieve your objective.

[Richard Madison]

Good cutting advice from John. Have done it that way but hate to wait for the saw to coast to a stop after each cut. An alternative is to loosen your sled in the slots a bit (just a few thousandths). Push the sled laterally toward the blade during the cut, and push the other way when retracting from the blade. This was someone else's suggestion from another thread, and it does work.

Disc sanding half cones, you could try centering the cone on the disc. It's hard to hold, as one side is trying to lift while the other side is pressed against the table. I made a 15-3/4" disc and tool post mount table for my lathe. Sand at about 100 rpm. As Malcolm said, it's tricky.

Brian, If your stave cuts are that good, a few strokes on a sheet of 80 or 100 taped to the saw table should clean up the surfaces. Hold the stave flat, firmly against the saw table before making the sanding stroke.

Good luck. You CAN get there from here.