Unavoidable chipout?

[alex grams]

I am flattening my workbench, and the top is side grain hard maple. There are two boards that no matter which direction/skew/angle I come at them, they just want to chip out. I can get the top flat, but then I have some chunks out of the table top on these two boards. I am using the LV Low Angle jack with the 50degree bevel up blade, and this has worked best for every other part of the bench top except those two boards. I am relatively new to hand planing and wanted building the bench to be as much of a learning experience for hand tooling and construction style as possible.

Bottom line, am I doing something wrong? The blade is sharp and set right, but those two dang boards just do not agree to be planed smoothly.

Or am I just being too picky, and should just say 'hey, its flat and its a workbench, its going to get dings and dents in it anyways'?

Thanks in advance.
-Alex

[Johnny Kleso]

Some times wetting the board works but dont drown it, try wiping it with a face cloth or rag..

Also make sure you dry your plane well and oil or wax it when done..

Also if you have a low angle blade try that as well as scraping the problem area with a card scraper..

[alex grams]

Thanks for the wetting info, I may try that.

I am using a low angle jack at the moment with the 50degree blade, the 25 and 38 didn't do well on the maple, but the 50 has worked the best.

Unfortunately the chip outs are big enough now that a card scraper would be worn to a nub by the time I would manage to scrape them out.

[David Keller NC]

Alex - It would be worth reviewing Chris Schwarz's blog entries about avoiding tear-out (I think they were 7 entires about this subject), and his blog entrys about flattening benches. I think these were confined to his Lost Art Press blog, but you may want to check Woodworking Magazine's blogs as well.

Regarding the issue you posted about - The way one goes about flattening a bench is to start with cross-grain planing (90 degrees to the long edge), followed by 45 degrees to the long edge (both ways), finally followed up with length-wise planing with a jointer. Your bench should not have chipped out with the 90 degree and 45 degree planing - that's usually oblique enough to the grain to avoid tear-out (assuming, of course, that you beveled the far edge before starting).

If that's the case, and the bench is tearing out with the final, long-grain planing with a jointer, there's a couple of ways to deal with it:

1) Wetting - Johhny mentioned this, and I would add that this is best done with denatured alcohol. The alcohol will raise the grain less than water, and there's not too much danger of having the bench absorb enough liquid to bow it out of flat when it dries out (which is why Johnny mentioned not to drown it).

2) Set the mouth of the plane very close to the front edge of the iron, make sure the iron is razor sharp (you should be easily able to cut a piece of typewriter paper cleanly with just the weight of the blade), and skew the plane as you push it down the bench. It's not entirely clear why skewing the plane works from a physics perspective, but it's quite effective at reducing tearout.

One final comment about bench flattening - realize that it's far more important to get the bench flat across its width than down its length. The reason for this that the same error - for example, 1/16", will cause you far more problems across the width of a board than down a 4 foot length of it, and for the vast majority of furniture projects, boards you wish to plane will always be quite a bit longer than they are wide. Moreover, getting the board flat across its width is generally far more important to cutting joinery that fits than getting it absolutely flat along its length.

[Mike Brady]

I had good luck recently, addressing the same problem. I followed C. Schwarz' guidance and planed the maple side-grain bench top at 90 degrees to the length of the bench. Used a L-N #7 set for a thin shaving. This was the first time I have been able to truly flatten my bench top. I followed with a #112 scraper plane. A couple of spots required card scraper attention. I followed with a 50/50 BLO and turpentine mix.

[glenn bradley]

It is hard to let it go when the bench is brand new but, somewhere down the road 'something' will put a divot in it. I filled mine with some tinted epoxy putty, sanded it flush and moved on. I've fixed a couple more little ones since then as well. I never see them when the bench is covered with chips.

[John Keeton]

Alex, my personal opinion is that it is the plane. And, being the considerate person I am, I would be glad to take it off your hands at a very slight loss to you.:rolleyes:

[Paul Atkins]

How do you determine sharp? If you can't shave with it - it's dull. At least that is what 'they' tell me.

[Marcus Ward]

I have some spots of tear-out in my top. Mine's all oak and I wasn't careful setting them up so they all run the same way grain-wise, and some reverse direction in mid-board, so there's no way to plane it and get zero tearout. In reality, this isn't a dining room table in a palace so it matters very little. As long as it's flat and sturdy and you can build on it, that's what matters.