thicknessing figured wood

larry merlau

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Delton, Michigan
ok how do you go about it without having major tear out? do you use the new style planer setups with the shelix heads or helical blades or get close and then sand in a wide belt sander to bypass the tearout.?
 
Sharp blades and very light cuts. Some say to wet the surface of curly maple to help the procedure, but I have never tried that. Keep the passes light and then when some tearout occurs you can sand the difference.
 
thanks guys,, looks like the score is 3 to 2.. i tried the light cut idea on the blotchy box and it wasnt good.. so ended up doing the wide belt methode actually wide drum sander and that took longer but got there. i got close witht eh cutters and left my self enough for sanding..
 
I keep a spray bottle near the planer and wet faces all the time. Sometimes just around the knots, but if the wood is figured, then I'll wet the whole face, let it sit a minute, soak up any puddling and let the planer have at it. Really works like a charm and no widebelt needed (though one is desired.;)). My grandfather used a rag soaked in hot water, he taught me that trick, but I found that a good soaking with room temp water does about the same. It is easier to cut wet hair than dry.
 
thanks for the input SAM

boy we got the big guns out now better stay behind the bunkers:thumb: hows the new shop doing sam..? how did alex do on his magnifacant table you helped on?
 
All is well... But as you can see, I've been too busy to read or post much on the forum. Shop is doing well, had a real nice group of guys in for the bandsaw class I had a few weeks ago, and almost have the gallery area looking more like gallery and less like a storage dump. The table is ready... Alex needs to do some more work on the base, finish-wise (like finish it!! :rolleyes:), he got side tracked by some old iron, but we'll be taking her in on schedule to the Texas Furniture Makers Show the end of the month, even if we have to display it on my old shop horses. :D
 
Well I have seen through my many million lineal foot of lumber that I have moulded, it does not matter If you are using Carbide,tungsten carbide, Diamond, High Speed steel, wood peeling knives, veneer knives, slicing knives, slitter knives etc. I have milled so many types of figured maple,figured cherry, koa, jatoba, figured mahogany, figured walnut, rosewood, figured rosewood, bubinga, ebony, zebrawood, figured and standard jarrah...and the list goes on. anyways no matter what we have done there IS always a profiled piece in the run that has tear out or blow out keep in mind that these are fresh sharpened knives. I run them at 33 Foot per min at roughly at around 4000 to 5000 rpm. now the flat stock We will only SAND to thickness only because we all know what happens when you S4S a board / glue-up and you get a blow out/ tear out in figured lumber IT STINKS and gets expensive. but anyways rough sanding Flat stock then finish sanding the flat stock it the way that I have seen to go. but for the profiles you are likely to have at least one tear out somewhere.
 
Shelix then widebelt.

(Hey Jim, what kind of moulder is that? I may have some questions for you at some point.)

Weinig Hydromat 23 C 5 headed Planer/ Profile Moulder. This has 5 heads:
1st head is a bottom head to joint the boards bottom face, 2nd head is a side knife to either profile or joint, 3rd head same as 2nd but this one determines the width, 4th head is the top head this is mainly used as the profile head, and the 5th head is a finish bottom head normally will take off .020" you can use it also as a profile head. like base boards that run face down. or the relief.
I can do the best to answer any questins for you I can. Feel free to ask.
 
I will feed it thru the planer at a sligth angle. This seems to help. Just used some figured maple and had to get it damp along with skew. It still ended up going thru the sander. Most of the time damp and skewing takes care of the problem. Also if your planner has a slower speed use that to help.
 
One thing that I forgot to add...you can also change the cutting angle to reduce the risk of tearout/ blowout. like 10, 12, 22 degree cutting heads. the degree can help alot. I will use 22 degree heads when I run spruce, or fir due to tearout. 10 degree on a curly or quilted maple sometimes 12 degree depending on the lumber moisture content.
 
One thing that I forgot to add...you can also change the cutting angle to reduce the risk of tearout/ blowout. like 10, 12, 22 degree cutting heads. the degree can help alot. I will use 22 degree heads when I run spruce, or fir due to tearout. 10 degree on a curly or quilted maple sometimes 12 degree depending on the lumber moisture content.

and........a person can change the grind angle of the knifes too, effectively altering the approach of the cutting edge to the wood.....when running short runs of figured wood accross knifes often using a head with 10º slots and grinding the knifes steeper (30º or more) will help with tearout at the cost of shortened knife life.
not generally something a fellow with an off the shelf planer has at his disposal;)
 
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