planer and jonter question

Julio Navarro

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281
Location
Tampa
I am working on a kitchen island for my house. I bought some nice ash at a lumber yard and I am in the process of planning and jointing it.

I ran into this problem: some boards have grain going in both directions. A couple of boards have grain change on the same face. When I run it through the jointer half of the board is jointed fine but then along the last half the grain changes direction and it dimples. If I run the board in the opposite direction the other side dimples up.

Is there a solution to this?
 
Best solution is a drum sander (like the Performax), but it's costly.

Another - more work intensive - method is a good smoothing plane, either with a high-angle frog (Lie Neilson) or a five~seven degree back bevel on the blade. A thick aftermarket blade works best for this, since the higher cutting angle will cause chatter.
 
Ash can be tricky for grain reversals. If I were in your shoes, I'd glue it up and take the slab to a cabinet shop with a wide belt sander and have them sand it flat. I've done that with table tops and it works really well. Besides, it's a much better approach than losing all the religion that you likely would if you planed it by hand.

The other approach is get yourself a world-class plane, something on the order of Holtey, Wayne Anderson, Ron Brese or Konrad Sauer. Of course, they will each set you back a lot of bucks. Then learn to sharpen, and I mean truly sharp. Here's a good demo of a sharp blade, both blade and plane made by Ron Brese.
 
I agree with the plane solution, but unfortunately, I am not that good of a woodworker. I wouldbe loosing alot of religion if I did that, as Bruce said.

I think the idea of taking the glued up peices to a woodworker to run it through a large belt sander is the best solution.

Still, I am thinking long and hard about getting me one...
 
Then learn to sharpen, and I mean truly sharp. Here's a good demo of a sharp blade, both blade and plane made by Ron Brese.

Wow! I hate that guy. I mean, seriously, completely, absolutely hate him! :rofl:

How can he possibly get a blade that sharp, and get the plane so well adjusted??? Dang! ;)

Sheesh, that's impressive! Makes me want to just completely give up! :doh:

Thanks,

Bill
 
Wow! I hate that guy. I mean, seriously, completely, absolutely hate him! :rofl:

How can he possibly get a blade that sharp, and get the plane so well adjusted??? Dang! ;)

Sheesh, that's impressive! Makes me want to just completely give up! :doh:

Thanks,

Bill

That is sharp :eek::eek::eek:
The Budweiser Clydesdales couldn't pull the plane across the board with my sharpening skills :(:(
 
Wow! I hate that guy. I mean, seriously, completely, absolutely hate him! ...
Sheesh, that's impressive! Makes me want to just completely give up!

Can I have your tools, then?:wave:

(Yeah, I hate him too. )


You mean to tell me you guys can't do that? Sheesh. Amateurs. :rolleyes: :p (The trick is all in the string. You've gotta have the correct string or it won't work.) :rofl:

The String? I thought it was the plane. What brand was it, anyway? We all need to rush out and buy one.
 
The other approach is get yourself a world-class plane, something on the order of Holtey, Wayne Anderson, Ron Brese or Konrad Sauer. Of course, they will each set you back a lot of bucks. Then learn to sharpen, and I mean truly sharp.

This sounds like a good job for the lowly card scraper. If you're doing more than a few panels though, i'd also invest in a scraper holder - save your fingers. I'm nothing more than a weekend warrior - this is a hobby for me, but i've never met a grain that wasn't perfectly tamed with a sharp $12 scraper. 10 minutes to sharpen / create a bur and 1/2 hour of practice -you'll have the tool mastered.

The wide belt sander at the local cabinet shop is a good option, but not the only way. If you're a purist with finishing, sanding to prep the surface isn't as desirable as planing / scraping.

I reluctantly learned to use the card scraper. Once i did, it seemed like a minor enlightenment. It's simple, incredibly versatile, cheap, and shears the surface rather than abbrading it (not usually critical to me, but a nice benefit for fine furniture).

Also, if you want to plane the tougher grains, what you're really after is a high cutting angle. A bevel up smoother would do the trick nicely. You'd want a good quality plane, but you don't need to spend the month's rent to get what you need. It can be as simple as puting a back bevel on a garden variety smoother. If you've got an old #3, #4, #5, or #6 hanging around, you could easily put a back bevel on the plane you already have. What you're after is a cutting angle somewhere around 50 or 60 degrees. Off the shelf, the vast majority of planes have a cutting angle of 45 degrees. Bevel down planes (most iron bench planes) have the blade mounted at 45. Since the bevel faces down, the bevel doesn't factor into the cutting angle. If the bevel is facing up (such as on block planes) you combine the blade mounting angle (usually 20 degrees) with the bevel grind on the blade (usually 25 degrees) to get at your effective cutting angle (usually 45 degrees). If you grind the bevel steeper, you raise the effective cutting angle.

On iron bench planes (bevel mounted down) you can raise the cutting angle by grinding a gentle bevel on the back of the blade. A 5 degree back bevel raises the cutting angle from 45 to 50, and so on.

High cutting angles deal well with difficult grain because they are more prone to shearing the wood fibers and less likely to lift the grain. Working shifty grain with hand planes or card scrapers also allows you to work the vast majority of the board without cutting into / lifting the grain. Just rotate the board and cut up to the area where the grain shifts. Then, you can take a little extra time just at the problem spots.

I've got a toolbox with a couple of "new" Veritas planes, old Stanley or Record bench planes that i cleaned up and tuned, and a Stanley block plane i bought new about 15 years ago. I don't keep them around if they won't tune up well. My point is that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have planes that take full width whisper thin shavings easily and reliably.

Maybe you could pick up an old bench plane used and start playing around with it. You'd probably be in it for no more than $15- $20. Takes the fear factor out of messing around with the tool, and you could get really comfortable about how they function.

Have fun with it.
paulh
 
Have you tried canting the board across you jointer and also sending it through the planer at an angle as well? By doing this you can get a shear cut and it should help with tear out. Take shallow cuts and a slower feed rate as well.

Sometimes, wiping the face of the board with a damp rag right before you send it through the planer also helps.

Neither one of these methods are 100 percent but they can make it easier.
Maple is notorious for this as are many woods that can't make up their minds which way to grow

Good luck!
 
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