Birdseye tearout
HUNTRESS GARY B
dealer. They had over 300 bf of birdseye maple in the rough
(just about 1 1/8" thick) for $3.80/BF. This seemed like a very
reasonable price to me so I bought about 20 BF just to play
around.
I'm wondering about how well the eyes are going to stand up to the
planer and jointer. Is there anything that I can do to reduce
tearout beyond new knives and light cuts? (I'm sure Patrick could
work wonders with a nicely tuned plane!)
===============================================================================
| Gary Huntress | "I'm not a member of an organized |
| Naval Undersea Warfare Center | political party, I'm a democrat" |
| Newport RI | |
| (401) 841-7839 | My Brother |
| HUNT...@NPT.NUWC.NAVY.MIL | ( and Will Rogers ) |
|=============================================================================|
Mark Williams
prone to tearout. Take very light cuts with sharp knives. The birdseye
I buy sometimes has the eyes popped out by the mill's planer.
With a smooth plane use a very sharp cutter and narrow mouth.
In the old days one approach was to use a toothing cutter in a veneer scraper
to raise fuzz, then to shave it off with a flat scraper blade. I have never
tried this but read of it twice.
Paul Houtz
: I spent a few enjoyable hours this weekend at my local hardwood
: dealer. They had over 300 bf of birdseye maple in the rough
: (just about 1 1/8" thick) for $3.80/BF. This seemed like a very
: reasonable price to me so I bought about 20 BF just to play
: around.
: I'm wondering about how well the eyes are going to stand up to the
: planer and jointer. Is there anything that I can do to reduce
: tearout beyond new knives and light cuts?
There isn't much else you can do. A birds-eye is completely
round, so no matter which direction you approach from, you can
pop it.
My strategy is to use flame maple instead :-) just kidding.
In my opinion, birds-eye is only appropriate for panel faces, though
others may disagree. It doesn't take intricate machining (like
cope-and-stick, etc.) well. Even where there aren't a lot of birds-eyes,
the tear-out problems are terrible.
For panel faces, I joint very lightly and thickness plane to about 1/32
of the actual thickness I want, and take it down the last bit with a
belt sander (I can hear the groans now). I have a Porter Cable
4X24 dustless which is really nice, and I can easily sand to a flat
plane with this machine. The sanding preserves the birds-eyes.
RON TYE
<Subject: Birdseye tearout
<
<I spent a few enjoyable hours this weekend at my local hardwood
<dealer. They had over 300 bf of birdseye maple in the rough
<(just about 1 1/8" thick) for $3.80/BF. This seemed like a very
<reasonable price to me so I bought about 20 BF just to play
<around.
<
<I'm wondering about how well the eyes are going to stand up to the
<planer and jointer. Is there anything that I can do to reduce
<work wonders with a nicely tuned plane!)
<
Once uppon a time, long long ago, in a galixy far far away, I read
an arcical about having a 2nd bevel ground on your planer blades
to help preveint tear out.
I'll look for the artical tonight.
I beleve it was in popular wood working, and had some thing to do
with reducing the evective angle of the planer blade, reducing tear
out; but, requireing very thin passes.
Ron
Bennett Leeds
Reply-To: ben...@adobe.com
Distribution: na
Ron Tye writes
> <From: HUNTRESS GARY B <HUNT...@NPT.NUWC.NAVY.MIL>
> <I'm wondering about how well the eyes are going to stand up to the
> <planer and jointer. Is there anything that I can do to reduce
> <tearout beyond new knives and light cuts?
>
> Once uppon a time, long long ago, in a galixy far far away, I read
> an arcical about having a 2nd bevel ground on your planer blades
> to help preveint tear out.
>
> I'll look for the artical tonight.
>
> I beleve it was in popular wood working, and had some thing to do
> with reducing the evective angle of the planer blade, reducing tear
> out; but, requireing very thin passes.
I believe the article was in American Woodworker last year. Anyway, the
technique is to grind a bevel on the "back" of the planer/jointer blades.
Now, don't get confused here. The "back" is actually the side that leads
into the cut (the standard bevel on a planer/jointer blade is a relief, or
clearance bevel). I guess the word "back" comes from, say, chisel backs.
Anyway, in addition to the normal bevel on the "front" of the blades,
put a 5 or 10 degree bevel on the "back." Just as some smoothing handplanes
have steeper blade angles to the work than normal planes to reduce tearout,
this back bevel will result in a steeper planer/jointer blade angle to the
work and reduce tear out.
However, it does weaken the edge of the blade somewhat. The article
recommended that one does not take deep passes with back beveled blades.
You probably won't get completely tear-out free planing from any machine,
but you can get within hand scraping distance.
BTW, planing birdseye is an area in which planers with higher cpi (cuts per
inch) do noticeably better jobs than lower cpi planers.
- Bennett Leeds
ben...@adobe.com
Scott Anguish
> For panel faces, I joint very lightly and thickness plane to about 1/32
> of the actual thickness I want, and take it down the last bit with a
> belt sander (I can hear the groans now). I have a Porter Cable
> 4X24 dustless which is really nice, and I can easily sand to a flat
> plane with this machine. The sanding preserves the birds-eyes.
This is the same process that I used when I made end panels for a
crib out of Birdseye Maple.
However, when I ordered the wood, they did offer to run it through
their stroke sander or thickness sander, which would have been a big help.
--
- Scott Anguish -
sang...@digifix.com (NextMail)
next-a...@digifix.com (comp.sys.next.announce submissions)