First time thickness planing maple
David Grabowski
So I'm finally getting around to making my two oldest daughters their
42" tall wall clocks . I couldn't find cherry locally that was worth
much, nor at a reasonable price so settled on maple for the material
which I bought this past spring and has been sitting stacked ever
since . I have a new Jet 13" ( actually 12.5 I guess) contractors
grade thickness planer and am wondering about how thick a pass I
should start with for this wood. The planer naturally takes pine in
about 1/8 in. cuts with no trouble but maple being what it is, I
thought I would ask those that deal with this wood since I have little
thickness planing experience with a wood this hard ( little at all
actually). I need a good portion of this wood to be 5/8" thick, it's a
heavy 3/4 x 11 inch wide now so I thought I would plane a good portion
before moving on to cutting out ( make it a batch run that will be
enough to cover all the pieces for two clocks).
Any thoughts,
David Grabowski
Frank
>I have a new Jet 13" ( actually 12.5 I guess) contractors
>grade thickness planer and am wondering about how thick a pass I
>should start with for this wood [maple]. The planer naturally takes pine in
>about 1/8 in. cuts with no trouble but maple being what it is, I
>thought I would ask those that deal with this wood since I have little
>thickness planing experience with a wood this hard ( little at all
>actually).
Personally I'd stick with a cut of 1/32" or so. You can probably most
planers to chew on hardwood set for a cut of 1/16", but in my
experience you get a smoother finish (and happier planer) if you spend
a little more time taking shallower cuts rather than trying to hog it
out all at once.
If you've got a lot to take off, then I'd experiment with taking
deeper cuts at first and then switch to shallower cuts as you get
closer to your target width.
Kenneth Norton
I never exceed 1/16 in. for each pass and even then I noticed considerable
tear out on wild grain (with new blades). I am starting with 4/4 rough which
is actually about 5/4. I take 1/16 in passes to get all the rough stock
removed. I then make my final 2-3 passes on each side at about 1/32 or less.
If the grain is exceptionally wild I run at 1/64 in. Sometimes one side
will clean up nicely while the other will be prone to tear out. If this is
the case, I leave the good side alone, until I am making a finishing 1/64 in
cut., and concentrate on the difficult side making shallow cuts. After my
final cut, I always run both sides through again without adjusting the
height. This cleans up slight imperfections from the blades and makes final
sanding that much easier.
Hope this helps.
"David Grabowski" <nim...@capecod.net> wrote in message
news:3a51ab16....@newshost.capecod.net...
George
going to need to plane, it won't take much longer, and you'll stress
yourself and the machine less. You'll also get better dog bedding than if
you took thicker passes. The ability to take 1/8" passes is for those times
when you're planing irregular surface stock, and portions may be 1/8, with
the majority less.
"David Grabowski" <nim...@capecod.net> wrote in message
news:3a51ab16....@newshost.capecod.net...
Nota...@address.com
tear out. It was drastically reduced when I slightly wet down the surface
that was being planed.
When it was wet down with a rag the tear out was reduced almost 100%
Hope this helps - JJS
********************
Kenneth Norton
would gum up the blades. Does anyone else have any comments on this. I may
have to try it. I have some highly figured hard maple that I cant seem to
plane without tearout no matter how slight my cut.
<Nota...@address.com> wrote in message
news:3A5259AC...@address.com...
Robert Newton
Kenneth Norton wrote in message ...
>I've never heard of wetting the surface to plane. I would have thought it
>would gum up the blades. Does anyone else have any comments on this. I may
>have to try it. I have some highly figured hard maple that I cant seem to
>plane without tearout no matter how slight my cut.
This was treated in detail in American Woodworker's August 2000 edition.
Because of the way the grain swirls around the birdseyes, the planer blade
catches in them and tears wood out. You can think of the birdseye as a
small knot - it's very hard and when the blade hits, rather than cutting
through the wood rips out at a weak point deeper in the board.
I believe that wetting the surface softens the fibers just enough to allow
the blades to slice through cleanly. There isn't enough moisture to warp
the board and the wet bit is removed as chips anyway.
Yes, you do want to carefully dry the inner parts of the planer after doing
it this way, using alcohol to ensure the water is displaced. The article
also recommends running a dry board or two (not birdseye maple!) through the
planer to generate enough heat to dry off the last bit of moisture.
You also want to scrape, rather than sand, as the last step to bring out the
figure at its best. No matter how fine a grit I go to, sanding seems to
muddy up the grain compared to a sharp scraper.
I hope this is useful and would be happy to be corrected by those with more
experience.
Bob N.
Gerald Fischer
Jet planer. I did not try any water but I did discover some ways to help
reduce tearout: 1) Kept the depth of cut to around 1/32. 2) Use the 11
FPM (slow) feed rate. 3) Fed the boards into the planer at an angle so the
wood was sliding past the knives sideways as well as forward.. 4)
Sharpened the knives frequently (PIA). 5) Ground (by hand, RPIA) a slight
back-bevel on the knife to create more of a scraping action.
If I had a lot of maple to surface, I would probably opt for carbide knives
with a larger 5-10 deg back-bevel...
"Kenneth Norton" <knor...@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message
news:nWw46.1621$Mq2.4...@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...
David Grabowski
Grabowski) wrote:
>enough to cover all the pieces for two clocks).
>
>Any thoughts,
>David Grabowski
I see there are plenty of thoughts and want to thank those that have
responded thus far. I should clarify that I think my maple is of the
softer version ( it is not Rock Maple anyway), one piece is well
figured for a wood of its nature but there are no birds eyes and I
have about 24 ft. of it to run on both sides. There is a very slight
cup in the end of one board, but I can utilize this in another part of
the work up, maybe ripping it and thickness planing, then running it
on the jointer separately ( I need to glue up routed blocks that form
the top of the clocks, this might go well there).
Thanks again,
David Grabowski
Thomas Jackson
that the tight grain causes internal stresses. Joining and planing relieve
these stress, but not uniformly so the board bow, twist, and curve. I got
the best results by sizing incrementally. First saw, joint, and plane rough
maple just enough to get an oversized "furniture-square" board. Let the
board acclimatize for a week or so. By then, the board will have moved some
so join and plan it just enough to get it back to "furniture-square." I
kept repeating the joining and planing each week for a month. By then, most
of the internal stress had settled down and I could plan and saw the boards
to their final size. By the way, I started this process after the maple had
had a month to acclimatize to the temperature and humidity of my shop.
Good luck with your project.
Tom Jackson
Engineered Conversion of Woods into Sawdust
"David Grabowski" <nim...@capecod.net> wrote in message
news:3a51ab16....@newshost.capecod.net...
>
>
David Grabowski
<tjackson...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>I am building a Shaker-style workbench from hard (sugar) maple. I found
>that the tight grain causes internal stresses. Joining and planing relieve
>these stress, but not uniformly so the board bow, twist, and curve. I got
>the best results by sizing incrementally. First saw, joint, and plane rough
>maple just enough to get an oversized "furniture-square" board. Let the
>board acclimatize for a week or so. By then, the board will have moved some
>so join and plan it just enough to get it back to "furniture-square." I
>kept repeating the joining and planing each week for a month. By then, most
>of the internal stress had settled down and I could plan and saw the boards
>to their final size. By the way, I started this process after the maple had
>had a month to acclimatize to the temperature and humidity of my shop.
>
>Good luck with your project.
>
>Tom Jackson
Thanks for the tip, my maple I'm sure is not as hard as yours but I
still could rough cut to size first , then plane. The wood has been in
my work area for months, time to get started now that the holidays
have passed.
David Grabowski
Gary Greenberg
If you have lateral room, angle the board about 10 degrees and
wet it before the last few finishing passes. That's supposed
to tame wild grained woods prone to tearout. That's what I've
read in FWW and PW, anyway.
Hth,
Gary
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/