Prepping Curly Maple for Finishing

[Prashun Patel]

I'm new to scraping, and really enjoying it!
I'm finishing a table base out of curly maple. I'm using BLO followed by Sealcoat, followed by Target USL.

I tested one side of a board sanded to 220, and a second just scraped with a scraper.

The scraped piece shows the curl much better, but is not as level as the sanded side; I can 'feel' the curl on the scraped piece. Is this normal? Is it important to have a level surface?

How do YOU prep curly maple for finishing?

[Prashun Patel]

bump...........

[John Keeton]

Shawn, I would think a plane would do better because of the hard/soft areas of the grain and the need for a longer "wheelbase." You are "following" the grain with the scraper blade.

My LV BU Jack with a 50* blade does well. A scraping plane should, as well.

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks, John. As I don't have a jack plane (yet ) I'm resorting to the tools at hand:

rough scrape followed by 220 up to 400. Seems to be working fine.

Gosh, I love the feel of a good draw with a scraper....

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Curly wood is best thought of as the wood being "wavy". The best way to show off the figure is to chop the top off the waves so the differing orientation of the fibers takes stain/reflects light differently. I would think using a scraper would tend to follow the grain of the wood and lessen the effect of the curl. Planing (hand or machine) followed by sanding (hand or machine ) would be the best way to prepare curly wood.

[J. Z. Guest]

Seems to me that following up scraping with sand paper defeats the point. Sand paper leaves a fuzzy finish, while the edged tools don't.

[mike holden]

Shawn,
Hand prepped surfaces are NOT truly flat.
Stop by any museum and catch any period furniture in a raking light and you will see what I mean. It looks flat, and is "flat enough", but is NOT truly flat.
Krenov also talks about the surface finish from his planes as not truly flat as well.
Mike

[Prashun Patel]

If I were a better scraper, I'd agree . Unfortunately, I'm not the best sharpener yet, so my scraping leaves a decent, but not stain-ready finish. I'm using the scraper at this point as a rough finishing tool.