Panel End Grain Sanding - What's easy?

[Jim Eller]

I have a bunch of these to do and was wondering if anyone had a trick to getting the end grain of the panels done easily without rounding anything over too much. The end grain can get fairly rough at times.

[Chuck Tringo]

Very Sharp Low angle Block plane and shooting board set up

[Curt Harms]

I have a bunch of these to do and was wondering if anyone had a trick to getting the end grain of the panels done easily without rounding anything over too much. The end grain can get fairly rough at times.

If so, i wrapped some sand paper around a large dowel, about 1 1/4" diameter. Sanded cross grain initially until it got pretty smooth, switched to a finer paper then finished it with a 1/4 pad R.O. sander. Unlike flat grain, I doubt fine cross-grain scratches would be all that noticeable on end grain. I didn't notice any. It went better and quicker than I expected it to. This was red oak.

[Dan Forman]

You can get a set of contour sanding blocks, made of rubber with both concave and convex surfaces. Something like this: http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/200...Set-of-12.aspx

Dan

[Kyle Iwamoto]

The raised panel part? I got automotive quality sanding blocks (Dura-blocks) and PSA paper. There's a teardrop one (cross-section) that works well for the raised panel part. They come rather long, but can be cut to suit.

The ends of the panels are covered, I just use a normal sanding block. No one will see it.

What bits are you using? I used a Whiteside, and it has very little sanding that needs to be done. If you have a lof of panels, that may save you a ton of time.

Just my $.02.

[David DeCristoforo]

Good advice so far. But be sure to sand your panels before you assemble your doors. Much easier to detail the panels if they are not already in a frame!

[Ken Shoemaker]

For concave ( cove ?) profiles I got several sizes of PVC pipe in diffent lengths. I band sawed them lenghtwise. I then wrap sandpaper around it and slide the ends in the slit to hold it tight. Your grip will close the slit and hold the paper in place. Then sand your brains out.

I never make convex edges so I don't have a sloution there.... Ken

[Jim Eller]

Then sand your brains out.

When it comes to sanding, this happens pretty soon. That's why I did the post.

[Glen Butler]

+1 for David.

[Greg Cole]

+1 on the sanding before assembling.
Prefinish panels as well to avoid "naked" areas during seasonal movements of the panel.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I've seen shaper accessories somewhere that are basically contour sanders for a spindle that can be used for stuff like this. They were expensive and I can't find them again, but if you took an old router bit, ground off the cutting edge, and glued on some grit and ran it slow you could do the same thing.