Curly Maple Question

[Joe Shinall]

Ok, so I just bought my first pieces of curly maple to work with. I'm building an end table with legs from African Mahogany and the skirting and face of the top are going to be curly maple.

My question is how hard is curly maple to work with? I have heard some people say things about figured wood chipping out in jointer and planer. I have a Grizzly 8" jointer and a Grizzly 15" planer, both with straight knives. I'm going to build a mockup of pine first just to make sure I get the proportions right. So if there is anything I need to check on my jointer and planer I can do it on those pieces beforehand. Thanks guys.

[Brian Effinger]

I think sharp blades are a must, as are light passes. I ran some curly maple over my old grizzly jointer and through my dewalt planer with great success. A little sanding after took care of any chipout that may have been there.

[Van Huskey]

Sharp knives, light passes and maybe running them on the bias if the boards are narrow enough.

[Prashun Patel]

I've jointed and planed both using light passes. If you get a little tearout, try running it through in the opposite direction.

Also, unless you're good with scrapers and sharp plane blades, you'll save headache by using sandpaper when surface prepping it.

[harry boyer]

For me and my limited equipment I had problems with edge jointing the curly maple. The corners would chip out slightly on the edge surface. My solution was to join the edge with the piece slightly wider then rip saw to final dimention. Joined edge to the fence, rip, turn around to final size and rip again. Gave me nice crisp edges. I plane at an angle and seem to avoid too much tear out. I have the smallest Delta lunch box planer and a HF jointer.

good luck!

[Joe Shinall]

I've jointed and planed both using light passes. If you get a little tearout, try running it through in the opposite direction.

Also, unless you're good with scrapers and sharp plane blades, you'll save headache by using sandpaper when surface prepping it.

I'm definitely not good with scrapers and planes. However, I am one sanding guru!

Thanks for the tips guys. I still want to hear from as many people as possible.

[george wilson]

The curl can chip out in EITHER direction. The chip can EASILY be too deep for any kind of sanding out. Do you know anyone with a thickness sander ?

This is one of the instances when a spiral head is good,because they scrape more than cut. Some guys used to grind a bevel on the FRONT edge of their planer knives. It made them plane figured woods much cleaner,because it makes more of a scraping cut. It would take more power to plane with them. Just take shallower passes.

[Hank Knight]

Joe,

I've found that dampening the surface to be planed with mineral spirits immediately before sending it through the planer helps. Curly maple is strange wood. Some is very tame while other boards are almost impossible to plane/joint without tearout. Mineral spirits and very sharp blades have worked for me in the past. Good luck.

Hank

[Dan O'Sullivan]

You didn't say which curly you had?? Red or Sugar. They are different in the surfacing mode. Is the wood air dried or kiln dried?

Sugar maple(hard white) that is kiln dried is a bear. You can be going along just fine and like G.Wilson said: out comes a big chunk in the middle of the board.

My technique/method: I resaw close to final thickness 7/8" final. If you have a shop near by with a surface sander, its well worth the cost to have it sanded smooth. This is a must if you have joined boards for your surface.

When I do plane, I wet the surface with a damp rag soaked in plain old water. Someone mentioned mineral spirits and that might work even better??

I know it sounds like a lot of trouble but the final results can be unbeatable.

Photo: lonnie bird clock in curly

Good luck
dan

[Van Huskey]

Joe,

I've found that dampening the surface to be planed with mineral spirits immediately before sending it through the planer helps. Curly maple is strange wood. Some is very tame while other boards are almost impossible to plane/joint without tearout. Mineral spirits and very sharp blades have worked for me in the past. Good luck.

Hank

I was coming back to mention just that, although I use water not MS to dampen the surface. It doesn't take much.

[george wilson]

Nice clock !! I think curly maple furniture is beautiful. I made my big dining table's top from it.

[Al Weber]

Wet it with water first. I use a sponge and just wet the surface moderately. Usually by the time I've put it through the joiner or planer twice using very light cuts and very sharp blades the moisture is gone and there is only minor chipout. I guess mineral spirits works also but I've never tried it.

[Joe Shinall]

Unfortunately I do not know of anyone with a thickness sander. Dan, I am not sure if it was kiln or air dried. It is sugar maple. I will try the water and take really light passes. It's 4/4 and I can take it all the way down 1/2 if I have any tear outs and need to go more. Guess we will see!

[Louie Ballis]

Although it was already said, curly maple is prone to chip out as it is quite hard. But having said that I have planed several board feet of it using my ridgid planer and grizzly 6 inch jointer quite well.

I found the key is to just take real small (1/32 1/64") bites until u get to the desired thickness.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

How many bf are you using? May be a good excuse for a drum sander. I've had chipout and blowouts. Tough stuff to work with, and expensive to ruin. Everything seems to want to take chunks out. It all depends on how figured it is too.

One piece I was working on had one of those tiny little ball droplets of glue on it. So I figure, I'll just pop that off with my fingernail. Out pops a relatively large chunk of wood with the glue ball! DOH! Luckily I was able to find it on the ground and glue it back in. Took a razor and sliced off that little ball of glue.