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Thread: planing birds eye maple

  1. #1

    planing birds eye maple

    i have a question about planing birds eye maple. i have tried google searching with no help. my wood coach says when you plane birds eye, it sometimes rips the eyes out and it leaves a divot. he thinks he read somewhere if you dampen it with a sponge, the eyes wont pull out so easy. im sure there are many people here that are willing to help. there are probably some other tricks too that i can learn.

    thanx in advance.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
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    Slightly dampening the wood will help. Very sharp knives are essential. Still, with fresh knives and dampening the wood you may still have tearout. I was never able to get perfect results with birdseye and curly maple and straight knives.

  3. #3
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    Its not just the eyes and not just maple but the locations where grain direction reverses or is a bit wild in many materials that torture me. The spiral head on my jointer leaves a beautiful finish in these materials; no issues there. I try to plane on the side that shows the least because my planer is not a spiral and even with razor sharp knives I still get tearout in highly figured woods. Although the cost could buy many other things, I believe my next big dollar item will be a spiral head planer.

    P.s. A wide sander would be great too. Decisions, decisions.
    Last edited by glenn bradley; 06-12-2010 at 8:47 AM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Jason Beylerian View Post
    i have a question about planing birds eye maple. i have tried google searching with no help. my wood coach says when you plane birds eye, it sometimes rips the eyes out and it leaves a divot. he thinks he read somewhere if you dampen it with a sponge, the eyes wont pull out so easy. im sure there are many people here that are willing to help. there are probably some other tricks too that i can learn.

    thanx in advance.
    Try one rough cut, then a few very thin finish cuts before planing to dimension. This should give you some idea about how the final finish cuts will turn out.

    If the result isn't good, then rough cut and scrape to finished size, or find someone with a thicknessing sander to help you out.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    Grand Forks, ND
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    I've had limited success with dampening figured maple, razor sharp blades and dampened wood, I still have gotten tearout. I will only use a well sharpened smoothing plane or my drum sander when it comes to figured wood now.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Victor, Idaho
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    720
    This is the sort of frustrating thing which can lead one to more tool purchases.

    For myself, I chose to keep the old fashioned workhorse straight knifed planer and invest in a belt sander. Others soup up the planer with helical, spiral, insert heads or whatever, but I've never regretted going to a thickness sander.

    If new tools are out of the question, then take small passes with the planer and determine your best feed direction. Then, use a 6" ROS aggressively to take out the smaller chips. Then, use a little epoxy to fill the bigger flaws.

    -Steve

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Monson View Post
    I've had limited success with dampening figured maple, razor sharp blades and dampened wood, I still have gotten tearout. I will only use a well sharpened smoothing plane or my drum sander when it comes to figured wood now.
    +1 for the drum sander. Keep in mind it wasnt meant to be a planer though

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Woodmark View Post
    +1 for the drum sander. Keep in mind it wasnt meant to be a planer though
    true dat.

    A local cabinet shop, or lumber supplier may well have a thickness sander, which will be cheap to use, and will reduce most things to a finished dimension pdq.
    Last edited by Steve Bracken; 06-12-2010 at 3:10 AM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    East Freetown, Ma.
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    96
    Same here.

    I tried the new knives, dampened, light cuts, etc.

    I found nothing to work well.

    The problem is the grain reversing direction.

    I found a used 16-32 drum sander - and now I do not have that problem anymore.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    Birseye is a tough one. Think of all those little eyes as cross grain, and imagine the planers knives going cross grain with that many opportunities to tear out. I've seen birdseye tear out on a sharp spiral head planer too. Spirals are great, but no sure thing with this one. No matter what the planer head style, it is still "lifting" a bit as it spins, and it can lift eyes right out of the wood, or at least lift enough to cause problems. I use a drum sander. It takes longer but the results are fairly consistent.

    From my experience and what I've read, birds eye is one species actually better suited to be used as a rotary cut veneer. The figure is more pronounced than sawn veneers from solid stock or most sold stock it self. So consider using veneer for applications which call for a birdseye grain, and avoid the whole "how to plane birdseye" question entirely! Take a look at some veneer sites selling rotary cut AAA birseye veneer and look at the solid stock you have. See the difference?

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
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    Saskatoon Saskatchewan
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    Freeze it. Seriously.
    Darnell

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Ogden, UT
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    When I have tough stuff or for final sanding on large quanities I take it to a planing mill and run it through their wide belt. Well worth the small cost to save the headache.

  13. #13
    Freeze it. Now thats a good one. Time to invest in a walk in freezer. Not saying it wont work just funny is all. especially for large boards.

    Ive got 120 bf of birdseye 8/4 12' and 16' Now thats a big freezer.
    Fullerbuilt

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Granby, Connecticut - on the Mass border
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    350
    The dampening works somewhat, as others have noted. Because water seemed like a bad idea around my machines, I have used mineral spirits instead. This may be a fire hazard, so be careful. I don't have anything around that generates sparks or flame, but flammable is probably an understatement in describing mineral-spirits-dampened shavings.

    It sure is disheartening to see that beautiful board come out with a whole bunch of divots where the eyes used to be. Also as others said, this is why wide belt sanders were created. I have the little Jet 10/20 and love it for just this reason (and wish I'd gotten the bigger one!)

    Ken

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Marquette MI
    Posts
    524
    I work with birdseye and curly maple a lot and the best investment I have made is my jointer and planer with Byrd Shelix Helical cutter heads. No tearout. I still use my drum sander to get out the slight scallops I get with the planer. It's the only really consistent way to avoid tearout with these maples.

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