Butcher block

[Sean Powell]

I'm almost finish building the butcher block from Marc spagnuolo. how long should I wait to put through planer and is ok to do so. Do I just need to sand it down. He has a drum sander and I wish I had one.

Well what happen I put through planer next day and it tore off first section and i had it on the minimal it could take off.
Is it better off just sanding now?

[eugene thomas]

Maybe look for shop that will run through their sander.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I did all of mine with a belt sander. Carefully, and checking progress/flatness as I went, but it worked just fine.

[ron david]

one can make up a sled for a router and clean it up that way. that was how I cleaned up the one in the following link; http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ck-information
ron

[Bill Huber]

I made a bunch of end grain cutting board and used my planer to get them flat. The guys on the forum advised against it but I still did it until I had one of the board come shooting out and just missed me as it hit a metal shelf and bent it. It messed up the blades and the hold downs on the planer which I had to buy.

So now I use only my drum sander and I finish it off with a small hand held belt sander.

Like has been said, you can do it with a router, a hand held belt sander or you could have a shop run it though a drum sander for a few dollars.

But in IMHO don't run the end grain though the planer.

[David Nelson1]

I had never thought about what would happen if you planed end grain. I recon I would have found out the wrong way. Good to know.

[Peter Quinn]

I joint endgrain, why not plane it? I'd glue a 3/4" sacrificial strip on the back end (last part that will go through the planer), thats where its going to blow out, take very light passes, let the sacrificial strip blow out...then rip it off when finished. Sander is better, but not everybody has a drum sander.

[Rich Engelhardt]

The method mentioned in this thread - using outriggers - is how I was taught to plane both end grain and small pieces some 45 plus years ago in high school shop class.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...or-drum-sander

Since the same shop teacher was there for all four years I went & an end grain cutting board was one of the required projects for Shop1, I'd guess a few hundred were put through the planer in the 4 years I was in high school.

We used a piece of newspaper glued between the cutting board and the outriggers and white glue back then. Today, when I do stuff like that I use Elmer's School Glue and newspaper. The School glue easily washes off and doesn't affect putting a finish on.

As an FYI - we used the same method newspaper and white glue to attach a scrap block to the base of a bowl we'd turn on a lathe.


I guess I should also mention what happened to me the week before last when I was running some glued up boards through my DeWalt 734 planer.
I wasn't super careful with the glue up and the squeeze out since I was also taking the 3/4" glued up boards down to about 1/2" thick.

About the third board through the planer, I noticed a line running the length of the board. A couple more boards and another line appeared next to the first.
The glued up boards had been sitting in the garage for a little over two weeks & apparently the glue had gotten cured and hard enough to nick the blade(s).

I use the Titebond Translucent as the glue.

I've never had a problem with glue chipping a blade before - but - my prior experience of planning glue ups wasn't done on a DeWalt 734.
Plus - I never let a glue up dry that long either.

[Matt Day]

I've probably run a dozen end grain boards through my planer. Only problem I had was massive tearout at the trailing edge due to grain being vertical. Easy remedy is to round over the edge first. Just take light passes.

[Bill Huber]

I've probably run a dozen end grain boards through my planer. Only problem I had was massive tearout at the trailing edge due to grain being vertical. Easy remedy is to round over the edge first. Just take light passes.

I ran around 30 of them with no problem but that last one made me stop using the planer. The problem after looking at the board was the glue up was not as good as it should have been. The in-feed end was fine but about half way down there was a strip that was higher then the others and that is what caused it to come flying out.

I had no idea how fast it could come flying out, the shelf was about 5 feet from the planer and it left and nice dent in the edge of the shelf.

[Matt Day]

With all due respect Bill, your mishap could have pretty easily been avoided.

[Bill Huber]

With all due respect Bill, your mishap could have pretty easily been avoided.

I agree, but there was just that little bit of difference and that is all it took.

When I was using the planer it did a good job and like you, I rounded over the edge and that took care of the tearout.
The thing is you have to take off just a little at a time, I mean just a little.