How to plane/surface Birdseye Maple?

[Michael Yadfar]

I'm building a little table to go against a wall, and chose to use Birdseye for the first time to incorporate as part of the top. I was completely oblivious to the fact that it's hard to work, but recently read somewhere it takes special care not to tear out. I couldn't really find all that much info other than that it's preferable to use a wide belt sander or drum sander.

My jointer has straight knives so that tears out even regular wood sometimes, but that's ok because I only joint the bottom sides. For the top, I have a 15" Grizzly planer with a spiral head which cuts like fine grit sandpaper. However, it still lifts wood so I can see tear out. The piece is only 3 1/2" wide, so the only alternative I can see is running a face against the blade on the table saw. However, that often burns the wood and leaves uneven spots.

[Richard Shaefer]

I'm building a little table to go against a wall, and chose to use Birdseye for the first time to incorporate as part of the top. I was completely oblivious to the fact that it's hard to work, but recently read somewhere it takes special care not to tear out. I couldn't really find all that much info other than that it's preferable to use a wide belt sander or drum sander.

My jointer has straight knives so that tears out even regular wood sometimes, but that's ok because I only joint the bottom sides. For the top, I have a 15" Grizzly planer with a spiral head which cuts like fine grit sandpaper. However, it still lifts wood so I can see tear out. The piece is only 3 1/2" wide, so the only alternative I can see is running a face against the blade on the table saw. However, that often burns the wood and leaves uneven spots.

i re saw Birdseye and tiger maple with a 1" blade on the band saw, then sand or scrape. If you have any hand tool chops, then you can use a high angle smoother with a blade made so sharp your eyes bleed looking at the edge and run at a wicked skew over the board. A good cabinet scraper works wonders, too.

spiral head machines are great, but they don't work for everything

[Michael Yadfar]

i re saw Birdseye and tiger maple with a 1" blade on the band saw, then sand or scrape. If you have any hand tool chops, then you can use a high angle smoother with a blade made so sharp your eyes bleed looking at the edge and run at a wicked skew over the board. A good cabinet scraper works wonders, too.

spiral head machines are great, but they don't work for everything

I've resawn a good amount of wood but only with a 1/2" blade because that's the biggest my bandsaw can handle. Obviously the cut was somewhat ruff so it needed a pass or two on the planer. I know people typically use figured wood as veneer, but I'm not using too much so I was just going to go solid which I think will save some hassle. But I can obviously still use hand tools the same way. I would have to buy the tools because all I have is a $10 chisel set, but that's ok. Sometimes people go from hand tools to power tools, but I'm actually planning to go the other way

[Allan Speers]

As Richard mentioned: Bandsaw first, then sand or scrape. You should be able to get "very close" with that spiral head also. A good trick there is to wet the wood first before planing it.

Personally, with such a narrow piece, I'd definitely use a scraper. Just a hand-held card scraper will do. No need for an expensive hand plane right now. The important thing is to learn how to sharpen and burnish the scraper. Lots of good info to be found on this, all over the net.

[Randy Viellenave]

I just used birdsye to build a couple sjoelbak boards with 2-5/8 x 80 side rails, and saw no issues with the planer. I have a Dewalt 13", used the 176cpi (slow) feed setting and took off 1/32 or less per cut and got great results. I would suggest just taking a little at a time and keeping the feed speed slow, but I have never used a spiral cutter. Good luck!

[Len Rosenberg]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades. I've done that with straight knives on my planer and figured/curly maple comes out nicely.

[Erik Loza]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades...

+1 for this ^^^^^

Also, you could try to lightly moisten the surface prior to making the pass.

Erik

[Richard Shaefer]

I've resawn a good amount of wood but only with a 1/2" blade because that's the biggest my bandsaw can handle. Obviously the cut was somewhat ruff so it needed a pass or two on the planer. I know people typically use figured wood as veneer, but I'm not using too much so I was just going to go solid which I think will save some hassle. But I can obviously still use hand tools the same way. I would have to buy the tools because all I have is a $10 chisel set, but that's ok. Sometimes people go from hand tools to power tools, but I'm actually planning to go the other way

I've found that most people I know go from power tools to hand tools. Eventually, you get demanding enough to want a level of stock removal that only hand tools can accomplish. There's not a lot of power tools out there that can shave 0.001" off a board like a sharp Bailey 4.

[Prashun Patel]

Your spiral head should not have a problem on that kind of wood. What do you mean that it lifts the wood? Take light passes. The direction shouldnt be too important on a spiral head, but my perception is that it does make a difference. Also, skew the board as the others mention.

[Erik Loza]

I want to float this out there as well: One thing I have seen is owners falling for the whole "magic bullet"-thing, thinking that this or that cutterhead will give them the exact result they want (or the result that someone else talked about on the web...) on every piece of wood, every time. With crazy stuff like birdseye maple, I could run half a dozen pieces through our planer with fresh set of knives each time and get a slightly different result each one of those times. That's not to say that some styles of cutterhead won't give more consistent results than others but in the end, the actual piece of wood probably has more to do with it than anything else and as someone else mentioned, you still will probably machine it by hand.

Best of luck,

Erik

[Frank Drackman]

In addition to taking very light passes on the planer, you can run the 3 1/2 inch board through your 15 inch planer at an angle, increasing the shear angle of your planer blades. I've done that with straight knives on my planer and figured/curly maple comes out nicely.

In addition to increasing the shear angle I find that spraying a mist of water really helps with tearout.

[peter gagliardi]

Heavy cuts- 1/8" or more, are your best options with figured wood, if you have equipment up to the task. Light passes is asking for trouble.
I have worked 10's of thousands of board feet of birdseye, curly, and tiger figured woods, maple among them.

[lowell holmes]

As Eric stated, light pass and spray surface with water as it enters the planer. It does work, try it.

[Orlyn Gaddis]

I work with a lot of figured maple (birds-eye, tiger stripe and fiddle back) as well as figured walnut and cherry. I use the planer (straight knives but often feeding the board on a diagonal) making very light cuts and finish up the last few thousanths with a 26 inch drum sander. The abrasive planer seems to eliminate all the unfortunate surprises that result from all other cutting/planing methods I've tried with figured wood.

[Art Mann]

I've found that most people I know go from power tools to hand tools. Eventually, you get demanding enough to want a level of stock removal that only hand tools can accomplish. There's not a lot of power tools out there that can shave 0.001" off a board like a sharp Bailey 4.

0.001" isn't enough to make any difference. However, I do take off 0.005" increments fairly regularly with my drum sander to make a figured piece flat. I need that kind of accuracy for doing intricate carvings with a CNC router. It is one thing to be able to shave off a piece of material you can read text through. It is a much more challenging thing to make a board flat and consistently thick to +/- 0.005". I know there are people on these forums who can do it but I don't have that kind of patience even if I had that kind of skill.