"I got minimal tear-out"

[Jim Koepke]

Pine is a tricky wood to work, especially around knots. Pine is my main wood because it is inexpensive.

The hardest part is finding a good supplier. Often the boards in the big box stores have a lot of splits or bark. I usually only buy from sellers that let me pick the wood. Thankfully their are enough of those.

jtk

[Nicholas Lawrence]

What do you do about it? Do you keep planing until it's gone, use filler, put the project in the kindling pile and start over or just live with it?

I think Warren is trying to suggest that with experience you will have less tearout. For those of us who are still learning, it does happen occasionally. If you are reading the grain correctly to start with, it will mostly happen in an area where there is a change in the grain. What to do about it? It depends. Is it a gift for somebody? In that case maybe put it in the kindling pile and start over. If you don't want to do that, and can live with something that is not perfect, you can certainly sand it a little and see if you can improve that area. The other option that is often better in my opinion is to use a card scraper. You are not going to want to eliminate a 1/16 problem with a card scraper, but hopefully you are not getting a lot of that.

[Kees Heiden]

Rest assured, antique pieces, even high profile ones aren't always without tearout either. And I was visiting a friend last night, who had a very expensive dining table made from some tropical wood. First thing I saw was a bunch of sapwood and tearout. So far for expensive furniture...

You'll get more proficient when you gain experience. Learn to use the capiron to controll tearout. And when some still happens: there is no shame in using a card scraper and/or some sandpaper. For pine it'll be the sandpaper because it doesn't scrape very well.

[Hasin Haroon]

I typically don't get much tearout from Pine at all. If your plane blades are well sharpened, check the position of your chip breaker - I position mine anywhere from 1/32 or less to 1/16th. And very light finishing passes should give you that characteristic planed pine sheen.

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
And very light finishing passes should give you that characteristic planed pine sheen.

An old wise man once said, "1/16" tear out doesn't often come from 0.001" shavings."

jtk

[Paul K. Johnson]

All my tear-out is from planing in the wrong direction. When reading the grain it was all over the place and I didn't see a predominant direction. When I go the other way it's smoother than silk. My chipbreakers are less than 1/32 from the blade edge and they're seated properly.

The tear-out that prompted this thread was when I was planing down the end of the piece 90 degrees to it and when it became flush it took out a chunk at the beginning of the board where the end grain stopped from the joined board. It's a rabbet joint.

[Kees Heiden]

You mean spelching? I don't quite follow your description. A picture might help.

[Hasin Haroon]

Paul, sounds like you were planing the end grain. If so, the blowout at the ends is pretty common. Couple ways you can prevent this, like planing a light chamfer on the end you expect to get blowout before planing, or by simply clamping another board to the end so that the blowout occurs in your clamped board instead. A light touch helps too.

[Stanley Covington]

So he got tear-out.

What do you do about it? Do you keep planing until it's gone, use filler, put the project in the kindling pile and start over or just live with it?

Assuming I read the wood correctly, but that the grain switches back and forth with contrary areas that refuse too cooperate, the remedial steps I take are as follows, in order of priority:

1. Check chipbreaker setting, and built-up gum. Clean gum off, oil chipbreaker, reset;
2. Check mouth width. If too wide, correct, or switch to plane with narrower mouth;
3. Check blade sharpness and resharpen if necessary;
4. Check blade depth-of-cut setting;
5. If 1,2,3,4 look good, then reduce depth-of-cut setting even further;
6. If 1,2,3,4,5 look good, and localized contrary grain still tears, then take short stopped shavings, in the opposite direction, to remove localized tearout damage. Wet area beforehand with damp rag and let water soak in a minute or so.
7. Finish the entire surface with a very finely-set finish plane. The cuts will skip over the areas of contrary grain lowered in step 6.
8. If this still fails, let wood dry completely, and use scraper.
9. If the scraper fails, finish with sandpaper. Pine finished with sandpaper must be finished with a product like varnish or PU that will stop the shredded wood fibers from rising in subsequent years.

Stan