Raised panel sanding question

[Rick Alexander]

I'm working on a commission project building a kitchen (I posted a pricing thread about this one a couple of weeks ago). This one will be stained REALLY dark using black cherry stain and seems to show any sanding blemish on the end grain of my raised panels really bad. What do you guys use to better sand that rounded profile on the end grain of the panels? I usually sand with 120 grit and then med scotch pads but that doesn't seem to be enough this time as I'm getting some blotching.

[Bradley Gray]

I would try raising the grain with water and re-sanding.

If that doesn't work, you may need to make a profiled sanding block.

[George Bokros]

I think you need to sand to a grit finer than 120, especially the end grain part of the panels. What wood are you are using?

[Kris Lasure]

Dynabrade raised panel sander. Sand end grain much finer than you do on the rest of parts.

db57906.jpg

[Mel Fulks]

You didn't say what you are using to cut the raise. If it's carbide I would switch to Tantung or good high speed steel. Small raises can sometimes be so slick that they need no sanding.

[Martin Wasner]

Dynabrade raised panel sander. Sand end grain much finer than you do on the rest of parts.

db57906.jpg

Thanks for that. Have a link by chance?

[Martin Wasner]

Found it. linky

[Mark Bolton]

If its a super fussy material, and is available, maybe ditch the endgrain and band ply panels with solids (picture frame) and raise only long grain?

[Matt Day]

FYI the dynabrade sander is the 57906 Dynafine Raised Panel Detail Sander. Cost is about $370. Air powered.

[Martin Wasner]

FYI the dynabrade sander is the 57906 Dynafine Raised Panel Detail Sander. Cost is about $370. Air powered.

I just ordered one on Amazon after seeing this thread. $402

We've started running some profiles that are impossible to sand with a regular orbital, so hopefully this is the ticket. Hand sanding does a fine job, but it's not exactly profitable.

Might come in handy when someone decides to smear glue on the panel close to the frame when assembling doors too.

[Mark Bolton]

I just ordered one on Amazon after seeing this thread. $402

We've started running some profiles that are impossible to sand with a regular orbital, so hopefully this is the ticket. Hand sanding does a fine job, but it's not exactly profitable.

Might come in handy when someone decides to smear glue on the panel close to the frame when assembling doors too.

It'll be interesting to hear. Please post back. We have an electric version that is about useless unless the panel caught before sticking. It just seems to beat itself to death getting in close to anything (which is to be expected from any orbital/reciprocating machine). It beats the profile to death on the nose end of the machine and never gets tight in to where its needed (cant imagine a sander that would).

When we get a bad, smeary, glue-up, if its stain grade, it goes in the trash (preceded and followed by yelling).

[Martin Wasner]

It'll be interesting to hear. Please post back. We have an electric version that is about useless unless the panel caught before sticking. It just seems to beat itself to death getting in close to anything (which is to be expected from any orbital/reciprocating machine). It beats the profile to death on the nose end of the machine and never gets tight in to where its needed (cant imagine a sander that would).

When we get a bad, smeary, glue-up, if its stain grade, it goes in the trash (preceded and followed by yelling).

I will follow up on it.

I'm thinking this will work decently because of the tiny orbital pattern. Might not remove much material either and be a real nice paperweight. Might be able to run a lot aggressive paper and get good results though. Things to play with. I only ordered 150g with it. Hopefully it comes with some different grits to try out, but I doubt it.

There's certainly a fine line between not removing material fast enough, or removing it too quickly.

We get a pretty clean cut off of the shaper, cutting with the grain it's almost glossy in most materials, but end grain is always fickle. It's a SAC TS125 shaper and a custom four wing carbide insert head from Dimensions In Tooling. Still needs to be sanded though.

[Mark Bolton]

We are in the same boat with long grain (wish JR would chime in). Natural finish on end grain we try to deal with before its in the sticking. After that Ive just opted to toss it because there is no way to make it right. I think from past reads you dont do a lot of natural (which is our bread and butter). Ive recently changed the feeder on the panel shaper which should help but wont eliminate the problem.

We dont build tons of cabs and almost no residential. But I do pay attention because it comes up on occasion.

[andrew whicker]

I don't know anything, so I'm just asking. Why couldn't you use those sandpaper disks (for rotatory tools) that are a bunch of small pieces of sand paper tied together.


sandpaper.bmp

[Martin Wasner]

We are in the same boat with long grain (wish JR would chime in). Natural finish on end grain we try to deal with before its in the sticking. After that Ive just opted to toss it because there is no way to make it right. I think from past reads you dont do a lot of natural (which is our bread and butter). Ive recently changed the feeder on the panel shaper which should help but wont eliminate the problem.

We dont build tons of cabs and almost no residential. But I do pay attention because it comes up on occasion.

Not much natural. 80-90% paint, the rest is stained. We don't do any finishing in house, so pre-finishing parts would just add to my headaches, even though the finisher is only 10 minutes away.

Get the right rpm and feed rate to get proper cpi and chip loading is the key. Hindsight, I should've gotten one of those DC feeders when I set this shaper up, but they were really new at the time. My four wing is spinning at 4500 I think, but the next speed down was way too slow, and I thought the next speed up was just torching the inserts.
It'd be fun to use a infinitely adjustable feeder and an electro spindle where it's infinitely adjustable too. It'd take a while to collect all the data for which materials like what speeds, but I bet you could drastically improve results. The changes take seconds even doing it manually, and if you are playing with a shaper like that it'd likely be just loading the program.