Wavy boards

[Joe Nasca]

Used my RO to sand out my joints after my glue up Smooth as can be. However, I learned my lesson using random orbital. Now I have waves in my table top.

What can I use to get rid of them?

I do not have a drum sander or anything like that.

[Andrew Fleck]

If you have a decent sharp hand plane and know how to use it you can make short work of it. Another option would be to use a belt sander to level it out.

[Bill McNiel]

Half sheet sander, router sled or hand planes.

[Jay Park]

a jointer plane with a sharp blade is how I'd go.

a short plane like a 4 plane would just follow the waves

[John TenEyck]

You could take it to a pro shop with a wide belt sander and run it through that. It'll be done in 5 minutes, and absolutely flat.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

Used my RO to sand out my joints after my glue up Smooth as can be. However, I learned my lesson using random orbital. Now I have waves in my table top.

Going forward, the ROS, like any other power sander, removes stock - which is the point - relatively fast.

You cannot "hover" over an offending area. Rather, you have to sand the entire surface evenly, until the entire surface has dropped to remove the problem.

Keep in mind - the "random" bit means that whey you are trying to be a good Scout and sand withe the grain, you are still sanding cross-grain as well. Ergo, if you sand cross grain, you aren't doing anything different than with the grain.

If I have an issue, I start with a coarse grit - often 80. Make a full pass back-and-forth, overlapping by 1/2 pad diameter. Then a full pass to-and-fro, overlapping. You MUST sand the entire surface equally, or you get what you got.

I get the surface leveled and problems removed with the 80. You cannot remove stock with 120 or 150. You gotta remove stock with 80, and then finish it.

Then I go to successively finer grits to smooth. 100-120-150 - maybe 180. Always with the same pattern above - 2 complete passes each grit.

Last - 150 or 180 with a block, and hand sand with the grain.

Current issue: handplane.

Good luck.

[Scott Holmes]

ROS tend to produce a wavy surface. They are great at getting the surface smooth; not so good at getting a surface FLAT. The terms are often incorrectly used to mean the same thing. NOT.

Belt or drum sanders have FLAT plates to help get the surface flat.

As for ROS in general... (as stated above ROS sand with and across the grain) cross grain sanding and with the grain sanding DO NOT produce the same results. Cross grain sanding removes stock faster; with the grain stock removal is a bit slower...

Trying to flatten stock with an ROS will usually produce an undulating surface.