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Planing..... end grain??

5K views 9 replies 9 participants last post by  farmboy 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi folks. I'm new to the forum and have a question.

I made an end grain cutting board for my wife this Christmas and tried something a bit new. After it was all glued up the second time, I passed it through my thickness planer and took very small nibbles of it to give it the final smoothing. It worked OK. Any tearout was taken care of by a roundover, but I am worried about this being hard on my planer and/or dangerous. I'm a little hesitant to try it again before getting more information.
 
#2 ·
You are not the first to venture there :) There have been a couple responses recently where doing this resulted in ruining a planner. One guy took too big a cut, and another had a glue joint failure. I would be very careful in doing this. I use a drum sander, but a belt sander would do the same thing and be a lot safer. Frankly, after this holiday season, I don't care if I ever make another cutting board!!!!
 
#3 ·
I have heard enough horror stories about end grain through the planer and jointer that I won't even go there. Just not worth the risk to the board, me, or the machinery. The folks who do this on a regular basis seem to have it down to a system and they are comfortable with it. But it just makes me nervous.

One of the few injuries I ever received in the shop came from running endgrain over the jointer. So I have a healthy fear of the whole concept in general. lol
 
#4 ·
mmmm, makes you love handtools doesn't it ? :)

handplane, or like PetVet mentioned - a belt sander would do that trick MUCH MUCH SAFER it's one of those things that you just don't want to look back and say "hmm… I guess I shouldn't have done THAT"
 
#5 ·
i use the thickneser on my boards and follow the following rules:
1. make sure the surface is very smooth (i put some diesel on the infeed/outfeed and middle)
2. use tiny increments. this takes forever, but never go above 1/16 of a turn of the knob.
3. glue scrap at the end and plane it a bit to 45 degrees. do the same on the sides. this will give the material much better resistence to tearout.
4. make sure your knives are sharp (well, i don't follow this rule all the time, but i find that i regret it)
5. wear good ear protection - the sound level of planing endgrain is dangerous even for a short period

as for hand tools - i don't have low angle plane but regular planes simply don't work well for me. they leave marks that are very hard to get rid of - might be something with my technique though. a well honed card scraper works but its a very hard work.

good ROS works well but be careful to sand evenly. should be something with lots of grunt and very good sandpaper (rasin backed one, for example) otherwise you will go through heaps of sandpaper. i wouldn't go below 60p as the scratches are very hard to remove.

last advice - invest the time to glue with many clamps so you will get as good gluing as possible. each 10 minutes in preparation for glue is equal for an hour of sanding

just mt 2c
 
#6 ·
I totally agree with what has been said and if you do decide to to it with a planer make sure to heed moshel's advice. I have used my benchtop planer on endgrain cutting boards and probably will in the future. I'm actually on my second planer too because of it. The absolute main thing is to make sure you have SOLID glue joints. When a strip breaks loose, your planer self destructs, I can assure you.
 
#7 ·
I have made endgrain cutting boards before as well as fronts for drawers from end grain. End grain looks great when done correctly and safely… I would not recommend running it through a thickness planer or jointer or any other machine because… 1 it is dangerous (kickback) 2) it is really loud 3) it dulls the cutters of the machine really quick it does not matter how little you take off at a time, it is still over the end grain and the machine is not designed for this operation and last but not least 4) Blades are expensive and it takes forever trying to play with the planer to get a result and still have to sand because the result is not that great, plus blades are not cheap and time to build them in and out…

The best method is to in the thickness needed and with a very sharp blade so to have a very good surface… try glueing up a smaller boards together, so quasi in groups, and glue the smaller groups using packers (straight boards or a waste straight plywood or something similiar) coated with packing tape so the glue does not stick. Make sure to use waterproof glue (D4 whiteglue or polyuerathane(PU) ) then format in the tablesaw to get clean edges also with a very sharp blade and the cutting board should come out very clean with minimal sanding and scraping and such…. here is important to use proper glue dose, not too much not too little, but squease out is a pain
 
#8 ·
Please don't plane end grain. Picture your planer blades as small wedges trying to split the wood at a weak point. Even if a bunch of people tell you they have gotten away with doing this, don't do it. Pick up a handplane or a belt sander to do this.
 
#10 ·
I bought a Byrd helicoil head for my20-inch jointer and it does a great job The small cuts and sharp knives works well. Dull knives do not work well. Still sanding machine would be the safest though slow. There is a Vermont shop that makes endgrain cutting boards and can go for several months before changing knives with a similar setup.

Sam Livingstone
 
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