12 hours and a sore back later, i have my first homemade board. i learned quickly that i am not worthy of the power planer. the sureform does just fine for now. i started cutting vee as follows: one pass from the tail up to where i wanted to blend out the vee, one pass on top of that, but stopping about 4 inches shy of the end of the first pass, one final pass stopping 4 inches shy of the previous pass. then a couple passes to blend it into the middle. is this terrace kind of effect the best way to shave vee into the board? it worked ok, but i ended up thinning out the tail and therefore the whole board more than i wanted to. any tips on doing this (other than just not shaping vee at all)?
for what it’s worth, for my first board, it turned out good. good meaning that it’s symmetrical, the rails are pretty, and someone will be able to ride it (probably not me).
i put brand new blades in the hand planer and block plane, and i can’t keep from hacking up the stringer. it’ll be going along so nicely then CHUNK - it dives into the wood and rips chunks out. am i mistaking the planer for a final finisher on the stringer? i tried sanding the imperfections out but sanding on soft foam next to the hard stringer always leaves me with a stringer hump that i have to plane down again. back to step one, and voila! a very thin board.
wood stringers have a perferable grain to run with. Next time try running the blade the opposite way. Its funny how you can run the blade one way and get a smooth cut, go the other way and get a choppy chunking mess. Also if you keep on top of the stringer it wont get so bad, i.e., sand 2 passes, take a block plane swipe. If you do this then you won’t have to plane down 1/8th in 1 pass. Also on your sharp tools you need to polish, flatten and round the shape edges. This means, flatten the bottom, round the planer blade sides, 6000 grit sharpen the blade and bottom plate. New planer blades are pretty sharp, they usually factory sharpen to 1000 grit. My rule of thumb is if it can shave the hair on my arm, then it’s sharp enough.
Little story; I just got done doing some home remodeling and I had to use my power planer for about 5 hrs of wood work. Well the other day I picked up 2 blanks and started mowing. To my horror The first pass was fine, so i speed it up on the second pass to find out that I left a trail of ripped mangled foam. I checked the blades in the machine, and they felt like they were pretty sharp…I took them out anyway, and had a closer looksie. They were so dull that I could have walked on them. I’m not afraid of sharp tools, its the dull ones that scare the hell out of me.
Just finished shaping a board where the grain in the stringer changed direction 3 times in the last 18’ from the tail. Tore the crap out of it a few times. Trick is to set your blade (talking hand planes here) as shallow as you can and don’t power through it - go slow and when you feel it grab the grain, stop cause you know it’s time to change direction. Mine also had a vee so I was careful and after a bit just knew where those problem spots were. As you found out, you can’t sand down a stringer - just doesn’t work. Plus, if you don’t have one, get a Stanley Trim Plane - the small (about 3 1/2" long) one, about $8 at any lumber yard. They come nicely sharpened and are easy to round the points off to reduce foam tearout next to stringer.
I like to shape my vees with a few sureform passes and a sanding block like Lee says.
wood stringers have a perferable grain to run with. Next time try running the blade the opposite
way. Its funny how you can run the blade one way and get a smooth cut, go the other way and get
a choppy chunking mess. Also if you keep on top of the stringer it wont get so bad, i.e., sand 2
passes, take a block plane swipe. If you do this then you won’t have to plane down 1/8th in 1
pass. Also on your sharp tools you need to polish, flatten and round the shape edges. This means,
flatten the bottom, round the planer blade sides, 6000 grit sharpen the blade and bottom plate.
New planer blades are pretty sharp, they usually factory sharpen to 1000 grit. My rule of thumb
is if it can shave the hair on my arm, then it’s sharp enough.
Good advice on sharpness!
There’s a very simple reason why timber will “chunk” if planned in one direction and plane smooth in the other. It’s to do with grain run off.
Take a stick of celery and cut it from the top-left corner to the bottom right corner. Fibers approach the cut surface at an angle. Scraping a knife down the cut in one direction will “slide” along the fibers and in the other direction will catch on the fibers. Exactly the same thing with wood fibers.