Hi gang,
Oops, should have posted here first, not in tools – my apologies.
I’m new to this forum, but have been woodworking for about 8 years. Most of my projects have been Cherry, Walnut, Maple, Pine, but my bed project is Mahogany. I didn’t realize just how hard Mahogany is to plane. Grain goes alternating forward/backaward every other inch in width across my board.
I have several nice hand-planes including a Clifton #4 smoothing plane that I keep razor sharp. I am able to get rid of tear out with the Clifton, but only by removing ultra-thin shavings. If I try to increase the blade depth the tear-out starts again. Since the boards came from the yard with pretty significant tearout from their planer I’m at a loss for how to make progress. What is the answer, do I just get out the sander at 60 grit until the tearout is gone then progress up through the grits? I’m using to planing/scraping until the very end and just finishing up with a simple 220 grit paper.
Help?
Thanks,
Richard
Replies
The hand plane solution calls for lace thin shavings, and preferably a York pitch (steeper) and a very tight mouth.
A card scraper also minimizes tearout without as much investment.
Both of the above take a while in the nature of the beast. By the way, not all mahogany has the reversing grain, but finding the wood without is increasingly a challenge.
If you do opt for the abrasive route, there is no point graduating the grit until you eliminate the tearout. When that point is reached you can go through a several grits until you get to 180 or 220 grit.
You might see if there is a shop that will put it through a wide belt sander for you. Is it cheating? If you have to sand it makes little difference between ROS or wide belt, except you trade time for a little money. You still want to finish the sanding by hand.
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