Greetings,
I need some advice regarding how to get a good finish ready surface when preparing figured wood. I'm currently working with some Queensland Maple, and the areas of really nice figure are giving me a real headache.
First - some photographs, so we're all reading from the same page in the Hymn Book ...... (Double click on the photos to get a much larger view). The grain seems to be rising out of the surface in some places and descending into the surface in other places. No matter which way you send the board through the machine, half will tear-out, and half will be perfect and ready for a light sanding. And when you get to the really figured areas - well you can see the results in the photos below. Huge amounts of tear-out ! Note - these photographs are with the wood dry - no water or turps was used to highlight the figure or tear-out.
20150727_161233.jpg20150727_161242.jpg20150727_161251.jpg20150727_161347.jpg
I work using a combination of machine tools, and hand tools. The above board was run through the Jet JPT260M Planner/Thicknesser Combo Unit. The Planner/Thicknesser has a Shelix style Spiral Cutter Head fitted, which has made for a vast improvement on figured woods (compared to the old straight blade cutter), but not so good as to not require significant additional work before you could do some fine sanding prior to finishing.
I'm just starting a new project using some more of Mapleman's lovely Qld Maple, and I thought I'd better seek some advice from the experts regarding how to best process this stuff, so as to enhance the figure as much as possible.
Last time I build a project using Qld Maple, after using the Planner/Thicknesser and having lots of tear-out to deal with, I tried using my old Stanley 4½, and it did a fair job. But even with the mouth closed right up, and a nice fine blade setting, it would still dig in and tear-out the gnarly bits. I then tried an old Stanley Scraper Plane that I inherited from my grandfather. Once I learned how to sharpen it and tune it, it did a really great (but very slow) job. Unfortunately, that Scraper Plane and my Arthritic back do not go together, so I won't be able to use the scraper plane this time.
This afternoon I used a small sample piece of figured maple that had typical tear-out, and attacked it with 80 Grit on the ROS. That approach certainly got rid of the tear-out, and created a smooth surface, but the figured grain now looks very "flat" - all the chatoyancy that was visible in the figure prior to sanding, has completely gone, and with a wipe of turps on the surface, it looks bland.
So - what's the best way of working with this sort of figured wood, that allows the full appearance of the figured grain to show through ?
Is there a machine tool approach that works ?
If I go the hand tool approach, what sort of hand plane can be used to do a finish planing job on this sort of figured wood, without tearing out ?
Over to the experts.
Regards,
RoyG
I need some advice regarding how to get a good finish ready surface when preparing figured wood. I'm currently working with some Queensland Maple, and the areas of really nice figure are giving me a real headache.
First - some photographs, so we're all reading from the same page in the Hymn Book ...... (Double click on the photos to get a much larger view). The grain seems to be rising out of the surface in some places and descending into the surface in other places. No matter which way you send the board through the machine, half will tear-out, and half will be perfect and ready for a light sanding. And when you get to the really figured areas - well you can see the results in the photos below. Huge amounts of tear-out ! Note - these photographs are with the wood dry - no water or turps was used to highlight the figure or tear-out.
20150727_161233.jpg20150727_161242.jpg20150727_161251.jpg20150727_161347.jpg
I work using a combination of machine tools, and hand tools. The above board was run through the Jet JPT260M Planner/Thicknesser Combo Unit. The Planner/Thicknesser has a Shelix style Spiral Cutter Head fitted, which has made for a vast improvement on figured woods (compared to the old straight blade cutter), but not so good as to not require significant additional work before you could do some fine sanding prior to finishing.
I'm just starting a new project using some more of Mapleman's lovely Qld Maple, and I thought I'd better seek some advice from the experts regarding how to best process this stuff, so as to enhance the figure as much as possible.
Last time I build a project using Qld Maple, after using the Planner/Thicknesser and having lots of tear-out to deal with, I tried using my old Stanley 4½, and it did a fair job. But even with the mouth closed right up, and a nice fine blade setting, it would still dig in and tear-out the gnarly bits. I then tried an old Stanley Scraper Plane that I inherited from my grandfather. Once I learned how to sharpen it and tune it, it did a really great (but very slow) job. Unfortunately, that Scraper Plane and my Arthritic back do not go together, so I won't be able to use the scraper plane this time.
This afternoon I used a small sample piece of figured maple that had typical tear-out, and attacked it with 80 Grit on the ROS. That approach certainly got rid of the tear-out, and created a smooth surface, but the figured grain now looks very "flat" - all the chatoyancy that was visible in the figure prior to sanding, has completely gone, and with a wipe of turps on the surface, it looks bland.
So - what's the best way of working with this sort of figured wood, that allows the full appearance of the figured grain to show through ?
Is there a machine tool approach that works ?
If I go the hand tool approach, what sort of hand plane can be used to do a finish planing job on this sort of figured wood, without tearing out ?
Over to the experts.
Regards,
RoyG
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