How to fix tear out on 1/4 in maple top?

[82DeanZ]

Hi,

I was thickness planing a piece of quilted maple and ended up with quite a few spots of tear out. I believe that this is not uncommon with figured wood. My question is how are the tear outs corrected on a maple top? Is there some kind of filler that would work to fill in the divots? Do I just have to sand down until they are gone? Thanks in advance for your advice!

Best Regards,

Mike.

[litchfield]

I sanded. Now I also do my thicknessing on figured wood with my buddy's overhead sander....no tearouts

[westhemann]

for quilted maple you really need to plane the last bit with very little depth of cut and have sharp blades...the tearout usually occurs when you are cutting off too much or you have dull blades

[daveq]

I agree with Wes - when I come close to my final thickness, I start taking off tiny amounts at a time (less than 1/32) and it turns out very well. The sharp blades are very important also. If you have any clogging in the dust chute, make sure it's cleaned out. Otherwise, the chips, shavings will get pushed into the wood.

[82DeanZ]

Thanks for your replies. I assume the blades are fairly sharp because the planer I'm using is new and only been used on a couple of boards. I may have been a little aggressive on the plane depth, though not by much more than 1/32. Next time I'll try a little less I suppose. So, no way to recover from the tear out other than sanding? I was thinking maybe some kind of filler, but I suppose that wouldn't be a very transparent fix, eh? Thanks again.

Best Regards,

Mike.

[DannoG]

In addition to the shallow cut for the final, you can wipe the wood with a damp rag first. Not wet, just enough to swell to very top surface of the wood. This can help lock the fibers.

[frank falbo]

As a sidenote, on a new planer you can't assume the blades are set right (on the contrary, assume they are set wrong) So if you have one of the three blades (or whatever configuration you have) a little higher, it can gouge the wood, almost like you really are working one blade instead of three. So then it's also like spinning the bit at 1/3rd speed since there's less frequent contact with the new plane surface. I don't mean it can gouge the wood just by it's own misalignment, but rather that it's assymetrical aggressiveness would contribute to tearout.