Questions about planing wood for workbench top

[Wend]

Hi folks,

I finally got around to making the first steps towards converting a pile of wood into a workbench! Or at least the top surface. By and large, I've been pleasantly surprised about how well the planing has been going, but I have a few questions that I wonder if you could help me with.

On one piece of wood, I think the plane ripped out a knot:

Is there anything I could have done to prevent that from happening? And what's the best thing to do now?

I've also got various areas there there are little holes scattered over an area:

I think I've seen this both before and after planing. I guess these aren't too important, as they'll just be small voids inside once it's glued up, but am I doing something wrong to create these?

Finally, some of the wood has cracks in:

Is that something I should expect with 'unsorted' redwood?


Thanks!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's wood. It happens. It doesn't matter one iota. Enjoy your bench.

 

[Ttrees]

Set your cap iron as in the numerous YT video's David W has made on the subject.
Don't listen to anyone else on the subject (most people fail to achieve to get the cap iron to work with full influence)
It is one of those occasions in life that the silver bullet solution actually exists, and will be the total solution with perfect results
Good luck
Tom

 

[Fitzroy]

The middle picture is a classic example of ‘tear-out’, the grain direction has changed around the knot in the wood. One side you’re planing with the grain, the other against the grain. Lighter passes, a tighter mouth, sharper blade, higher angle, closer set cap iron, are all things that aim to reduce tear-out. I also think there is a skill issue (which I’m missing) as if you can notice the changes in the wood before you start planing you can set yourself up to minimise it, I tend to notice is as the plane goes ‘brrrrrrrrrrrrr’ and I go, ‘grrrrrrrrrrrr’. Won’t matter a jot on the internal glue face.

F.

 

[Jacob]

Redwood nearly always has a good face and a bad one. The better one is the face away from the centre of the tree. The face nearer the centre may also include the pith line as in your second pic. The answer is to have the good face out. If you want two good faces choose better pieces of wood, without pith etc

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Hi,

what I think you're seeing in the second and third photos is the "pith" - as Jacob mentions above.

The pith is essentially the centre of the tree. You can often see, if you look at the end of a board, a dot near the centre with the curved growth rings radiating from it. The inclusion of the pith in a board is less than ideal (because the pith is the epicentre of radial splits which can occur as the timber dries) - it is a symptom of a sawmill trying to extract the maximum value (to them!) from small a tree, at the expense of the end user. You can choose to pay a bit extra and specify "centre free" redwood (WISA is one producer which offers this), or, if the yard will allow, you can manually go through and select boards yourself.

Pith: https://treegrowthstructure.weebly.com/ ... 497546.png

Here's an example of an oak board with the pith still in: http://www.forestryforum.com/gallery/al ... fect_2.jpg

I think that there was nothing you could have done to avoid the grain wobble around the knot in the first photo.

If I were you I'd thin the boards in photos 2 and 3 to get rid of the layer containing the pith - IF I was being picky, or wanted to avoid the different colour/texture, or wanted to minimise the risk of future cracks - the other alternative is just to ignore it!

Cheers, W2S

PS Just found a very good blog article by Chris Schwartz: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2014/08/1 ... rkbenches/

 

[Wend]

If I were you I'd thin the boards in photos 2 and 3 to get rid of the layer containing the pith - IF I was being picky

Those were actually all photos from the same board, so I think what I'll do is move the cap iron closer to the end of the iron and use that board to try it out on. That way, while getting rid if the pith, I'll also hopefully get it smoother, and make the hole where the knot was smaller.

Thanks everyone for the advice!

 

[thetyreman]

it's completely normal, knots and pith are weaker, try and avoid pieces with any signs of pith, sometimes knotted areas are not possible to plane without tearout, it's just the wood.