grain direction???

[engineer one]

so there i am like everyone trying to do too many different things,
and i thought do i hand plane, or machine plane some of my more
recent lumps of beech, oak and cherry?

obviously when you start to hand plane you can feel to an extent with
simple(whoops sorry :twisted: ) woods, the grain direction,
but if it is totally rough cut, do the various stars of this forum have
a quick, dirty and easy way to figure out grain direction before they
start???

having light blue touch paper now retreats from outbreak of laughter :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

I always run it through the machine first but slightly oversized - why waste energy and time going from rough sawn to planed?
Even in videos I have watched that show how to take rough sawn to smooth (and thicknessed sometimes) by hand, they say that 99 times out of a hundred they use machines first :wink:

Of course, the output from a powered planer then needs hand planing flat and smooth otherwise you'll end up sanding the thing :?

 

[engineer one]

yes tony, that's my plan, but even a machine suffers from tear out??????

so how do you make it easier, and with less tear out?
paul :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

I use a ece reform plane to get a good finish. (plus scrapers)
I keep the blade sharp regular with waterstones and a cloth wheel.
I put wax on the sole of the plane.
I try as best as possible to observe which way the grain is going irf its wild or whatever and try to plane uphill to it (ie like stroking a cat head to tail, not the wrong way)
I make the cut with the blade skewed instead of straight on
I was astonished just how well the ece plane copes with wild grain even treally rough old fencing rails, recycled joists etc. I think its the adjustable mouth and fine adjusterment screw as well!!
cheers Mr Spanton

 

[engineer one]

i guess i am still not being clear.

what is it that draws your eye to the grain direction
what clues do you look for, or is it just something that
eventually comes with experience??

nice comments about the ece plane, look nice.
paul :wink:

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Check the edge of the board. You'll be able to see if the grain rises approximately diagonally from one wide face to the other. Once you've established which way it rises plane the wood so that the rise points upwards to the ceiling and forwards in the direction you're planing over the tables.

Sometimes you're SOL (sh-t outta luck) and you can see the grain is wavy or is curved. Sometimes you can't tell at all because the grain is fuzzy and obscures reading it.

In these last instances, plane one direction. If there's a ton of tear-out, turn the board around end for end and try the same face again. Sometimes you're SOL whichever way you plane as you get get bad tear-out whatever you do.

In the latter case you have to make your best judgement about direction of feed to cause you the least problems. This applies to the thicknesser too. It's all an extremely simple process really- very hard to fail to realise what is best, and sometimes nothing is good, and that's the end of that. There are no magic pills that prevent some boards tearing out badly. Slainte.

 

[engineer one]

so basically its back to the bottle of single malt,
and be an optimist i guess,
thanks for that it explains more about how i felt,
but i just wanted to see if there is anything else
i should look for.

so for my next job i'll have to add even more overage than i thought. :roll:

paul :wink:

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Paul,

In my experience it's not always obvious which way the grain goes - with some pieces of wood what looks like the wrong direction turns out to be the right direction. What I tend to do now is to draw an arrow on the wood with a very soft pencil showing which direction to plane to avoid tearout (and other marks if the grain is particularly difficult and might cause problems with final finishing). I leave these marks on (re-applying as necessary) throughout making the piece - that helps to avoid last-minute problems at the end of the project when tearout would be difficult to deal with :wink:

Paul

 

[CONGER]

E-1... that is a good question... and the anwers are, and will be, un-satisfactory.

It it helps... these are the methods I use.

#1... Observe the topology of the surface-to-be-planed... turn over the board, and try to recognise features you saw in the s2bp. This normally gives a pretty good guide on 'the lie of the land'.

#2... Observe the patterns from the sides of the board; supplement this with the information gleaned frim step #1.

#3... Finally, and my favourite step (this brings out the shaman in me), run your hand (or finger tips) repeatedly along the board over the s2bp. Often this will reveal a direction that is smoother than the other. The 'smooth' direction is the direction in which the plane blade will cut best (that includes an electric planer).

If you have difficulty feeling the grain in step #4, then you may improve 'the feeling' by spraying on a LIGHT coat of water (one of those plant spray 'atomisers is good for this). Another trick is to use a stiff brush (nail brush or light wire brush); rub the brush along the s2bp in both directions... this WILL raise the surface fibers on all but the most dense woods.

If all of this fails, then you are trying to determine the grain direction of a piece of MDF!

Work safe... -gerard- who recovering from too many 'masses' of Oktoberfest beer (was only 2.5!), in a dull and damp Munich.

PS. Here is my personal favourite - Tasmanian Myrtle (Nothofagus cunninghamii) - our antipodean friends may have 'better' examples.

 

[Anonymous]

what is it that draws your eye to the grain direction
what clues do you look for, or is it just something that
eventually comes with experience??

I think its a case of learning all the time. I am no expert but have planed many different spceis of wood. Every board of wood is different, some woods plane better than others. If you have some qurter sawn oak it will hopefully be a lot easier to plane up than some recycled fencing posts with clusters of knots every 16 inches or so.
Sometimes I plane from different directions or across thw grain if the wood structure is too wild. Also several fine passes are less likely to cause tear out than 1 hefty one. What happens if a board is going grain uphill on one side , but grain downhill the other? try a few light passes and the wood will tell you which is the best direction to go in, possibly one direction one edge, oposite direction the other edge, or around a tricky area with angled or curving motions of the plane, sharp fine set blade, generally aiming to plane uphill.
Scrapers are so excellent to finish with especially areas of very wild interlocing grain structure
Cheers Mr Spanton

PS I've had plenty of my share of dispointments when you lose concentration for just a second and RIP a nasty great clup of tearout just as you were starting to achieve a good clean surface :roll:

 

[Chris Knight]

Paul,
Here's a couple of other ways.

Another mnemonic - Up (the hill) and In (to the points); Down (into the valley) and Out (away from the points).


http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4500835.html
Abstract: A method and apparatus for detecting grain direction in wood particularly in lumber by means of high frequency radio energy like microwave radiation. The grain direction in lumber can be detected so that knots will cause no significant error to the measuring result. The knots are detected by the method according to the invention in so far as they contain deviations of grain direction. The microwave radiation is either passed through or reflected from the piece of lumber. Radiation energy is transmitted with the aid of a transmitting antenna with a certain direction of polarization and a signal of grain direction is obtained by detecting microwave field by a receiving antenna whose direction of polarization plane forms an angle of 90.degree. with the direction of polarization plane of transmitting antenna. A preferred embodiment of the invention provides for the polarization of transmitting field to be changed so that it alternatively is parallel or perpendicular to the direction of polarization plane of receiving antenna. A first signal (V.sub.s) is measured when both polarization planes are perpendicular to each other and a second reference signal (V.sub.ref) is measured when the polarization planes are parallel. The angle of the grain direction is obtained from the result of dividing the first signal with the sum of the first and second signals.

Over to you!

 

[Alf]

#3... Finally, and my favourite step (this brings out the shaman in me), run your hand (or finger tips) repeatedly along the board over the s2bp. Often this will reveal a direction that is smoother than the other. The 'smooth' direction is the direction in which the plane blade will cut best (that includes an electric planer).

Yeah, I use that one a lot - one of the advantages of being more desk-sitter than calloused-handed toiler at the workbench full time. Or that's what I tell myself when yet another splinter skewers my lilywhites... :roll:

As I have this one about the place, might help with the basics of reading the edge:

Cheers, Alf

 

[CONGER]

Alf... sadly I do not have 'lilywhites' for brushing over the surface to be planed, but I do understand that it may be dangerous if one got splinters in them, if one had.

;-)) who is not going to embed a picture of 'lilywhites' in this posting!

 

[Alf]

Hands, Gerard. Lilywhite hands... :roll:

 

[CONGER]

Ahhh... 'lillywhite HANDS'... now I understand!

To quote John Cleese... 'what a silly bunt' (I am).

Thanks for the clarification Alf... I was concerned!

-gerard- who's bind moggles... sometimes.

 

[David C]

If visual inspection does not produce conclusive answer resort to

The "suck it and see" method.

Take a light cut, with machine or hand plane in either direction ans see/feel which way worked best.

Once machined or hand planed a hand lens makes it much easier to see the orientation of the bundles of fibres and tubes on the edge of fine grained timbers.

I have an article on this in my new book, which is currently on a ship from far east.

David Charlesworth

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Mr Spanton

Welcome to the forum.

Cheers
Neil

 

[engineer one]

Hi D.C. glad that you came out to play. Your answer like Sgian dubh's
is what i thought, but you always wonder whether there is a magic
trick, cause to newcomers, it does look like magic.

now i know it is a great deal of luck :lol:

lets hope the book does not get hi-jacked :twisted:

paul :wink:

 

[Sgian Dubh]

It's not really luck, Paul. If you do this work on a regular basis you become adept at quickly working out which way to plane, either by hand or with a machine.

Put it this way. I just take a glance at the grain on the face or edge perpendicular to the one I want to plane, make an assessment and go for it. If I make the wrong judgement and there's a lot of tear out I usually try planing the other way to see if it cures it or the tear out is reduced.

I could spend longer and look at the end grain to see which way the ring-cupping goes, but often it's not so easy to see due to paint, wooly grain from a saw cut, fine grain, etc..

It's often just quicker to whack off a cut and then make an adjustment to suit if needed. Of course, most of the time the direction of the grain alternates along the length and/or width, so whichever way you plane there can be torn grain.

Often this doesn't matter too much during the initial squaring and construction phase (unless the tear out is particularly bad which occurs more pronouncedly with machine work usually) but it does matter a great deal more at the final cleaning up phase when you're getting the wood ready for a bit of polish. Slainte.

 

[Anonymous]

yes tony, that's my plan, but even a machine suffers from tear out??????

so how do you make it easier, and with less tear out?
paul :wink:

Run the plank through the machine a second time without adjusting the cut - this 'spring' cut usually leaves a pretty decent finish and little hand planing is needed to get a perfect finish