 Olly, you've hit the nail on the head. There are significant differences between carpentry & joinery and cabinet making disciplines ~ planing / scraping timber prior to finishing is certainly one of them.
Your point regarding smiles and frowns is a good one and it should be followed wherever possible. The only problem with this approach is when you start getting fussy about how you want the grain figure to flow.
An alternative approach is to split the board every few inches with a fine bandsaw blade, then rejoin after shooting with a jack or fore plane. This won't eliminate warping in a panel but it will certainly reduce it. By cutting and rejoining you reduce the end grain radius of individual sections and therefore their movement. Properly seasoned and adjusted timber makes a huge difference too.
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 Olly. Surely the ripple marks you refer to don't exist if you have a slow feed rate & sharp knifes. I can see how you would get them from a thicknesser as the feed is determined by the rollers, but when surface planing it`s you who is controlling the feed speed I`ve never had any visible ones on finish work. as i take my time when planing, so to save time latter on. This then goes back to scraper verse`s sanding, which is personal choice! I`ll stick with my random orbital sander. Baz
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Hey Baz, I'm with you on the scraper vs sanding thing ~ it's just down to preference.
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.jpg) Mike, if you were to make as many mistakes as I have been known to in the past, you'd need a bloody big rubber to remove all the pencil marks!!  I'm finding I prefer to initially scrape my work rather than to get out my ROS. I don't see the point in running over it with a coarse paper that'll reduce the smoothness of the finish when you're going to work up through the grits anyway? A cabinet scraper will still leave a smooth finish - it won't be as rough as 80g, that's for sure!  I'm thinking of trying those preforated Hermes discs that Axminster sell - anybody used them? I was gonna go for Abranet, but they're only in packs of 50 and the price is too high for me.
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Olly, I got some of those Axminster perforated disks the other day. So far so good 
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Olly. I bought a mixed box of Abranet 5 grits 10 of each about £13-00 off a e-bay seller. As for the ROS, 240 is the most course i use, then progress finer. Baz
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Thanks for that guys. Good old eBay! Why didn't I think of that?!
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 I'm surprised this thread is still going so: Dose any one eles have problems with fitting a raised panel cutter in their router table? Or is that why some of you have made your own. I had to give my table a second half inch top and fence to cope.
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 I have no trouble using my panel raising bit in my table, my double fence with the front one sliding does help, As for the thread, amazing isn't it, starts off with someone's mistake, goes on to how to join boards and ends up with how to finish a board, talk about all around the houses, can only be interesting. derek.
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True Happy mistakes! Looks Like you made your own table. Did you bye the mounting plate raising mec ect? P J
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P J Made my own table, some pics in my gallery, bought the plate after using a home made alloy plate for 15 yrs. just to be able to use a large panel raiser like this, which I bought only this year at the Ally Pally show. derek.
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 Paul, there are a number of threads and pictures in various galleries regarding home-made router tables......well worth a look. There are some great set-ups. Baz's looks like a piece of furniture, with lippings on the fence.....beautiful. I think everyone agreed that making your own was the only way to get accuracy and all the features you wanted. - Ben & Olly, following on from the conversation about marks left by the planer/ thicknesser......would you apply the same reasoning to mouldings? The logical extension of your argument for a scraped or planed finish to all boards is that you do the same to anything that has been moulded on a spindle moulder or router table. I can only think that this would lead to a lot of work, softening up of mould profiles, and human error.......but your argument that spinning blades leaves a fine scallop that must be removed must surely be applied whether the blades are flat or shaped? Mike
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Derek, Yes I see But i can't see what you use to lift the router up with i take it is a plunge router like mine. I use a rusty car jack! OK it not rusty,in a way i wish it was so it wouldn't move though ribration. I'll do some thing with it one day. P J
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PJ I have a Freud 2000 cve router which has it's own lifting system in thatit has a fine height adjuster, as many of the router sdo now. derek.
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Derek has his solution to that problem, Paul....here is mine: You can see the "U" shaped frame wooden under the the body of the router, with a screw and knob which raises or lowers a horizontal bar just above the bottom member of the frame. The inner tubes act as a spring to hold it all in place. This whole frame swings out of the way and fastens to the underside of the table when not required. My new router table will have a similar arrangement, but I will fabricate everything from steel this time. This couldn't be easier, and allows microscopic adjustment of height. All from scrap. Mike
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Derek Just call me stupid I do think my Performance power (B&Q special) has a fine adjuster i will have a better look at that tomorrow. Cheers P J
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Funny you mention that Mike, I was thinking about this paradox last night. I wouldn't apply the same rationale to router mouldings at all. Using a sharp cutter and a slow feed rate gives a great finish, while trying to sand out ripples in a dodgy moulding is a nightmare that's best avoided.
For me, the issue with large surfaces and planer marks is down to surface area. A large flat surface will catch the light and show up all sorts of discrepancies, whereas router mouldings tend to cover a fraction of the surface area and have a finer finish off the machine. Thinking about it, router cutters tend to be sharper than planer blades too ~ TCT vs HSS combined with an easier life I guess.
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Yes, I think you are right Ben. That is the pragmatic response.....and pragmatic is certainly my watchword in the workshop! My only additional comment is that I went out to the workshop and planed up a bit of oak earlier, and try as I might, in this wonderful light today as well, I just couldn't see any ripples or surface marks at all. But then, my blades are very nearly new, the feed-rate is slow, and my eyes probably aren't as good as they used to be!!!! By the way, I saw your message earlier and responded to the said forum item...thanks! Mike
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ben. I don`t agree tct is sharper than hss it just holds its edge longer. I certainly find it easier to put a sharp edge on hss, i also hone my planer blades on the machine to keep them in tip top condition. As for router marks on profiles, a tip i picked up years ago was to run the cutter the wrong way along the already cut profile, this removes marks & slight burn marks. Baz.
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| Edited: 06/05/08 18:40 |
