Planing and Scraping Plywood?!?!?!?
Christopher Fitch @ Memphis
>Hey all,
in my seemingly never-ending odyssey to finish my bench top, I resorted to extreme measures.
Some background:
I build my bench over the past 6 months or so. The base and drawer cabinet have been completed for some time now. The top has been close but not quite done.
This is the second bench I have built so I have some experience with what is important, as least to me. One of those things is having a relatively flat top. My first bench was made out of SYP and had as many waves in it as a lake on a windy day. So I developed a probably unhealthy paranoia for having a flat top on my next bench.
So I decided to make a new one and I followed Christopher Schwarz' recipe for making a top by gluing together 4 pieces of 3/4" baltic birch and framing it with an apron. It went together well enough and it was mostly flat except for a dip here and there. However, the worst part is the one corner that is lower than the rest of the top by about 1/16".
So, having attempted to plane plywood once before with little success, I decided to pull out the dreaded dust-maker, my PC 333VS ROS, and sand the top to mostly flat. Well, I have been sanding for some time. I learned alot about sandpaper, how well my dust mask works (very good), and how dust gets everywhere, especially on the furniture after you come in from a nice sanding session.
Well, a few months and many sheets of sandpaper later, I'm closer, but the dip in the corner is still too much for my comfort. So last night I decided to try my new LV scraping plane.
Whipped it out, cleaned the blades (I bought the hard one), put on a burr, and scraped away. The plane worked like a dream, but it was even slower than the sander. So I was still no closer to having my top flat, so I decided to try planing.
This time though, I decided to use my #4 1/2 and just deal with the tear-out. It was better but still not good enough. If I set the blade to a bigger cut, I could get it but I would also lose some chunks of the top veneer. But I am closer, so I think one more good sanding session tonight might get me close enough. And then I can put a finish on the sucker and move on!
On a side note, if anyone wants practice dealing with stubborn or reversing grain, plane or scrape some plywood.
Thanks for following along with my odyssey!
:)