A Teaser for the Weekend :)
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)
>This afternoon I was making a lid for a pencil box for my son. The wood in question was a small piece of Rock Maple which I had finished thicknessing (with handplanes, of course), then decided to bookmatch it. After slicing it down the centre and gluing it together, I was left with the task of planing down the two sides.
The problem with planing bookmatched boards if, as we all know, that the grain of one side is going to be running opposite to the other. This presents a wonderful opportunity to create as much tearout as your heart desires. In this case I did not want any tearout.
I turned to my Stanley #112 with LN blade, and this did a pretty good job of levelling the face side, where one side had been about 1mm higher than the other. Good job, but not good enough for a finish. And, no, I did not want to resort to a sander.
So I pulled out the LV Bevel Up Smoother, used the blade that was in it (which turned out to be the 38 degree bevel, creating a 50 degree cutting angle, and not especially sharp - I was more curious than knowledgable), and planed away.
In planing I simply went up-and-down the whole board. No attempt was made to determine in which direction the grain ran. The result is below (picture from my scanner, 1200x1200 dpi). Absolutely no indication of tearout anywhere!
The Question: can you tell which direction the grains run?
Regards from Perth
Derek