safely Planing an end grain cutting board

[reible]

These are the time when it would be nice to have one of those large belt sanders Norm use to show us. See number 16 here:

http://www.normstools.com/nyw-shop.shtml

I too think you are better off with sanding. Planner knives are likely to tear rather then cut 100% of the time even small tears would be hard to repair. They are also likely to happen any where on the work piece and not just the end. Even a small number of these would distract from the finished product.

Even using a hand plane designed for end grain would be tricky depending on what wood you have. Remember the low angle of the hand plane is designed for this sort of cut but the planner, be it shopsmith or not will not have that advantage because they are not designed for end grain cutting.

So ask yourself, after all this work do I want to take a chance and see what happens or do I want to be safe and sand?

Ed

Edit to add more details.

[garys]

On end grain, I prefer first cutting it so it is straight using the table saw, and then sanding to finish it.

[rutpoule]

You could make your own wide drum surface sander. There's instruction here if you scroll down about 3/4 of the page:
http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/drumsand/

[BuckeyeDennis]

If you haven't seen it, shipwright shared his dandy shop-built drum sander accessory, complete with dust collection, in this thread.

[JPG]

I would be inclined to use a 3x36 hand held belt sander.

[rjent]

You could make your own wide drum surface sander. There's instruction here if you scroll down about 3/4 of the page:
http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/drumsand/

I made one of those wide drum sanders using the 10ER (because I like the crank table raiser better than the Mark V/7). I works wonderfully, the only gotcha is you have to train yourself to feed evenly as you create "waves" otherwise. As far as even thickness goes, it works as well as the SS planer. I can get within 2 or 3 thousands flat which is good enough for me. If anyone wants, I can take some pictures of it. I even built dust collection for it and that works better than the sander .

I used shipwrights idea about using plastic pipe and the velcro system. I am changing the paper as needed, but will make a second "tube" so I can keep a fine and course grit available by changing tubes....

FWIW

[Bruce]

ShopNotes Magazine #86 has plans http://www.shopnotes.com/plans/thickness-sander/ for a tablesaw driven thickness sander. I imagine it could be modified to be driven by the ShopSmith.

[BuckeyeDennis]

You could make your own wide drum surface sander. There's instruction here if you scroll down about 3/4 of the page:
http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/drumsand/

I made one of those wide drum sanders using the 10ER (because I like the crank table raiser better than the Mark V/7). I works wonderfully, the only gotcha is you have to train yourself to feed evenly as you create "waves" otherwise. As far as even thickness goes, it works as well as the SS planer. I can get within 2 or 3 thousands flat which is good enough for me. If anyone wants, I can take some pictures of it. I even built dust collection for it and that works better than the sander .

I used shipwrights idea about using plastic pipe and the velcro system. I am changing the paper as needed, but will make a second "tube" so I can keep a fine and course grit available by changing tubes....

FWIW

Dick, I'd certainly like to see photos of your sander. I'd like to have a thickness sander, but have no shop space left for a stand-alone unit. One of my 10ER's would make a dandy host.

It seems like a thickness-sander SPT would be a good product for Shopsmith to offer. I know they tried marketing a SS version of the Sand-Flee machine, but that's not an actual thickness sander.

[rjent]

You could make your own wide drum surface sander. There's instruction here if you scroll down about 3/4 of the page:
http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/drumsand/

I made one of those wide drum sanders using the 10ER (because I like the crank table raiser better than the Mark V/7). I works wonderfully, the only gotcha is you have to train yourself to feed evenly as you create "waves" otherwise. As far as even thickness goes, it works as well as the SS planer. I can get within 2 or 3 thousands flat which is good enough for me. If anyone wants, I can take some pictures of it. I even built dust collection for it and that works better than the sander .

I used shipwrights idea about using plastic pipe and the velcro system. I am changing the paper as needed, but will make a second "tube" so I can keep a fine and course grit available by changing tubes....

FWIW

Dick, I'd certainly like to see photos of your sander. I'd like to have a thickness sander, but have no shop space left for a stand-alone unit. One of my 10ER's would make a dandy host.

It seems like a thickness-sander SPT would be a good product for Shopsmith to offer. I know they tried marketing a SS version of the Sand-Flee machine, but that's not an actual thickness sander.

OK, cool, just for you ....

The table crank is just awesome for adjustments. I will take some pictures and if I have time a video of it operating. Tomorrow afternoon ... maybe

[rjent]

OK, made a video of the drum sander. Editing it now, hope to post it to YouTube later. Will let you know when it is up ....

Be warned, my squeaky voice and ugly mug will be visible .... fair warning. I am not a plumber, so the "crack" isn't showing but still ....