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I am making a birdhouse and wanted to ensure that the two sloped sides of the box were the same height so the top flap would sit flat on both sides. I grabbed a block plane to do this and had really horrible tear-out. Thankfully, I was able to rip the oops mostly off and finished the job with a sander, but I feel like this is something I should be able to do with a block plane, but maybe my technique was wrong.

Is there a way to plane on an end grain that will eliminate tear-out, or is it a universally bad idea and one should go for the sanding pad instead?

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Peter Grace
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  • How long was the surface you were planing? – Matt May 04 '15 at 13:54
  • Short, approximately 6" or so. – Peter Grace May 04 '15 at 14:14
  • I'm closing this as a duplicate of http://woodworking.stackexchange.com/questions/741/how-do-you-plane-end-grain. Although the other question doesn't explicitly mention tearout, it falls under the question of "gotchas" and is covered in the accepted answer. – rob May 04 '15 at 15:19

2 Answers2

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Everything I've read says you need to clamp a waste block on the end of your board to prevent the tear out. It is even recommended to do this if you are using a router or jointer.

By keeping the pressure on with a waste block it won't be able to splinter down the board.enter image description here

Source

Of course the other option would be to plane toward the center from both sides.

bowlturner
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  • plane inwards from edges.
  • chamfer the far edge and angle the plane.
  • support the edge with sacrificial wood.
  • use a shooting board.
bowlturner
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RedGrittyBrick
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  • Was able to look up what a shooting board was but having an issue trying to figure out what "chamber the far edge and angle the plane" means – Matt May 04 '15 at 14:28
  • @Matt I think he meant Chamfer, so I changed it – bowlturner May 04 '15 at 14:30
  • @matt: bowlturner is right, I'm posting from a phone - auto(in)correct! – RedGrittyBrick May 04 '15 at 15:32
  • I realize this is a closed question but it may be worth a comment for future responses. To prevent people from having to look up terminology, I consider it a good practice to define uncommon terms in the answer, such as a shooting board (possibly a chamfer, but I think that's a common enough term to not need it.) – Daniel B. May 05 '15 at 02:19
  • @DanielB. or better yet, open a new question and cross-link the answer and newly-spawned question. – rob May 05 '15 at 18:15