jade3•16d ago

Hot take: I was struggling with tear-out on some figured maple until I tried a trick with blue painter's tape.

This was on a set of drawer fronts last week. The grain was all over the place, and even with a sharp blade on my planer, I was getting those little chips. I remembered a guy at a supply house in Spokane mentioned once to run a strip of tape along the cut line. I figured it was worth a shot, so I put a single strip of the 2-inch wide stuff right where the planer knives would hit. Ran it through, peeled the tape off, and the edge was clean as can be. It's not for every situation (and you go through tape), but for those tricky pieces, it saved me a ton of sanding. Has anyone else used tape for something like this, or have a different go-to method for wild grain?

2 comments

2 Comments

valthomas16d ago

That tape trick is a total game changer for figured maple! I had the exact same issue with a curly maple guitar body blank last month. I even tried misting it with water first, which helped a little, but the blue tape gave me a glassy finish right off the router.

paul_morgan16d ago

Honestly, the tape adhesive can sometimes leave a residue on lighter woods. I've switched to the green frog tape for that reason, it seems to come off cleaner.