red oak fuzzy after planing?

[oakiemac]

I just had a customer call and said that some red oak that he bought the other day would not plane and came out fuzzy with an raised grain. He said it looked like some one had taken a wet sponge across the wood.
I went and measured the mc and it was at 12%. It has been out of the kiln for a few months now and I had it stacked under a cover. 12% seems a little high but I wasn't surprised that it gained some moisture. But what I can't figure out is what is causing his problems. I know many people that use AD lumber that can  be as high as 20%mc and they have no problems with planing.
Could it be that it was kiln dried to 8% then regained moisture too fast? Like I said the stack was covered but we have had a lot o moisture in the past few months.

[Ga_Boy]

Oakie,

Are his planer knifes dull?  I planed some AD oak (mix of RO and WO), when my knifes got dull there was tear out and in some cases fuzzy grain.

I was using this stuff for stickers so it did not matter for me.



Mark

[Brad_S.]

oakiemac,
I don't know if you've been following this discussion, I assume it's your customer as the description of a wet sponge is the same, but in case you didn't, here is where he's getting his advice.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=17662
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=17768

[oakiemac]

Thanks Brad that is the same guy. He is a good guy and good customer. I have offered to refund his money or replace the lumber. I have never had this problem before and I'm trying to figure out if he was planing it wrong or if it is my fault.

[MemphisLogger]

Oakiemac,

That customer of your has been sending me pictures and asking me all kinda questions like I knew something  ???

From the pics i saw it looked like the only boards he was having trouble with had a bit of runout to the grain--Us and Vs all down the face instead of ellipses. Most of the lumber looked great. A few boards with runout are the run of the log unless you totally waste the taper. 

I don't think it's your fault at all--I told him if he's gonna be buying rough lumber, he should have his own pinless meter and keep a block plane on him to check for  runout.

I think you're great for offering to make it up for him.

[Don P]

Sounds like tension wood...was the tree a leaner? On the high side of a leaning hardwood a type of reaction wood forms called tension wood. On the very inside of the cell walls is a layer of gelatinous rubbery filaments called the "G" layer. When the wood is machined it pulls this stuff out and leaves it hanging. Sanding kind of rubs it around or pulls out more. It makes good bows, springy. Think of these as rubber bands or cables stretching over the upper side of the arching tree, holding the tree upright. Softwoods try to buttress under the lean forming compression wood.
Sounds good anyway  ??? ;D

Edit,
"The thick and loosly attached secondary wall of tension wood fibers is almost pure cellulose of highly cyrstalline organization. Because this layer has little lignin, it is soft and gelatin like, rather than stiff like other wall layers. In addition to being almost pure cellulose, the G layer is composed of microfibrils arranged nearly parallell to the cell axis.
Thick and loosely attached secondary wall fibers are responsible for heating of saws and for the fuzzy surfaces that often remain. The soft walls are difficult to cut cleanly, and cutting forces can result in tear out of fiber bundles from beneath the surface being formed. "
Forest Products and Wood Science

There's some good micrographs with the text if you want them.

Have a look at the end grain for unbalanced growth rings, tho' its not a definite giveaway it is one possibility.

[serg]

Hello! The Russian professor about final humidity of an oak. The text in English. Sergey.
http://www.vacuums.ru/e_news1.html

[oakiemac]

Thanks all for the replys.

Scott, Mark, Don,  I'm a little confused about what you mean by runout? Is that where the rings aren't centered on the board. I didn't mill this lumber. It was milled by a bandmill last fall because I was having trouble fillng an order so I had someone with a band mill cut part of it. The wood could be reaction wood, I never saw the logs.  That might explain why he was having the problems. I also asked about dull knives but he said that they were new and had planed other stock with no problems.

[Ga_Boy]

Oakie,

This is not technically related to the fuzzy wood grain problem.

But is is related to how you choose to handle your customer.

One of my customers called me a week or so ago looking for some Walnut.  During our conversation, he mentioned he had problems with the Oak I sold him.  I sold all of this load as either 1 common or 2 common for either $1.00/bf for 2 or $1.50/bf for 1 

The customer said some of the material planed out to less than 3/4" thickness due to cupping.  My resoponse was for him to calculate how much material did not meet is satisification, add 50% to this total and that is how much of a species of his choosing I will give him from my inventory.  He turned me down the first two times I offered this as compensation; he position is he hand picked his material so this is his fault. 

I repeat my offer every time I speak with this guy.  I want my customers to be satisified and tell others how I do business.

Reading your post about how you treat your customers tells me I am doing things the right way.


Thank you for sharing.




Mark

[Fla._Deadheader]

  We planed some stuff last week, Cypress. It is a soft hardwood. The boards that had "ovals" and not "cathedrals" of grain, were the ones that had the splinters and fuzz. You are planing the boards from both ends of the grain. There HAS to be tear-out and fuzzing. Can't hardly avoid it, even with the drum sander. It CAN be used, but, in certain instances only.

[MemphisLogger]

Oakiemac,

By grain runout I mean the angle at which the grain exits (intersects) the face of the board--woodworkers refer to it as the hair on the cats' back (jointer or planer blades want to be stroking the cat with the direction of it's fur). 

When you have cathedral grain (Us and Vs) it indicates that the grain is running out the face of the board consistently down the length of it. If the angle of this runout is not too much, it is a lot easier to plane it as you can instantly see which direction in wants to go through the planer. Cabinet shops like this as it lets them use cheaper labor to run the planer.

BUT, if the angle of runout is too steep, the infeed roller will depress the fibers before the planer takes it's bite and then they spring back up after passing the outfeed roller. Also, the surface of the resulting board is actually presenting "end grain" to some extent which may cause future problems in gluing and finshing. 

Like FDH points out, having the grain run perfectly parallel to the face of the borad (ovals and ellipses) makes for a cat with hair running different directions (reminds me of the Rhodesian Ridgback hound I had when I was a kid). These boards are a pain to plane for the reasons mentioned by FDH but are preferred by furniture makers due to the aesthetic of the ellipses/ovals. This planing problem is one of the reasons behind the popularity of widebelt sanders.

Oakiemac, I didn't mention tension wood to your customer as he didn't complain at all about warping. Buit it is a possible culprit.

Personally, I don't care which way I feed cats through the planer as long as their not eating my songbirds.  :D ;D

[Larry]

I haven't got my degree in fuzzology :D yet but the only time I seen fuzz in red oak is tension wood.  Wonder if there is a difference in red oak from region to region?

I saw and dry cottonwood every now and then.  I can figure 10% will fuzz.  I always thought the fuzz was caused by wimpy fibers bending down as the planer blade hits then springing back up after the blade passes.  An analogy would be shaving with a dull razor.    But for the most part makes no sense to me...sometimes one end of the board will clean and the other is all fuzz.

[beenthere]

The problem, IMO, has to do with the planer, and is either the sharpness of the blades, or the angle that they are ground.
You need to decide how to treat your customer, to keep on the good side as best you can. Ask to get some of the fuzzy boards back and run them through a different planer. One with sharp blades and ground at the correct angle for hardwoods. That will likely show that the problem is the planer.
True, that there are affects of the tension wood and the 'runout' of the grain that will affect the smoothness of the planer cut, but they show up when the blades are not right.
A well-tuned planer will not have a problem with tension wood or with grain at a steep angle to the surface.
Just my opinion, for what it is worth.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Got any ballpark °'s for different wood??  I saw one example, where the edge was sharpened at a slightly differen angle than the blade angle ??

[beenthere]

There are sources for the different angles as well as some back angles for sharpening blades.
From an old source "Machining Hardwoods" by J.Davis (USDA publication) there are rake angles given for
Softwoods             30 degree
Basswood              25  "
Maple, hard            20   "
Elm                       15   "
Maple, soft            15   "
Yellow poplar          15   "
Oak                      10   "

So,  there is a pretty significant difference when planing oak vs most of the softwoods.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Beenthere, Thanks for the info. I will check our Planer blades and see what I get.  ;) ;)

[Quartlow]

I'm kind of at at a loss here, one of those guys was calling 12% to high? I can just about bet all the wood in the shop is 10 to 12%  and I've never had a problem with building thing out of it.

As for the planing my knives are all ground at 15 degrees. The only thing you have to watch is tearout on curley woods. Wet would shouldn't make a differance as I've run bowl blanks through the planer  : to get an idea of the grain so I can decide which way to point up and they all came out smooth as glass