Planing Curly Ambrosia Maple

[DWyatt]

I had a partial load (~450 bf) of 4/4 Red Maple finish up in the kiln awhile back and before I put it into storage, I wanted to skip plane it so it stacked better. I have seem some partial curl in maple, and I have seen a lot of ambrosia, but never combined to this level. It is AMAZING! We got part way through the first pass in Dad's 20" Grizzly and it was chipping out pretty bad, I would assume from the curl. Dad stopped the planer and said we aren't going to ruin this stuff, aannnddd now he has a 20" spiral head on the way. We got the old head pulled out and will install the new one on Thursday when it gets here.   



 



 



 

[Old Greenhorn]

That is some pretty wood, you will get some nice product out of it!

[WDH]

I have had ambrosia maple with curl like that too.  My spiral head handles it with no chip out.  You are going to love the spiral head with the inserts. 

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

This is an ambrosia beetles, but is called the Colombian timber beetle.

[DWyatt]

I have had ambrosia maple with curl like that too.  My spiral head handles it with no chip out.  You are going to love the spiral head with the inserts.

I am very excited, I had talked to Dad about it before and he wasn't real open to the idea. When he saw how purdy the wood was and what the straight knives were doing to it, there was no talking him out of it. He has the spiral head in his 8" jointer and loves it, this will just complete his arsenal.

[samandothers]

Pretty wood!

Happy birthday! 

[firefighter ontheside]

I bought a new Dewalt 735 last year and the first time I planed some curly maple with it, I was disappointed because it was chipping.  Then I remembered that I can change the cuts per inch.  AFter I changed the setting, it was not chipping anymore.  My plan though, is to buy a spiral cutter for it after I have worn out the two sets of knives that came with it.  

[kantuckid]

IMO, based on my own experience, you don't need to buy a new spiral head planer? Light cuts and a sharp blade are the easy answer. And true for any highly figured wood or extremely hard woods such as hickory or Osage Orange which is the toughest I've worked with plus it often has crazy grain to deal with. 

[WDH]

Have you planed using a spiral head with carbide inserts?

[DWyatt]

Planing with the new spiral head was a success! Absolutely no chip out. Also, it is so unbelievably quiet. 8)

[YellowHammer]

 
Our old planer had metal knives, and it was so load we could hear it a hundred yards away and called it the "screamer." With sharp carbides, we can hold a conversation 5 feet away.  Carbides will get dull at some point, and since they do it slowly, it's hard to notice, so remember the sound and volume of the planer now while they are sharp, and when they get dull you'll notice it will be louder, higher pitched and have a "slapping" sound.  It'll be time to rotate them at that point.

A tip to keep them sharp is to avoid stacking the ends of the boards on the floor, such as leaning them against a wall.  The dirt from the floor will get transferred to the edges of the boards and the grit picked up on the edges of the boards will noticeably accelerate the wear on the cutter edges.  So its best to stack the wood on a cart or table while planing.  We use the Harbor Freight hydraulic roller carts.

Also, live edge slabs, the ones still with bark and embedded dirt in them, are as hard on planer knives as it is on sawmill or chainsaw teeth.  A few passes of a mud embedded live edge slab is brutal on planer cutters.