S2S lumber with planing marks

[Eric Yancey]

I recently bought a fair amount of a S2S lumber and after working with it I noticed that some of it has some pretty severe planing marks. Some of the boards had to be planed more than 1/32" of an inch on both sides to remove the planer marks. Since the lumber was already surfaced down to 3/4", this final planing reduced the thickness to 11/16" on some boards, as thin as

5/8" on others.

My question is this: is this acceptable? I'm not expecting the lumber to be perfect, but if the lumber is already 3/4" thick I can't exactly plane off a lot of wood if I want it to be close to 3/4" thick when I'm done. Obviously the ideal situation would be to get full 4/4 rough lumber and plane it myself, but this species was unavailable anywhere locally rough cut.

thanks,

Eric

[toller]

No, it is not acceptable. If it is not ready to be sanded, it is not S2S. Around here anyhow, even S2S properly planed is 13/16" to allow you to do a glue up and bring the panel to 3/4".

[Guess who]

My question is: is it acceptable to you? If not, ask your dealer if it is acceptable to him. I complained about some oak veneer that turned out to be crap. The dealer offered me some solid oak to replace. He was not out to screw me. If your dealer says, "screw you" you have a simple solution. If he replaces/repays your problem is solved. If you decide you can use it anyhow for other projects, make a deal with him for a discount on the next purchase.

Your choice, your decision.

[Eric Yancey]

Thanks for the reply - you make some good points. The frustrating thing is that some of these marks are practically invisible until you put some finish on it. In fact, I sanded an adjustable shelf down to 320 grit and it felt super smooth, but when I applied danish oil those marks telegraphed through and looked downright horrible.

So maybe after this project is done I'll take a sample back and ask the dealer what they think. They're a family run business and I've been really happy with their lumber thus far. My guess is that I got some lumber that was at the tail end of a run when the planer knives were getting dull.

Eric

[TWS]

Eric, what kind of 'planing' marks? I can't imagine a planing mark as deep as 1/32" unless you're talking about snipe or bands where the planer blades had been nicked (in these cases it creates high spots that are easily hand planed off and won't affect the thickness. Are you referring to tear out perhaps?

Snipe is only going to affect the last or beginning 3 inches of the board. Close inspection when picking the board should let you see snipe and allow you to get a longer board without paying for the sniped ends.

TWS

[Eric Yancey]

more like dents where one of the knives seems to have compressed the wood fibers. Some places you can feel the marks, other places you can't. For instance if you sand an area with the marks, it will end up flat but because the dents have compressed fibers, they show up when the wood is finished. Very frustrating!

[Leon]

Nope it does not sound acceptable to me unless you got a really really god deal. The s2s that I buy is always over 13/16" thick and always has to be planed to 3/4".

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Looks like dents from chips that were not cleared away properly. Acceptable? OK for a bookshelf, but not for a piece of fine furniture.

[Jim Stuyck]

My opinion is that (1) it's not really 1/32" deep indentations on the side that you picture and (2) it's caused by too fast a feed or too deep a cut when run thru the surface planer.

I've learned to look more carefully before applying a finish.

Jim Stuyck

[TWS]

Looks like snipe to me. They probably have worn bearings or have springs that need tensioning for their feed rollers and they 'bounced' the boards when they were being fed (this causes the blades to dig deeper than normal). The smaller ripples are 'normal' planer marks.

Regardless of the cause, I'd say this was justification for rejecting the lot.

TWS

[Eric Yancey]

Jim,

I think you're right in that the indentations probably aren't quite 1/32" deep, BUT I had to plane about a 32nd of an inch off to get to where the dents were not visible. So perhaps the dents aren't that deep, but the effects on the wood are.

The pic that I showed had been sanded with 100, 150, 200, and then 320 and you can see how the marks were still visible. So after the finish dried I took my hand plane and went to it to finally get down to some clear wood.

And you're right... I need to examine everything more closely before applying a finish.

Eric

[Leon]

No, snipe is at the end of a board. This board appears to have been planed on a large planer at the faster feed rate vs. the slower feed rate. This is pretty common to see on s2s but typically s2s is not planed to final thickness. The intention is for the s2s material to be planed at a slower and smoother final thickness buy the customer buying the wood.

[Bill Wallace]

I'd say it depends on how you bought it.

If you picked it off a rack, well... then it's yours.

If you ordered it from a supplier and it was only available in that format (S2S) at that thickness, then you could easily reject it as not meeting your needs and they just re-stock it.

If it was in-stock rough and you ordered it S2S to 3/4 it's a bit harded to call, especially since it sounds like it's a special item. If it was Red Oak and I ordered 4/4 prep'd S2S at 3/4 and a bunch of it needed more work, especially because of deep planer cuts, I'd reject it. In any case, you could at least have a discussion with your rep and see just how important of a customer you are.

I learned a trick from an old timer to always reject some stock in the first few orders from a new supplier, just so they know you are picky and they will be more careful about what they send you in the future. Just don't be an asshole about it and it seems to work.

BW

[gmcl01]

Those marks are commonly caused by one of two things.

They have sharpened but not 'true' up the planer blades so they have one blade that is leading or stick out too far. They should be trued up to ensure they are all even and then you don't get those marks

The second cause is feeding the wood through too fast so that the knives are skipping.

Unfortunately the marks do not usually stand out until you get a finish on it.

[Duane Bozarth]

Know this is late but...to avoid such a problem in the future, wet the surface w/ thinner before applying a finish...it will highlight any such problems while you can still fix them...