Sanding Before Cutting

I'm edging some plywood, and plan on cutting a wide oak board down into strips for the edging. The strips will only be about 7/8" wide, which means a power sander will have trouble sitting flat. Would it be worthwhile to sand the wide board before I cut it, or will I wind up just doing extra work?

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper
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I vote to sand the parent board, first. If anyhting, the only extra work may be some touch-up hand sanding of the strips' corners.

Sonny

Reply to
Sonny

I'm confused (not unusual ) but if I understand this correctly, the strips are to conceal the plies and thus will have a much larger surface area (in total) once glued up. You will want them flush with the surface of the plywood and would be sanding this anyways prior to finishing. The edge (or face if you will) is going to be 7/8" thick regardless of whether or not it's on the parent board, standing by itself ready for glue up, or glued to the plywood as edging.

What am I missing? Under this scenario, I'd just cut the strips, glue them up and sand, rout or plane the edges flush and finish

Reply to
Unquestionably Confused

Not seeing the complete picture, it will be easier to sand before cutting.

You can also put all pieces together after cutting and sand.

You can sand after attaching to the plywood.

Reply to
Leon

Really a matter of preference, along with the dictates of the design, and the type and thickness of the stock ... not a bad idea to do any heavy prep first, particularly with regard to thickness.

Do a lot of solid wood banding, and although I rarely have a need to sand the stock used for banding strips beforehand, some sanding of the join between the solid and veneer parts is almost always necessary and can require a delicate touch

In that case I prefer to have everything setup to sand/scrape to a consistent level and finish with minimum sanding/scraping ... mainly so I can focus on the delicate part of the task.

But that's just me ...

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Reply to
Swingman

Is that purple heart in front of your keyboard? ;~)

Reply to
Leon

Which reminds me, and I've been meaning to ask (been wondering for several weeks/month or so, now)....

How's the carpal tunnel results been treating you? Hopefully, you're doing just fine.

Sonny

Reply to
Sonny

Depends on the tools you have, your material, and skills. Some plywood has such a thin finish veneer that it's way too easy to sand through it. If the plywood you are using has a thicker finish veneer, it'll be much more forgiving. Scrapers are great for taking out machining marks on an edging strip of hardwood because you can control it and bend it so it doesn't scrape the plywood.

I usually glue on edging hardwood strips proud of all dimensions, then saw/route/scrape/sand down to final size. I have found this produces the most consistency and results in perfectly straight edges and nice, sharp corners.

Keep this in mind however... plywood and hardwood edging strips will expand and contract at different rates, so a seem that is smooth and perfectly flush today, won't be 6 months from now. If you're assembling in the summer, you might want to leave that seam a few thousandths high so it's be flush when everything shrinks in the winter. Vice versa in the winter. Depending on the purpose of what you're building, sometimes having the slightest little lip is a good thing: to keep pens from rolling off the front of a desk, for instance.

Reply to
-MIKE-

One of those new mangled, composites ... no stain necessary.

Reply to
Swingman

Thanks for asking ... happy with regard to lack of pain when sleeping and/or driving, but still varying degrees of numbness after six months, depending upon what I'm doing.

Basically, too numb to go back to playing bass with a band, but not a big concern for life in general.

Long as I can cook, I'll take what I can get ...

Reply to
Swingman

You are cutting multiple thin strips off a wide board that is about 7/8" thick, is that right? If so, sanding the face of the wide board isn't going to accomplish anything as both show and glue sides will have been cut by the saw (except for one side of the first strip).

It isn't all that hard to sand a 7/8" surface but if you anticipate a problem, here are two ways to handle it...

  1. lay the strips side by side and sand before gluing to the ply
  2. if after gluing, clamp some scrap board along the edges, sort of like shooting boards.
Reply to
dadiOH

Leon wrote in news:ws2dneLzQ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

That's what I get for posting right before I head to bed...

I've got some 1x oak that I'm planning on cutting into approximately

7/8" wide strips to edge band some plywood. This is for a model railroad, and will be very similar in design to the one shown here:
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20DM.jpg

The plan is to cut the oak into strips approximately 3/4" by 7/8", with approximately 1/8" extending out over the plywood to provide a shadow line. I'll get a similar effect to what's shown in the picture, but hopefully it will be cleaner.

I'll join the edging to the plywood using loose tenons, and I'm still debating what to do on the end. I would like a vertical 7/8"x7/8" end block, but am not sure if I'll be able to find material that size without cutting something down or having to glue something up. Notice how the edging just rolls around the edge of the module? (You may have to load more pictures.) Rather than capping the end like I did before, that's where I'd like to put that end block. I think it'll look a little nicer.

So on top there will be a visible piece that is now currently the face of the board. That's the part I was asking about sanding ahead of time.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

OK so the cut edge will face up and above the plywood. Lay all of those pieces with the cut faces up and sand all at the same time.

Or attach to the plywood and sand with a finish sander. With that narrow of a piece to sand, the sander will/should work quickly. If it is a decent cut a scraper would be the ideal tool.

Something I have seen old finish carpenters do, Stop the plywood sides so that they leave a 3/4" x 3/4" recess. The inner surface edges of the plywood come together, but that is it. Then 45 a piece of plywood and place in that corner.

Reply to
Leon

You'll probably still need to sand, you can gang sand..

If you sand before, there's a good chance that the particles will still be around and dull your blade ever so slightly. But I have pre-sanded. It's really hard to say what's best for you.

Reply to
woodchucker

I'm sorry, but what!?

Reply to
-MIKE-

Dead sand paper skin.

Reply to
Leon

Particles of the sandpaper as they break off will embed in the wood. And ever so slightly dull your blade. If you were doing a lot of this, your blade would not last.

Where do you think the particles go? You think they all wind up on the floor or in the vac?

Reply to
woodchucker

You may be over analyzing. I cut a lot of wood after going through my drum sander just after resawing. I cannot say if there is an adverse effect or not. I have my blades resharpened after every 8-10 pieces of furniture.

Reply to
Leon

Wow man, ok. Nope, sorry, I'm tossing this one in the "Oak Rust" files. You want to worry about that, good on ya. I think I'll just build $h!t. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

woodchucker wrote in news:gZCdnXDkna--v5zFnZ2dnUU7- snipped-for-privacy@ptd.net:

o +--| | / | < J

Not taking the bait!

Reply to
Puckdropper

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