On 10/13/2018 2:04 PM, dpb wrote:
On 10/13/2018 11:39 AM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
...

If I decide to move forward, it seems like I will be learning to use a
power planer ...

As the posters in the link said, the key is definitely to only take
hair-thin shavings to avoid major tearout.

The problem with more severe issues as the kickback and such is more likely
related to more gross misfeed like an end gets kicked up or a glueline
breaks or the like.

On conventional planers with feedbed rollers, there can be a tilt caused by
the leading edge moving over and if are set too high that can be enough to
cause the knives to catch front edge too deeply to cut and given the
endgrain is up, the side edge facing the knives is harder to slice than
when it's endgrain in normal orientation that will split along the length
more easily.

A full-length sled and a sacrificial trailing piece makes it do-able with
care but it's not a "learning" exercise imo, no...

It's the cat's meow job for the surface planer or rig up a custom jig to
use the router instead for starters...

--

I've found that using a sacrificial leading and trailing pieces works out
well for both the jointing and planing even with hard maple. I've had to
keep my boards down to 12" and under because of the size of my equipment
but doing it with the sacrificial pieces and keeping the cuts super-light
make it pretty easy and safe. No more than light sanding is needed before
oiling.