On Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 1:04:47 PM UTC-5, 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 made several end grain cutting boards and I agree that the key is to take very thin cuttings on each pass. Patience is the key. I would also say to let the glue-ups cure for a day or more to make sure they don't break under stress.

There's no doubt that a surface sander is the better option.