Tom Banes wrote:
Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.

Is there a router bit that acts like a sander, that is, not real
aggressive, but can be used on sides of a cut to clean them up? Cuts
are only about 3/8 deep and I've tried sanding by hand and scraping
with my gunsmithing scrapers, but to no avail.

Reason for asking:

Wandered by my local purveyor of curly wood Saturday. Searching
through the scrap pile when one of the folks working there guided me
to three hunks (flitches) of maple. Seems he was a fiddle/guitar
maker. He said these 24" X 6-8" X 1" would finish up really nice for
small work. WTH, $10 for 3 pieces.

Planed off one Sunday AM and he was right - pretty wood. Decided a
quick rout to make a free hand nut tray would work. Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

Results of free hand rout are at

http://web2.airmail.net/xleanone/index.html/Tray/

The images are 250 - 400 KB, so if you're on dial up you may want to
pass.

Last 2 pics are bottom of tray, just planed. All wiped with mineral
spirits to show figure, color balance adjusted to 5250 to reduce flash
effect.

All the cut sides are burned pretty badly.Bad technique and maybe a
questionable bit.

BTW, the wood is really pretty. Big Leaf maple and great figure, but
boy, what a PITA to plane! Ron Knight has my 50 degree smoother on
order (at 1/2 price!) for this kind of stuff!

Any suggestions appreciated.

Regards.

Tom
G'day Tom,
I would suggest that you try a small sanding drum, preferably in a
dremel type machine if you have one, if not a cordless drill with the
drum should do the trick. Just use a slow speed and take your time. You
can pick up the drums and sleeves pretty cheaply.
All the best
John