Hi,

after reading a million magazines and taking a few courses I thought
I'd try to build something besides a bird feeder.

So I'm in the process of building a side night table.

I went to a local saw mill and picked up some soft maple. The moisture
content was about 12%.

The first thing I did was ruff cut the boards into the lengths I
needed.
They were too wide to go through my jointer so I used a sled and my
planner. The first thing I noticed was the tear out.

I used new knives, fed the boards into the planner with the grain and
did very light cuts. I would still get tear out.

The boards are stacked right now while I wait for them to dry out a
bit more.

So my questions a

1: Does tear out occur a lot with soft maple?
2: Was soft maple a poor choice for a night table?
3: Any suggestion to prevent tear out when I get to final planning?

Thanks

Alex