I kept trying to remove about two square inches of tear-out in an oak
board with the nicest grain I had left in the shop. the sucker is about
29 x 4 x 3/4". It is for my last drawer front on my desk. I ran it
through the thickness planer hoping that would remove the tearout. The
board got thinner but never smooth. I decided to just keep going to see
if I ran it through a few more times, taking light cuts if it would come
out nice. No way. So now the board is too thin (don't worry folks, I
KNEW it was gonna be too thin; I'm in experimenting stage at this point)
so I decided to see if sanding would remove the pits. Sure enough, the
ROS, followed by 1/4" pad sander, made it purdy.

As the Joker said in Batman, "HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME..." Had I
switched to sanding sooner, I would not have thinned the board too much.
In order to save the board, I glued another piece of oak to the back.
I'm anticipating this all might end up in the junk pile when I route
the edge detail, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So...just how much are those Performax sanders?

How come purists don't like sanding? I know it can obscure the wood,
but isn't there a time when sanding is the only solution to tear-out?
Please tell me how you would have dealt with oak tearing during
thicknessing. I tried both directions; the first direction was better.
I know to watch the cathedrals...

dave