On Jan 14, 1:57*pm, RicodJour wrote:
On Jan 14, 12:24*am, Ferd Farkel wrote:



Fine set block plane and scraper will *almost* prevent
tearout. *Will a couple of coats of shellac applied before
smoothing fill in and strengthen tearout-prone grain?
Orange or garnet shellac would have the additional
advantage of showing which areas have and haven't
been planed / scraped.

Very interesting idea. *I think you've volunteered to run some tests
and see. *

Results -- waste of time. Keeping edges **sharp** and
set light -- plane taking fluff instead of shavings, light
burr on the scraper -- did the job beautifully. Shellac
(applied one side) did nothing but make the 3/8" maple
curl up like a Frito.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd think that if the tearout
was only a coat of shellac deep, you don't need the shellac to prevent
tearout, but it's certainly cheap and easy enough to test.

The spit coat of shellac suggestion someone else mentioned makes
sense, but what I'd really like to see is if you could figure out how
to start with the French Polish and end with it, too. *

R