How To Plane END GRAIN wood without break out or splitting

How to plane end grain
The challenge of Planing the end grain of a piece of wood has for centuries been every woodworker’s nightmare. The reason why many woodworkers hate to plane end grain is because of the endless splitting of the wood. With a little bit of knowledge, the process of planing end grain can be a breeze. With a little ingenuity and some techniques explained in this tutorial you’ll find and the skill of planing the end grain of a piece of wood simple. Read this tutorial to the end and you should be enlightened on the process of planing the end grain of a piece of wood.

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What plane to choose for planing end grain
A low angle block plane has the bevel up which is contradictory to the number 4 smoothing plane which has as the bevel down. The old wooden coffin plane is an early variation of the traditional smoothing plane. Hand planes used to always be made out of wood but even today you can still buy or make wooden hand planes. Wooden hand planes are usually made out of some fruitwood or Beech sometimes with a metal fore sole.

The common Stanley Bailey number 4 smoothing plane would have a cutting angle of 45° no matter what the ground bevel is on the plane iron. This applies to most standard bevel down bench planes. So the angle of the plane iron is determined purely by the angle of the Frog which holds the plane iron.

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The low angle block plane is different because the bevel is up. To determine the cutting angle? you need to know the angle of the plane bed and the Grind angle of the plane iron. So, if you’re plane bed angle is 12° and your bevel angle is 25°. The cutting angle is the multiplication of these two angles so in this case, it is 37°.

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So the cutting angle of the low angle block plane isn’t that different from the smoothing plane. I believe the main difference between these two pains is the adjustable mouth in the sole of the low angle plane. Another difference is that the bevel up the shaving can leave the blade without any obstruction from the chip breaker.

You’ll have to choose which sort of plane you would prefer to use to smooth the end grain of your timber. Both planes have their merits but if you’ve already got a smoothing plane you would probably be happy just to use that. The smoothing plane for planing end grain does need to be very sharp and tuned well.