> cut the coves, the redwood tends to splinter pretty bad.

Hi Don:

I had some pretty bad tearout on some of my strips too. What I noticed is that the tearout happened the worst when two factors were both present:

** -- It only happened on coves, never beads (more wood being removed, I guess)

** -- It only happened when I was moving the strip so that the cutter was biting into the grain. Grrr.. what a crappy description. I mean, hmmmm.. a picture.

Example #1

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

-------> * ---------->

grain in direction of backslashes, cutter (asterisk) rotating counterclockwise, wood moving left to right, this situation was tearout city.

Example #2

//////////////////////

-------> * ---------->

grain in direction of slashes, cutter (asterisk) rotating counterclockwise, wood moving left to right, this situation was beautiful clean cut.

Now, I think when I do this again, if I pick up a strip to be coved, that I will choose the direction I feed it so that even though I am pushing the strip against the direction of the rotation of the cutter (this is a Good Thing), I will choose the orientation of the strip so that at least the cutter is moving with the grain, as in example #2

Does this make sense? I hope so.

Ed Valley