It does make sense, Ed. I saw the same thing. Proplem is, some of my strips have grain going both ways.

I know somebody will flame me, and somebody else will send a strip into the house across the street, but a climb cut is the answer. Feed it the other way, so that the cutter is pulling the strip in. BE SURE THE FEATHER BOARDS ARE TIGHT!!!! This works like a champ. Nice clean cuts always, and no care about the grain. Dont do it on anything more than a 1/4" strip though, and dont take any more cut than necessary. And, BE SURE THE FEATHER BOARDS ARE TIGHT!!!

> 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