"I've bought LARGE pieces over the years that had micro cracks in it from when the tree fell over. Kinda interesting."
Interesting Don. JUST surfaced some Red Gum a Desktopper brought me in his suitcase from OZ almost 2 years ago. ZERO visible checking until I cut off the paint squaring the ends with a Freud thin kerf crosscut finish blade, and then surfaced it for 2 parallel sides. And 4 surface splits showed up in 24 hours, and one end is horrible checking now(even though coated Linseed/beeswax within 20 minutes and it was acclimated to shop)!
Funny, even the Desktop will leave watermarks from .25" bit flex from woods B.Walnut up, but even making a last pass depth of .02" will clean it up a bit from Sugar Maple up in hardness. Spiral ramp profile pass will fool the eye until you try to sand the end grain to 400G.
Offsetting a full depth pass like Brady says with a spiral ramp, personally leaves the least sanding for me from Sugar Maple up to Teak/Bloodwood for me.
2 cents to the Masters
scott
scott P.
2013 Desktop/spindle/VCP 12.0*
Maine