Planing a table top with the bot

[drodda]

I was wondering if anyone had ever tried to plane a solid wood dining table top with the bot. I have an idea of making the bot do little swirling patterns as it moves aroung the rectangle cutting pattern instead of just going in a straight line like when we plane out shopbot tables. Has anyone tried this and what would be a simple way to program this into the bot to clean up a glue up for a table top? Perhaps use the clear rectangle command to get the bulk then do the spiral random rectagle clear for the final cleanup? What do you think?

Any Ideas would be appreciated.

-D

[rookie432]

Dave,

I have done this with an oak dining table before.
Worked pretty good. I did a linear with the grain pattern, However if I were to do it again i would go across the grain in the Y direction as some of the oak can get stringy and force some tear out. I would also add a strip of waste wood on both X edges to aviod tear out as well. Just trim it back to size once you pull it off the table. I did get some machining marks but my orbital sander took everything right out.

Bill

[paul_z]

Dave,

I resurfaced a large piece of wood using a mortising bit. It cut fast (5 ips) and clean, and it left very shallow swirls that should sand easily.

I'd test on scrap first no matter what method you choose.

Paul Z

[fleinbach]

I have made a bar top 20" by 12' out of poplar on the bot. I used my 1 1/4 inch table surfacing bit running with the grain. The finished top is 1 1/2 inches thick and is made from 2 12" wide 8/4 boards. I also did my jointing cut using a 1/2 straight bit with 2" cutting surface run down the edge and the joint glued up perfectly.


19203.jpg

For a larger picture go here to my web site it's the 7th one http://theaterrooms.com/Nicosia.htm

[beacon14]

I have used the 'bot to surface many solid workpieces, the most recent one was 30" x 72" and came out dead flat.

What is the reason for wanting to do random spirals? You will have to sand the machine marks out regardless of the machining pattern.

I use a file I wrote which climb cuts parallel to the x-axis until the leading edge of the workpiece is clean, then back-and-forth cutting over the bulk of the surface, then climb cuts again as the bit exits the far edge of the workpiece. I've been using a 1 1/4" bit with a 1 1/8" stepover, 1/8" depth per pass, at 4 ips.


19229.jpg

[drodda]

The reason for the spirals would be to mimic a large multi head planer that I recently saw. It had three heads that rotated and also the set rotated additionally. This was to remove the tool marks as it was not a straight line but random orbits.

How do you hold these large pieces down without making holes or marks in the top side?

As always thanks for the tips.
-D

[beacon14]

I think to replicate the number of strokes of a triple-rotating planer head you'd have to run the bot for hours on each board - even then I just don't see you getting the same results with a router style bit as you saw from the multi-head planer.

cam holddowns

slab pic

[fleinbach]

While David used the fancy-schmancy method I simply ran screws near the edges of the scrap area.