I need to smooth out a rough cut chessboard

I have a chessboard I made and I need some help smoothing it out. It was previously suggested to use a router sled, but I have zero experience with routers. Would someone be able to help me this week or next? I’d be willing to pay for your assistance.

I’ve done stuff like that before. How rough is it: are the blocks an inch difference in height, or is it more like there are visible ridges between pieces?

Just visible ridges. The worst spots might be the chipping in the bottom, but I can fix those using resin or leave them alone because step 2 of my project absolutely requires the finished object to be 3/4 inch thick

honestly if it’s just visible ridges, my advice would be to do just a few passes with the drum sander on both sides to make sure that it’s level (probably not actually an issue, but my paranoia is saying do eliminate even minor sources of error). Then once you have the uneven areas leveled out, just hit the chessboard with progressive grits of sandpaper until you’re at the smoothness that you want (I think that the drum sander is either 40 or 60 grit, so if you start with an 80 or 100 grit you should be fine

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and if the drum sander is down then you can still probably get almost as good as results by just using 40 grit sanding disks on one of the orbital sander. The only two problems with that are:

  1. If you’re not careful, you could end up with uneven thickness in the board, probably not a lot of difference, but still…

  2. It takes FOREVER to do it by hand

but check to see if the drum sander is operational. Check out this post for more info.

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also, if you’re going to run it through the planer to get 3/4" thickness, and get rid of the chips on the back, do that before sanding and leave it about 1/16"-3/32" thick. (yes super obvious, but I’ve made that mistake before, so I don’t want anyone else having to repeat my pain)

Is it end grain? :blankspace:

cough Hand Plane cough

cough Low Angle Hand Plane cough

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Handplane wont work. Each square is 1.5 inches.

I thought glued items like chessboards can’t go through the planer? Won’t it rip the blocks apart?

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The drum sander was down tonight. Besides I’ve taken the basics class last year but that damn sanders operation still baffles me.

First you need to scrape off all the glue. There are some good scrapers in a plastic bin right outside Woodshop. Then follow @zacharymarkson’s advice and use the thickness (i.e., surface or belt) sander on both sides.

Since it’s not end grain you can also use the planer if you have a lot to take off.

Aside from the ridges and unevenness, is it more or less flat (i.e., planar)? If it’s “warped” it will be more difficult to deal with.

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?
A sharp #5 would work well. It would slide across the entire board.

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you can use the planer for blocks like that, you just have to take it really slow, something like an 1/8 of a turn of the wheel per pass at most

I was under the impression the end grain is the problem, not just glued parts.

It’s face grain in the picture.

If endgrain, scrape / block plane for the glue, and use the drum sander.

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i honestly didn’t notice the picture until just now. you could 100% plane that. I, personally, would hand sand it with a 40 grit disk on an orbital sander for this case, since the drum sander is down. word of warning, be careful with how you sand, otherwise you’ll end up with uneven thickness on the board

turns out a few of the white block are end grain. i must have made an error when cutting them. the planer damn near ripped to pieces. someone though showed me how to properly use a hand planer, and that got them down enought to sand by hand. of course though the one night i can come out here the drum sander is down for a belt change and i dont know how to do it.

Did you fill out an Issues & Requests “ticket” on the drum sander? It doesn’t look like anyone else did, either.