85 - Router Table, страница 32

check the panel for any glue squeeze-out. A few minutes work with a scraper saves time and effort later and increase the life of your sanding belts (lower left photo).

Squiggly Lines. There's one last help I like to give myself before starting to sand. You'll find that once you get started, it can be difficult to tell the high spots from the low spots and where you've sanded from where you haven't. The trick here is to give yourself a visual reference by dragging the side of a pencil back and forth

across the panel, as shown in the right photo below. Then, as you sand, the disappearing pencil lines will be a guide to your progress.

Start Crossgrain. Now, with the panel held tightly by the bench dogs and a clean, 80-grit belt on the sander, I start sanding straight across the width (crossgrain) of the panel. I know sanding across the grain sounds a little odd, but at this stage you're simply trying to level the joints and flatten tire panel. And sanding crossgrain is the quickest way to get the job done.

Belt Sander

▼ Scrape First.

Before picking up the belt sander, scrape off any glue squeeze-out.

No matter how careful I am when

gluing up a large, solid-wood panel for a project, the joints between the boards never seem to

end up perfectly flush. So when the clamps come off, the panel needs to be smoothed out before moving on to the next step. To do this, I use my belt sander and a simple technique that gives me a perfectly flat panel.

First Things. There are a couple of things you'll want to think about before you get out the belt sander. First, whenever possible, I start by gluing up a panel that's oversized in width and length. A few inches of extra length and an inch in width means you won't have to worry quite as much about keeping the hard-to-sand edges perfectly square (see the box on opposite page).

Next, dried glue can quickly "gum up" a fresh sanding belt and really slow down your progress. So before I start sanding, I

Reference Lines.

Squiggly pencil lines allow you to easily see your progress

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ShopNotes No. 85