# Planing plywood edges



## scott lindsay (Jun 22, 2010)

On the project I am doing, the edges are not square. If this was pine or some other solid wood I would just use my hand plane. This is 12mm Baltic Birch plywood and I am wondering if the adhesive resins used in gluing the plys together if they will play havoc on the blade of my hand plane? I am not wanting to ruin my hand plane and right now I have no way of getting the blade sharpened. Does anyone know if this is okay to do or should I stick with sanding the edges so that they are square? I am joining two edges of a rabbet join for a toy barn for my daughter. Any good ideas to square the edges without using a plane and ruining the blade?


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## sweensdv (Mar 3, 2008)

I'm not a big user of hand planes but I would think that it wouldn't be a good idea to do that. You could do it of course but the blade probably won't like it.


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

How were the edges cut that they are not square? If you have a table saw you could use that to just barely take off enough to make the edges square.

George


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## Billy De (Jul 19, 2009)

Scot the glue in Baltic ply should cause no problems with your plane iron,unlike particle board which will take the edge off your iron in no time at all,but even this should cause no fear a few seconds and you can have the edge back on your iron.

Look into the scary sharp method its only wet and dry sand paper and maybe a honing gauge that's not very expensive.

A tip on planing ply use a marking knife,Stanley knife or a craft knife to mark where you want to plane to and don't plane to the end of the ply,turn the piece around and plane back into the middle of the piece.

Why, well because, it is ply on some plys you will be planing long grain and on others you will be planing end grain.
Planing end grain is called shooting the grain and if you shoot it all the way through it will cause break out in the end of the grain. billy


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## Bob Mielke (Apr 23, 2018)

Of course you can use hand planes on plywood edges. Just make sure your blade is sharp and adjusted correctly. In addition, a low angle plane will limit the amount of tear out. The glue is more of an issue than the plies of the plywood. It is so hard there is a chance of scratching your plane's blade. Keep in mind, any number of defects in solid wood can be equally destructive. Knotholes and wonky grain can chip or scratch plane blades as well. That's why we have sharpening tools.


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## andr0id (Jan 11, 2018)

Bob Mielke said:


> Of course you can use hand planes on plywood edges. Just make sure your blade is sharp and adjusted correctly. In addition, a low angle plane will limit the amount of tear out. The glue is more of an issue than the plies of the plywood. It is so hard there is a chance of scratching your plane's blade.


I will agree that stuff is pretty hard.

I routed a bunch of dovetails in BB and the cheap Porter Cable bit dulled quickly and was showing small divots at the glue lines. Every single drawer side was at exactly the same height, so the glue always hit the bit on the exact same lines.

Of course your planing is going to be far more random and you can just touch up your blade.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Is there a reason why you "have no way of getting the blade sharpened"? To me, that is the bigger issue here. Working with a dull blade ... that doesn't end well.

If you had a way to sharpen your blades, then you would be more willing to use the tools you have.


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## Jig_saw (May 17, 2015)

I regularly use low-angle block planes to trim/square the plywood edges. There is no problem. You only have to sharpen the iron (blade) after you are done, but that one must do regularly anyway.


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

Since this thread is 7 years old I suspect that the problem has been solved long ago.

George


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Whether you use a hand plane, carbide router bit, jointer or any other cutting tool, plywood will severely damage the cutting edge almost as though you hit a nail. You are correct the glue line will do damage.


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