Planing spruce

[Carey]

I'm working on a nice piece of Lutz spruce, and am noticing that it feels
quite a bit different planing the heart side (smooth and pleasant), compared
to the bark side ("crunchy", and kind of harsh even under a sharp blade).

I have the feeling to make a heart joint with this wood, but am wondering if anyone else has observed something like this? Maybe it's compression wood on the bark side, but the usual signs of that are not there.
It'll be for a small nylon-string guitar, FWTW.

Adding: it's not a matter of grain direction- I've tried it both ways. I'm really
hoping to do justice to this piece of wood: it's fairly light (around 400), very stiff cross-grain, but with some unavoidable runout.

[phavriluk]

When you plane in the opposite direction, what happens?

[Carey]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

When you plane in the opposite direction, what happens?

Nothing much: a *little more* surface roughness going in one direction rather
than the other, but the basic feeling of the surface remains "crunchy" toward
the outside of the tree, smooth toward the heart. At the moment it's likely I'll
do a standard bark joint because the balance of runout v verticality of grain seems a little better that way (it looks a little better that way, too ), but that crunchy feeling wood still makes me wonder.

[rccosta]

how bad is the runout? sounds like a runout problem to me...

[Carey]

There's a fair amount of runout (much of it is wave or quilt figure, actually), but
so far I don't think that's the issue WRT the difference in planing mentioned
above.

[H165]

If the only thing getting your attention is the feel under the plane, I'd put it through a thickness sander and consider the results.

[M Hayden]

Yes, a thickness sander will ease that, as will a very sharp smoothing plane with a very tight mouth. Figured wood is always a challenge to plane smoothly.

[Trevor Gore]

You'll like find that the "crunchy" side is dead on quarter, the other side less so. The "crunch" is the blade hitting the medulary rays square on, rather than obliquely, when even slightly off quarter.

[Carey]

Originally Posted by Trevor Gore

You'll like find that the "crunchy" side is dead on quarter, the other side less so. The "crunch" is the blade hitting the medulary rays square on, rather than obliquely, when even slightly off quarter.

That is *very* helpful- thank you.

[Carey]

Originally Posted by M Hayden

Yes, a thickness sander will ease that, as will a very sharp smoothing plane with a very tight mouth. Figured wood is always a challenge to plane smoothly.

Yes, I'm using a very sharp smoothing plane with a tight mouth. If the figure or runout were the issue I'd expect the feel to alternate e.g. over the quilted areas, but it doesn't, and I'm not getting tearout either way.