The first time I used the sled, I did apply an extra amount of force as I was trying to make sure I was fully bottomed out. That should eliminate the need for shims. I had thought about cutting a new set of rails that would only be 1.75" tall. I ripped 1/4" off both sides of a 4' long piece of 2x4 and then cut it in half to make the 2 rails. The rails are identical in height, I did know that that was critical for this to work. I agree about so many things could go wrong, that's why I'm generally not crazy about the idea of building something like this from scratch when it requires some degree of precision. I think it's a little more than just needing a sanding to correct this unevenness. I know I still need to sand the side that I used the router to plane, but there is about a 3/32" gap when I push down on one side of the cutting board against the granite countertop. I brought it back inside and found the cutting board still rocked. That was more than I really wanted to take off, but at least I know I was cutting deep enough. I believe I took off about another 1/16th of an inch. I double sticked the shim and replaned the cutting board again. ![]() I figured that must have been the source of my uneven planing. I went back and rechecked the levelness of my router sled setup and saw that I could shim the left front of the sled by about 1/4" and then the level was pretty much spot on. The other side that I planed by hand is actually fairly flat - there are still gaps, but it doesn't rock. To my surprise, the side that I had just planed with my router is very uneven! There's a significant amount of rocking. ![]() I laid the cutting board onto my granite countertop to check for level. The planed surface was a little bit wavy/uneven and not nearly as smooth as it was when I had planed it with my block plane by hand. ![]() I went to work taking passes across the top using a 1 1/4" dish carving bit. I put a level on the inside of the sled as well as on top of my router inside of the sled at various locations across my cutting board and it was all basically level so I didn't think it was a problem. The plywood was warped a little so the bottom of the sled didn't sit perfectly flat. I made the rails 3" tall because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of capacity - I think this might have been a mistake making the rails this tall - I had to put a 1/4" piece of plywood and a 3/4" piece of MDF spacer to get the cutting board high enough to make contact with the router bit fully plunged. I used a 2x4 that I squared up for the rails and 3/4" plywood for the sled itself. I had made a simple router planing sled based on Matt Cremona's design. It was a marked improvement in evenness from before, but when I put a 12 inch steel ruler across the surface I could still see it was not flat. I realized this not the correct sized plane for the job, but I flattened both sides as best I good. ![]() It wasn't that hard to use the plane (I don't have a lot of experience using any type of hand planes) and it was cutting well so I proceeded to try to flatten the whole piece. I initially started using my Stanley 12-139 Bailey No.60-1/2 Low Angle Block Plane to clean up the dried glue squeeze out. Now I'm trying to flatten my glued up board. I've done my initial glue up for my end grain cutting board.
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