How to round wood edges by hand. Start with 100 grit if the wood is already smooth with no deep scratches planer marks or other surface defects. Before the era of automatic routers hand planes are what people use to round the edges of woodworks. You will blow out the wood fibers on the exit side of the board. In most cases 80 grit paper is a good starting point for sanding planed or shaped wood.
Round over cutters have radiuses of between 634mm and 185mm. If you are rounding over multiple edges always do the end grain first. The best tool recommended in the post is the hand plane. Before you begin.
Softening the edges of your projects can make them both aesthetically more pleasing and less likely to splinter. However if you decide to round wood edges without a router the most important tool is the hand plane. How to round wood edges without router the ultimate guide. A round over cutter has a flat bottomed body with curved sides that straighten towards the shank.
Keep wood corners safe from injury with help from a professional remodeler in this free video. Wood routers allow you to round off edges of wood to reduce their sharpness. From the jointer plane smoothing plane block plane to the jack plane your choice of hand plane should be closely linked to the woodwork project you intend to work on. Choose a round over or ovolo cutter with a guide bearing which will work for your application.
Normally when being asked about the tool carpenters often say that it is used to trim the end grain. On the other hand if you start with sandpaper thats too fine itll take forever to sand out defects. The radius of your rounded edge will depend on the radius of the cutter. As you round over the long grain you will plane off all the splinters.
Chris marshall explains and offers advice on how best to break edges in this video.