**I couldn't resist wiping some mineral spirits on the board after sanding it down, hence the color here.** After glue up I ran the board through my planer to clean it up (the horror!). I know, there is a lot of controversy out there on doing this. Lots of people say don't do it ever, no matter what, lots say no issues. I have a really nice helical head stationary planer which has anti kickback knives. After doing lots of reading I decided to give it a try, as almost all the horror stories involved smaller bench top planers which don't have kickback knives, or the weight and size of my almost 1000lb planer. Everything went very smooth, except I got chip out on the back side of the board. I ended up just cutting off the last row so to speak. I have read to add sacrificial rails which I will try next time to the front and back (front to help with kickback, back to help with chip out).

Anyway, I sanded this from 60 -> 220, spending most of my time at 60. I see why a drum sander would make this process MUCH faster.