Howdy folks,
I am a novice to the art of woodworking and need some advice about planes. I found an old #4 bailey Smooth plane at a garage sale and have spent about a month tuning it (i said i was a novice) anyway I have done about all I can with books. The iron is so sharp i do not have much hair left on my arms and have numerous fine slices in my thumbs (which I used to wipe oil off of the blade), that I didn’t notice at the time. I have replaced both the chip breaker and the iron with high quality Hock parts. My question is this- Now that I have the blade so sharp how do I properly plane a board? How moch pressure on front handle, How much on bac,k? sHOULD i HAVE TO press extremeley hard? Let me know.
Replies
practice, practice and more practice, buy some clear pine boards and develope the techniques.
clamp the poor board securly to a heavy bench, set the blade for a minimal cut and just play with it, reduce it a pile of shavings!!
when you can joint an 8 ft pine board with one long shaving you've got it!!
dont be afraid to play around with the tuning ie throat opening, frog clearance, microbevel angle etc
how are you sharpenning the blade? check out some excellent stuff at http://www.leevalley.com like their waterstones and sharpening guides, i use them everyday
a finely tuned and sharpened plane is a joy to use, i use one often to fit expensive cedar exterior doors, and theres nothing like a 7 foot curl of shaving off a hand plane!!
caulking is not a piece of trim
hey thanks for responding, i am curently about (well yesterday anyway) knee deep in shavings. My practice boards are only about 5 ft long but I usually get a 4 1/5 ft shaving. I have played with the frog (never expected to say that) a lot and the opening, bottom line is the plane shaves fine strips, but I wonder if I could be doing something better. All I have is my imagination and books to go by. They may say a picture is worth 1000 words, but experience is worth 100000000000000000 pictures.
You wrote: "I usually get a 4 1/5 ft shaving. I have played with the frog (never expected to say that) a lot and the opening, bottom line is the plane shaves fine strips, but I wonder if I could be doing something better. "
If the plane will shave a strip basically the length of the board, and those strips are fine, then I think you are done. You know how to use a plane. The more you practice, the more you will improve, but I think for the most part, you have it.
like i said key thing is good sharpening, a grinder just wont do it, get a good waterstone and a sharpenning jig, the final edge should be mirror clear
frog adjustment is critical too, frog edge should be a sixteenth or less from the cutting edge of the blade
a finely tunned plane is a joy to use and well worth the time to set it up properly
set up properly you will be able to take a 7 foot shaving off a door no problem
caulking is not a piece of trim
Not too familiar with a #4 Bailey but was wondering how long the sole of the plane was. Is a smooth plane the same as a scrub plane?
Saw recentley in a "tips" column to hold the plane at a slight angle to achieve a slicing effect. There's nothing like the feel of a sharp tool making clean shavings on a piece of wood. Almost therapeutic. Also have seen recommendations for differant bevel angles on the blade for hard or soft woods.
Enjoy!
Edited 1/8/2004 7:45:31 PM ET by splinter
Edited 1/9/2004 7:12:49 AM ET by splinter
the sole is 9 1/4 inches long and 2 inches wide. It is strangely therapeutic and I saw the same tip. My bevel is about 30 deg. with a micro bevel at 33 degrees.
As a visitor from next door, and having seen your plea for an answer to this question on another thread, I'll give answering your question a shot.
First, is the sole of your plane lapped? It sounds like you have done a good job on the blade, but if the sole is not flat and square to the blade you're not done yet!
As to pressure, you should not have to even think about it. If the sole is lapped, the blade sharp, and the shavings thin, you should almost be able to glide that thing along.
Also, not to assume ignorance on your part, but if you are not planing with the grain, you are apt to get tearout and more resistance to the blade. If the grain changes along the board, you may have to change directions with it.
The advice about skewing the plane is good; it allows the blade to slice better, with less effort on your part.
edited for spelling: all opinions to the contrary, poor spelling is just sloppy, and no more an expression of individuality or creativity than neglecting to flush the commode after use. ;) (note the smiley, dagnabbit!)
Edited 1/8/2004 8:18:34 PM ET by TXJon
hey jon , saw the smiley so please consider this a smiley as well. Thanks for the info, I have lapped tho sole and squared the mouth but I suspect that the sole may be beyond hope it looks shiney and all but when I mark it with a perm marker before laping, I can later notice an area about 1 inch sq. in front of the mouth that is slightly concave. Do I really have to spring for a lee nielson or will a normal contractor grade stanley from HD suffice, if I cannot figure my currant one out?
Now to the smiley part, It is ok I guess that you think spelling so important, in fact I kind of agree I would not let my kids (when I have some) get away with bad spelling, no matter how much they pointed to mine, I would insist that they do as I say not as I do. Nevertheless I have gotten into the habit of not spell checking because, well that is why legal secrataries are paid so well. IMHO while spelling should be stressed for youngsters, as long as they can communicate their ideas those beyond elementry should be given a break, I mean as far as character flaws go, bad spelling is not so bad.
What you get from the high end planes is a tool that is ready to go out of the box. Or so I have heard, I haven't sprung for one either. A small concave area on the sole should not cause real problems.
I have a crappy HD Buck Bros. block plane that is capable (now) of pretty good performance, but it took a lot of time and effort to get it that way. Depending on what your time is worth, a high end plane may be less expensive. If you buy the HD Stanley, count on at least several hours spent lapping the sole.
Other than that, I think practice, and planing in the right direction are the answers.
As to the spelling, I didn't say it was all that important, just sloppy. Sort of like walking around with your pants unzipped. :)
thanks to all for the advice.
oh, I have been known to walk around with pants unzipped on occasion also:-)
A scrub plane is a very different plane than a smooth plane or any of the bench planes. Scrub planes are usually more narrow than a bench plane, it has a thick long blade which is curved or convexed at the cutting edge and has a very wide throat. They are used for the fast removal of wood in the first cuttings or the roughing out stages of flattening a rough cut or a twisted board. They are pushed diagonally or even across the grain till a rough flatness is achieved leaving deep furrows in the wood. Next comes the foreplane which is usually a #6 pushed at a diagonal at first, then with the grain flattening the board even more. The final plane is the smoothing plane usually a #4 or the heavier 41/2 which at first takes a heavier cut, then the final smoothing with it's very sharp iron and tight throat producing micro shavings one can see through and a silky workpiece. It takes practice, time and well tuned tools but dimensioning lumber by hand is a wonderful workout and extremely satisfying. On antique furniture such as tables you can see the rows of a handplaned surface if it's held up to the light. Often on the backs and undersides of antiques on the part that isn't seen, the scrubbing is the only planing which was done. You can make your own by taking a #4 or 5, widening the throat and grinding a convex onto the cutting iron.
thank you very much for the valuable information
Thanks for clearing that up.
I have a book called "Planecraft". It's an old one that was re-printed by Woodcraft Supply. Lots of good info in it.
http://shop.woodcraft.com/Woodcraft/product_family.asp?family%5Fid=3421&gift=False&mscssid=876E3A39323E4726BECF6A5EDCF3553F
Bumpersticker: If you can read this, I've lost my trailer.
I have a friend who, when he was an apprentice patternmaker in England, was presented with an old jack plane, a rip saw and a rough chunk of oak. He was told to split the oak board and open it book fashion and then plane the two sawn surfaces so that he could lay one board on top of the other and then pick up both off the bench with the lower one being lifted only by the air suction. He did it. It took him a month, but he did it.
Ron