# Where did the knowledge about the capiron get lost?



## Corneel

I saw in a corner of my eye some discussion about the "loss" of knowledge about the correct use of the capiron, in another thread. And I thought, why not start a new one? It is kind of interesting how these things work in this world.

My interpretation:

The capiron was invented in the 18th century and got real momentum in the 19th century, to the point that almost all bench panes were equiped with capirons (chipbreaker, topiron, double iron). That includes all the woodies, the Baileys, the infills. Single iron planes became rare. Then, after the war (the 2nd WW), the electric motor became so cheap that the handplane became more and more dormant. A hobby woodworker from the 1970's would rather use a sanding attachment on his drill then learning how to sharpen and use a handplane. He would buy his wood in finished sizes from the local "do it yourself" shop in the neighbourhood. I am not too familiar with the trades, but even there I can't imagine a very prominent position for the handplane, compared to the 19th century shops. The result was a decrease in availibilty of new handplanes and knowledge was more and more dispersed to isolated islands. It was described how to use the capiron in every woodworking instruction book, but usually only in one sentence.

Then came the "handtool renaissance", somewhere in the 1980's - 1990's. At the same time the Internet was develloped and enthusiasts gathered together on usenet and later on various forums. The first users of the internet were university people, software engineers came first, then the others. Overall, there were very few real trades people on these forums in the beginning. The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed, so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth. See the rising popularity of the bevel up planes and see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons and see the high angle frogs from Lie Nielsen. On the forums I can only find two names argueing in favor of using the capiron to combat teraout, Warren Mickley who works in the restauration business, and Todd Hughes who was tool tinckerer and trader.

Then came 2012. Let me describe that event from my point of view. I am a hobby woodworker, never had any formal training. I had occasionally trouble with tearout, I knew that the capiron was supposed to help, but never could get it to really work. Setting it close didn't help. Setting it closer only caused a clogged mouth. In 2012 the video from Kato was again made available for the publicum at large. For me (schooled as an engineer, so thriving on numbers) it was an eye opener because it actually contained some numbers and because it clearly showed how it works. It's difficult to measure these things but I fumbled with a vernier gauge and saw that my own experiments didn't get the capiron any closer then 0.4 mm from the edge. So I opened the mouth of a test plane, set the capiron twice as close and it "clicked".

I am sure there have been plenty of people all along who knew exactly how to use a capiron against tearout, but it was kind of lost in the very vocal Internet world of woodworking, it also wasn't teached in the magazines and you had to be a carefull reader to find it in the woodworking instruction books.

So, and now my coffee is finished and I am going to do some woodworking.


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## MIGNAL

I first came across cap iron use and tearout in the mid to late '70's. I'm pretty sure it was in a book, a guitar maker instructing to set the cap iron close to the blades edge to prevent tearout. I don't think the knowledge was ever lost but it may have been lost to a lot of people.


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## Doug B

Maybe he was a one off but Mr Clarke my woodwork teacher in the mid to late 70s taught the importance of the position of the cap iron.


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## ED65

That's a great little potted history to accompany my morning coffee, thanks Corneel!



Corneel":3lrykdre said:


> The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed


I haven't read a lot from those earlier days of the Internet, is it clear that was it, that they couldn't get the cap iron setting to work for them? 

If that's so I have to wonder if, like you did and like I did myself, they weren't setting the iron close enough to the edge. Or, and possibly in combination, if they hadn't properly fettled the leading edge of the cap iron so that tiny shavings would bunch up there.



Corneel":3lrykdre said:


> so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth.


I have found this attitude prevailing in a couple of forums and it bothers me greatly since I've read a lot of older woodworking books. And it became very clear to me early on in my planing journey that a close-set cap iron _does _combat tearout very effectively (along with a freshly-honed cutter and the taking of a very fine shaving of course). 

You can actually watch the improved result as you set the cap iron closer and closer while taking shavings from the same board: the tearout becomes less and less and finally, with a bit of luck and a following wind, it disappears entirely. At worst it becomes slight enough that a minute or two with a scraper will deal with the last of it.

What bothers me even more is that many of the most vocal proponents of a tight mouth are using double irons, but will tell anyone who will listen that the tight mouth is the _only _way to plane tricky woods effectively. Essentially ignoring much older writing on the subject and the physical evidence of surviving older planes.

For me it comes down to this: tight mouth on a single-iron plane, close setting of the cap iron on a double-iron plane.


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## bugbear

Corneel":lpt8gc6o said:


> ... see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons..



Probably worth pointing out that the original infills had massive irons (at least 3/16" parallel, but 1/4" is not unheard of) so thick irons in infills is not a new design.

The original infills did have double iron though, as you say.

BugBear


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## bugbear

Corneel":2gzbllc2 said:


> ... and you had to be a careful reader to find it in the woodworking instruction books.



Well, Planecraft (C J Hampton) of 1934 has, on page 20:







So "as close as you can get it", and certainly less than 1/64". Planecraft has always been
a widely recommended "hand tool" classic.

BugBear


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## Corneel

I must confess that my credibility as a historian is about the same as my credibility as a woodworker. I didn't do much more research about this subject then some casual reading here and there.

I think a few people from the early days of the internet woodworking community actually experimented with the capiron, with not so great results. The rest just parroted their comments. Just like in normal society.

And indeed early infill plane irons were thick, just like the wooden plane irons. And now I think about it, the recent history also shows quite a few wooden plane builders using thick single irons with steep bedding angles.


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## Corneel

Hey, I really need to get myself a copy of planecraft! Seems to be a very usefull book.


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## bugbear

I think Schwarz, following Charlesworth was one of the leaders of the "new knowledge"
on chip breakers;

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... tally-evil

That would certainly chime with the "2012" date you give.

I seem to remember some buzz about the video on Woodcentral, but can't recall (have to search) the date.

EDIT;

http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml

links at foot of article are all 2012.

OLDTOOLS was discussing the famous video of chip formation back in 2006!

BugBear


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## Paddy Roxburgh

I'm sure DW will be along soon to discuss this. It is probably worth distinguishing between "woodworkers" and "woodwork forum users". I am not for a minute suggesting that being a forum user means you are not a great craftsman, but I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of woodworkers do not post on the internet. I inherited most of my woodies from a neighbour of my parents who dies a couple of years ago in his nineties. He was an instrument maker, making lutes, organs, hurdy gurdies and lots of other stuff (as a hobby). He worked exclusively with hand tools (apart from his lathes) and as far as I am aware knew nothing of the "hand tool revival" or of woodworking forums. I don't know how he set his cap iron but his finishes were exquisite.
Paddy


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## MIGNAL

That's a bit like saying he was a leader on how to use a screwdriver. It's just knowledge that some of us have known about for 40 years. I suspect there are some people around who have known about it for nigh on 70 years. It makes it sound as though Schwarz/Charlesworth is the return of the messiah.


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## J_Cramer

bugbear":e28zbu3y said:


> I think Schwarz, following Charlesworth was one of the leaders of the "new knowledge"
> on chip breakers;
> 
> http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... tally-evil
> 
> That would certainly chime with the "2012" date you give.
> 
> I seem to remember some buzz about the video on Woodcentral, but can't recall (have to search) the date.
> 
> EDIT;
> 
> http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml
> 
> links at foot of article are all 2012.
> 
> BugBear



I rather remember Chr. Schwarz as being very dismissive and ignorant about the cap iron pre-2012:

http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/

Cheers 
Jürgen


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## CStanford

bugbear":2mzt47ga said:


> Corneel":2mzt47ga said:
> 
> 
> 
> ... and you had to be a careful reader to find it in the woodworking instruction books.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, Planecraft (C J Hampton) of 1934 has, on page 20:
> 
> 
> 
> So "as close as you can get it", and certainly less than 1/64". Planecraft has always been
> a widely recommended "hand tool" classic.
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


Thank you so much for posting this scan. I was about to myself. As far as I can tell, this graphic has been in every printing of the book. I own a copy of the last printing, the one underwritten by Woodcraft, and the graphic is identical.


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## CStanford

"I rather remember Chr. Schwarz as being very dismissive and ignorant about the cap iron pre-2012:"

He should probably have read the magazine which I think was his employer at the time:

Graham Blackburn Steps in for Ailing David Charlesworth

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... lesworth-2

By: Megan Fitzpatrick |* September 19, 2011*

Planing for the Perfect Surface

Graham Blackburn has joined the list of expert woodworkers instructing at this year’s Woodworking in America Conference (Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center). Friday, Sept. 30, 2-4 p.m & Saturday, Oct. 1, 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. (2011)

For the perfect surface you need to be able to plane any piece of wood in any direction, regardless of grain. This is what planes are designed to do. *Watch as Graham demonstrates the secrets of the cap iron, *a jig-free method of sharpening, and the basic user techniques for guaranteed accuracy in order to turn virtually any bench plane — wooden, Stanley-type, or high-end — into the ultimate finishing tool.

Sound familiar? 

It's my understanding that the same information is imparted in Blackburn's video series that came out in 2005.

http://www.shopwoodworking.com/woodwork ... kburn-dvds

Cheers,

Charles


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## CStanford

A tight mouth and a light cut will tame tear out as well, as can be seen here where very deep tear out after machining is completely removed by the hand plane:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html


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## MIGNAL

I wonder if we can trace the modern use of the screwdriver. Maybe an article by one of the internet woodworking guru's who discovered the lost art of how to fasten together two bits of chipboard with a screw. Anyone?


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## ED65

CStanford":2qdllpxd said:


> A tight mouth and a light cut will tame tear out as well, as can be seen here where very deep tear out after machining is completely removed by the hand plane:
> 
> http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html


Fabulous results of course, but very relevant quote from that I feel:


> _As far as thin shavings are concerned, I think it is a mistake (though a very popular one) to say that the cap-iron to edge distance has much effect on the tearing. _


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## CStanford

Fabulous results do tend to speak for themselves.

The plane offers three direct adjustments that bear on the matter -- cutter projection, mouth aperture, and cap iron distance to edge. The fourth being up to you -- cutter sharpness. I'd recommend paying attention to all four of these, rather than getting caught up in too much hyperbole with regard to any particular one. This is precisely the advice you'll find in Planecraft, Wearing, et al. There is no mystery and there have been no 'new' discoveries. Wearing's Woodworkers Guide to Handtools essentially reproduces, verbatim, the Planecraft chart from BugBear's scan along with appropriate advice about mouth aperture, adjusting the cutter, and honing. All you need.


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## CStanford

MIGNAL":16pbp6t9 said:


> I wonder if we can trace the modern use of the screwdriver. Maybe an article by one of the internet woodworking guru's who discovered the lost art of how to fasten together two bits of chipboard with a screw. Anyone?



I'd bet good money a lot of those guys would make a mess of installing a screw - countersink wobbly and malformed, resulting in head too high, head too deep, pilot hole to shallow, too deep, wrong size for the species/screw combination, etc.


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## bugbear

MIGNAL":3hvgum8k said:


> That's a bit like saying he was a leader on how to use a screwdriver. It's just knowledge that some of us have known about for 40 years. I suspect there are some people around who have known about it for nigh on 70 years. It makes it sound as though Schwarz/Charlesworth is the return of the messiah.




I deliberately put "new knowledge" in scare quotes.

As you imply, it's old knowledge, newly re-publicised. As Corneel points out in the first post, it wasn't universally known.

BugBear


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## D_W

ED65":o0i2rd4t said:


> CStanford":o0i2rd4t said:
> 
> 
> 
> A tight mouth and a light cut will tame tear out as well, as can be seen here where very deep tear out after machining is completely removed by the hand plane:
> 
> http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html
> 
> 
> 
> Fabulous results of course, but very relevant quote from that I feel:
> 
> 
> 
> _As far as thin shavings are concerned, I think it is a mistake (though a very popular one) to say that the cap-iron to edge distance has much effect on the tearing. _
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


It's clear that the guy writing on that webpage doesn't actually know much about using a cap iron (which is fine). He's discussing smoothing a small section of wood, but if you make a case out of difficult wood, all of the sudden the whole idea of using a "sharp iron and small mouth" seems pretty deficient - especially if you have to remove any appreciable amount of machine tearout. 

If the single iron and tight mouth was remotely close to as good as the cap iron, we'd see more wooden planes with mouth inserts or steel soles and single irons, but we don't see many of those. 

It's not as if other methods don't work, they just don't work nearly as well, they require having more planes or equipment, and they rely more on sharpness whereas a plane with a cap iron just needs to have some clearance left (and less than a plane with a single iron). 

Todd Hughes was the only other person, as Kees mentions, who said the same thing as warren, except Todd was a blacksmith and not a woodworker. He beat the drum of labor - that it was enough extra labor to hand forge a cap iron that there's no reason that they would've taken over unless they were demonstrably superior to everything else. And they are.


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## D_W

J_Cramer":2hqytxqa said:


> I rather remember Chr. Schwarz as being very dismissive and ignorant about the cap iron pre-2012:
> 
> http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/
> 
> Cheers
> Jürgen



Me, too. A couple of months after the cap iron discussions took place on the forums, then he was "teaching it" all of the sudden. 

One of the things that generated so much static at the time was after I figured out how to actually use the cap iron successfully, I blasted him and all of the bloggers who just repeat things they hear from other people. He has a lot of fanboys. 

I shouldn't have had to figure it out myself, which is the whole point in general. On the US forums, literally nobody else even suggested anything like planecraft, or anything else. Not a single person, except for sparse comments here and there from Bob Strawn (Bob was experimenting with all sorts of odd things, like diamonds on very thin pieces of steel to sharpen, it was hard to tell what was experimentation and what was practiced and proven over a while). And those comments from Todd and Warren, but Todd is not a woodworker, and warren is fairly vague. 

We didn't, unfortunately, have the exposure that the English side has to the trades and instruction on them. 

A lot of very dumb things were being taught about the cap iron as soon as the topic gained steam, like making jigs to set it or putting together piles of shims. People ran away with the uneducated idea that whatever the K&K video had on it for settings, that was then dogma for hand planes, but it is not. I experimented with all of my planes (japanese, western, etc), and found the machine setting to be one of the worst for hand planes, and the fascination with arguing about how many thousandths the cap should be set was pretty dumb, too. It's *easy* to do it by eye and watch the results. 

So, Bill Tindall somehow got a hold of Bob Lang (or maybe it was the other way around) and Bob Lang asked if I would write an article for PWW (somewhere mid 2012) and I said no, it should be written by a professional. I told Bill that I would write one that could be posted online because of the disease of subpotimal suggestions that were being supposed in public by people who clearly hadn't used a cap iron or experimented with as much as I had (and kees was experimenting in large amounts at the same time, but he was also interested in more historical stuff, and I didn't read much, I wanted function). I also wanted it to be posted online in case my opinion on settings changed (but they haven't) and because I'd have control over content. Ellis Wallentine edited the article and did a super job of making it easier to read, and others provided pictures (Steve Elliot and Ellis, I think), which to my dismay at the time included a little bit of tearout, but sometimes you have to compromise!

I also told Bill that as soon as I wrote an article about it, people would probably dig up books or historical reference and claim they knew it all the time. I mentioned one of the posters in this thread as being a likely person to do that, and of course that came to light. I'm sure I could find the emails from that. I figured either that would happen, or people would dismiss it because it wasn't coming from a popular blogger.

None of the above should've happened to begin with, it should've been common knowledge in the US, too, but it wasn't. 

I believe David Charlesworth learned to use the cap iron based on what I wrote on sawmill creek and wood central. I couldn't confirm it, but the timing makes me suspect it. I'm more than willing to be corrected on that, too. No clue where Chris Schwarz learned it, probably the forums, also, or from someone bringing it to him after reading the forums. He developed a distaste for forums over time because of our recognition that he was not remotely in a class with people like George Wilson, and George's advice is free and he's available to talk any time. Chris is an excellent writer and publisher, but I'll seek woodworking advice elsewhere. 

A little harsh, all of the above maybe might seem that way, but it's just a statement of what went on. 

In the states, I'm willing to believe Bob Strawn and Kees were on to the whole thing (well, and Warren), but not many other people were on our side of the ocean, and for some reason, the information didn't make it from there to this side of the water. That's the only people I can remember talking about cap iron stuff *before* any japanese video was ever posted by the university that did the study work in Japan. Bill Tindall and Steve Elliot did a lot of work to find out where that came from and then to get the university to make the videos publicly available. I've seen a lot of misinformation that they just found a link online - before those two guys found university who did the study work and communicated with them, those videos were not available, and it took a while for Bill and Steve to get the university to post the information because they own it and they weren't sure how it was going to be used. 

Also, the biggest gain using the cap iron is in working a lot of difficult wood and having to do more than smooth it, or a lot of any wood if you're doing a lot of work by hand. I recognize that most people who have very good machinery will have no appreciation for how or why the cap iron took over so completely and quickly, but if you work by hand and have the good sense to learn to use it - especially for the trying step of the work - it becomes instantly understood.


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## Beau

Corneel":u8afyjhx said:


> Then came the "handtool renaissance", somewhere in the 1980's - 1990's. At the same time the Internet was develloped and enthusiasts gathered together on usenet and later on various forums. The first users of the internet were university people, software engineers came first, then the others. Overall, there were very few real trades people on these forums in the beginning. The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed, so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth. See the rising popularity of the bevel up planes and see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons and see the high angle frogs from Lie Nielsen. On the forums I can only find two names argueing in favor of using the capiron to combat teraout, Warren Mickley who works in the restauration business, and Todd Hughes who was tool tinckerer and trader.




Haha this thread is most amusing. Suspect everyday tradesman don't bother with the latest fad on the internet just do what works. Never knew the capiron had ever gone out of fashion. 

All sounds like a good reason to not trust what you read on the internet.


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## PAC1

For the historians; Modern Practical joinery, George Ellis published 1902, page 7 talking about the cover or back iron "_For instance if the cover is set 'fine' (i.e. very close to the edge), and the combined 'iron' is also set fine in the stock, the surface produced will be the finest possible with that particular specimen; if the two are set 'course' the shaving will be thick and the wrought surface irregular_;" He also argues that a fine mouth set helps prevent tearout.


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## CStanford

I've posted the Graham Blackburn link a few times on this forum and on other forums as well.

The self-congratulatory bozos, to a man, ignore it.

Poor Blackburn, toiling in the relative obscurity of the largest woodworking event in North America and can't get any love. It's my understanding that the 2011 event, for which he stood in for David Charlesworth, was not the first time he presented the information at WIA.


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## D_W

Well, Charlie. You didn't post anything about blackburn until after someone else mentioned it on another forum. Long after the topic came up and got discussed in volume. 

I had you pegged when I wrote an email to bill guessing you'd be one of the people who would dig up a bunch of information and repeat it after the fact, or be in the crowd of people who say that it doesn't work that well. 

You're predictable. The only part that's missing is that before 2012, you never mentioned the cap iron once, and 99% of your posts were heckling anyone who bought new tools (I'll give you credit for being accurate on CS, but I think George led that charge). You couldn't have been bothered at that time to give anyone productive advice, and it eventually got you banned from another forum. Well, that was interspersed among tinfoil hat theories that Lee Valley was following you around forums and pulling levers to make your life difficult. 

So here we are again, you're repeating things you read elsewhere after the fact, posting tangents to forums to redirect discussions, and it appears maybe offering helpful posts about 33% of the time instead of 1%. 

I'm unlikely to argue about any of this further, it's just worth a chuckle that you work almost on a specific algorithm, but it's always after the fact repeating something else someone said, never firsthand advice like someone would get from George. I recall the first time you tried to do it to George, as usual, you argue with someone by posting a web page of someone else's work. It was material fit for a comedy routine that you attempted to heckle george posting someone else's work. His worst work is better than my best, and the same is true for you. The difference is I'm willing to admit it at the outset, and I'd never heckle someone like that running on a broken record player loop. I'd be afraid I'd look like a fool....most people would. 

It's too bad nobody could understand the significance of blackburn's presentation, but one thing is for sure, it was never discussed on the forum by anyone until after the fact (after 2012), and it was brought up by someone who went to a blackburn presentation. All you're doing is repeating something someone else said about an event you didn't attend. Not a single person ever said "try using the cap iron on your common pitch plane" when someone asked the question "what plane should I buy to plane difficult wood". Most often that comes up for curly maple, which isn't even difficult to plane. That includes you. "buy an infill", "buy a high angle plane", "buy a terry gordon plane", ...those things came up and with all of your post history online, there isn't a single post where you said anything other than "buy a primus plane". But you're certainly chief at the head of the pack of calling the shots afterwords. Congratulations.


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## D_W

PAC1":1pwej1ql said:


> For the historians; Modern Practical joinery, George Ellis published 1902, page 7 talking about the cover or back iron "_For instance if the cover is set 'fine' (i.e. very close to the edge), and the combined 'iron' is also set fine in the stock, the surface produced will be the finest possible with that particular specimen; if the two are set 'course' the shaving will be thick and the wrought surface irregular_;" He also argues that a fine mouth set helps prevent tearout.



I think the excerpts to be found go back as far as the late 1700s or early 1800s - printed for public consumption. They were included in the arguments in the late 2000s where Warren Mickley and Todd Hughes were heckled for suggesting that the cap iron was definitively superior and must've been for people living on a shoestring to pay a significantly greater amount for it. The trouble is, nobody else ever made that assertion. 

I wasn't reading this forum at the time, and neither, it seems, was anyone else who could relay information. 

As a side comment, I doubt that the mid to late 1700s planes were the first planes that were ever used with a double iron to break chips, but it's pretty difficult to find specimens that are thousands of years old. I'd bet the same principle was applied back then, and lost. It's too practical and discoverable to have been practiced only in the last couple of hundred years. 

I'd issue one other request, and that would be for someone to dig up a half dozen posts on this forum where someone asked how to plane difficult wood (especially in the context of dimensioning, but that's not totally necessary) where someone answered with specific instructions on setting the cap close. Let's say, before 2010. A half dozen of them.


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## condeesteso

I'm not sure where the knowledge got lost (or when) but it did and it is good that it is back. I too recall CS in Pop Wood around 2006 basically saying he sets it back, out of the way (implied). But to be fair to CS he didn't come back later and say he had invented or discovered anything.
If anyone saw Richard Maguire make a smoother in under an hour using an old Stanley double iron, well I got to try that plane on some nasty ash - it was actually a shock how it completely tamed it. Big mouth, good edge, well prepped cap close down. That little plane puts a mighty case for close cap tuning.
My view is try all these things and see what. Then get on with what works. I know what I think works but we're not here to argue


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## PAC1

For my experience as an apprentice trained joiner in the 1970's and 80's it was and remained common knowledge. In addition to Ellis, look at Earnest Joyce "The Technique of Furniture Making" published between 1970 to 1995 or Tage Frid "Joinery" published 1993 or any of Wearings books. They all cite the ease of adjustment of mouth and cap iron in order to deal with difficult wood as an advantage of Stanley/Record planes. Even Fine Woodworking in the 1980's has the occasional article stating the need to set the cap iron close to the edge to deal with curly or difficult wood.
The point is it is not new nor forgotten and talk of post 2012 is simply not supported by the facts
As for Forums in the UK they only really came into their own in the second half of 2000's so I am not sure what the number of posts would prove.


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## Corneel

A list of modern plane makers who got into the single iron or high cutting angle.

- Lie Nielsen (high angle frogs)
- Lee Valley (advocating to use a large back bevel, seriously!)
- HNT Gordon planes
- Philly planes
- Old street tools
- Holtey (when he started to make his own designs)
- Brese planes
- Sauer and Steiner (also when he deviated from the old designs)
- Garibaldi planes
- Steve Knight planes

So, when you were unaware of the capabilities of the capiron a few years ago, you weren't alone.
Another name: Paul Sellers who claims to be traditionally educated is unaware about it too.


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## JohnPW

It hasn't been lost!

Well, one or two writers might not know or didn't know about the use of a closely set cap iron to reduce tearout, but the rest of us know about it and use it. I only started woodwork less than 3 years ago but just about every book or article I've read about planes and planing said set the cap iron close to reduce tearouts.

Plane makers might offer high pitch single iron planes but that doesn't mean they don't know about cap irons!


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## pedder

I don't think it was ever lost. I remember a thread on woodnet in 2008 (?): Does Chipbreaker break chips? 
I'm pretty sure, I saw the japanese video at that time. Wasn't the link since ever on the plan iron angle page? Brent Be...???

At that time CS was in the corner "you don't need them" and wrote quite a lot about it. 
IIRC using the chipbreaker wasn't one of his 7 tricks to avoid tear out. 

But He changed his mind and the video made another round throught the net.

Cheers 
Pedder


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## Corneel

The video was available earlier but links went dead after a while. And the take home message at that time was: it must be set at 0.1 mm and that is impossible / impractable.


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## PAC1

Corneel":25ss1vd2 said:


> The video was available earlier but links went dead after a while. And the take home message at that time was: it must be set at 0.1 mm and that is impossible / impractable.



The thing about woodwork is it more art than science or engineering. So if someone says it has to be 0.1mm I loose interest as that is not practical. However as close as possible without wrecking the edge can be done and has been consistently recommended by writers over the last 120 years at least.


----------



## Corneel

Yes! I set it closer and closer. But I also had the mouth super tight because all the books told me a smoother needed a tight mouth. Somehow one + two made a clogged mess. No wonder the art was lost.


----------



## PAC1

It was not lost


----------



## bugbear

I don't know about close-fitted cap-irons, but I'm detecting a few old axes being ground in this thread.

BugBear


----------



## custard

pedder":36da2j51 said:


> I don't think it was ever lost. I remember a thread on woodnet in 2008 (?): Does Chipbreaker break chips?
> I'm pretty sure, I saw the japanese video at that time. Wasn't the link since ever on the plan iron angle page? Brent Be...???
> 
> At that time CS was in the corner "you don't need them" and wrote quite a lot about it.
> IIRC using the chipbreaker wasn't one of his 7 tricks to avoid tear out.
> 
> But He changed his mind and the video made another round throught the net.
> 
> Cheers
> Pedder



One thing I find a bit weird in this media driven age is the way that _commentators_ are often confused with _practitioners_ and their opinions are given a weight which simply isn't justified.. 

Christopher Schwarz is an entertaining journalist with a clever turn of phrase, but at best he's a middling furniture maker. I've never met him in person but I've seen him on camera a few times and I'm always struck at how uncomfortable he looks with a tool in his hand, a million miles away from the quiet confidence a time served craftsman would display. 

Don't misunderstand me, he's an engaging and likeable chap, and he has the gift of weaving an engrossing story around a woodworking related theme. But the basic fact is that he earns his living as a _writer_ not as a _maker_, so I'd listen carefully to his advice about how to structure a magazine article, but setting up a plane? Not so much.


----------



## Bm101

Been trying to learn woodworking off the internet just long enough to realise.
If you're easily offended its probably best you click on the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-isGzfYUZ4

:wink:


----------



## custard

D_W":icpuybyy said:


> As a side comment, I doubt that the mid to late 1700s planes were the first planes that were ever used with a double iron to break chips, but it's pretty difficult to find specimens that are thousands of years old. I'd bet the same principle was applied back then, and lost. It's too practical and discoverable to have been practiced only in the last couple of hundred years.



Maybe. Maybe not. 

I've seen a few planes that pre-date 1700; salvaged from the Mary Rose, a Roman plane, planes in the Chinese National Museum, and they all had single irons. However I haven't seen _all_ the planes from before 1700 so I couldn't say for sure.

What I do know however is that working wood with higher moisture content is a very different experience compared to working thoroughly dried timber. Anything above about 15% and it's more like cutting a very crisp carrot than the relatively intractable material we're all more used to. And as well as being much easier to work, tear out is far, far less of a problem. I suspect that before the mid to late 1700's date you gave, craftsmen were much more likely to confine their efforts to timber that would be considered still too wet to work by later generations. 

I know a fair few craftsmen engaged in traditional Oak framed construction and I've worked alongside them on occasions. They work with Oak that might only have been felled a few weeks or months previously, and from a moisture content of 50% (or higher) right down to about 15% the working properties vary hardly at all, it's pliable and tractable, you don't get greatly agitated about sharpening your tools because it matters far less than it does with thoroughly air dried let alone kilned timber. Indeed in Northern Europe the driest you can naturally take timber to is about 14%, maybe 12% for thinner boards after an exceptionally dry summer. So it would have been common practise to be working with wood that was only marginally dry at best, and in consequence they were stressing their tools significantly less than we do.

The workshop where I apprenticed didn't even have an electricity supply until the 1960's, and I've spoken at length to some of the craftsmen who worked there in that era. When I asked them how they turned out sizeable Oak and Chestnut pieces of furniture, day after day, using only muscle power, they'd repeatedly make reference to completing as much dimensioning as possible with the wood as wet as they could get away with.

The other thing we need to consider is how troubled a pre-industrial craftsman would have been by a little tear out? My guess is very little. There were no industrially produced surfaces, so there were few reference points in people's lives as to just how smooth a wooden surface could be. I'd suggest that as long as a piece of furniture was noticeably smoother and shinier than a roughly hewn and weathered agricultural implement, then that would have been judged good enough. And even the very highest quality work would have been considered in the round, so the odd little blemish here or there wouldn't have been taken account of.

So, to summarise, even though I don't know for sure I wouldn't be surprised to learn that cap irons were never used before 1750. Firstly because the raw material didn't require it and secondly because the market didn't request it.


----------



## swagman

custard":2fjl1zp1 said:


> pedder":2fjl1zp1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think it was ever lost. I remember a thread on woodnet in 2008 (?): Does Chipbreaker break chips?
> I'm pretty sure, I saw the japanese video at that time. Wasn't the link since ever on the plan iron angle page? Brent Be...???
> 
> At that time CS was in the corner "you don't need them" and wrote quite a lot about it.
> IIRC using the chipbreaker wasn't one of his 7 tricks to avoid tear out.
> 
> But He changed his mind and the video made another round throught the net.
> 
> Cheers
> Pedder
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One thing I find a bit weird in this media driven age is the way that _commentators_ are often confused with _practitioners_ and their opinions are given a weight which simply isn't justified..
> 
> Christopher Schwarz is an entertaining journalist with a clever turn of phrase, but at best he's a middling furniture maker. I've never met him in person but I've seen him on camera a few times and I'm always struck at how uncomfortable he looks with a tool in his hand, a million miles away from the quiet confidence a time served craftsman would display.
> 
> Don't misunderstand me, he's an engaging and likeable chap, and he has the gift of weaving an engrossing story around a woodworking related theme. But the basic fact is that he earns his living as a _writer_ not as a _maker_, so I'd listen carefully to his advice about how to structure a magazine article, but setting up a plane? Not so much.
Click to expand...


Theres probably a good reason Chris Schwarz looks uncomfortable using a hand tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LkC8JpO1g


----------



## swagman

Bm101":2xdx2b6t said:


> Been trying to learn woodworking off the internet just long enough to realise.
> If you're easily offended its probably best you click on the link.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-isGzfYUZ4
> 
> :wink:



This is 1 of my favorate Monty clips. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk


----------



## D_W

custard":3r726qgq said:


> D_W":3r726qgq said:
> 
> 
> 
> As a side comment, I doubt that the mid to late 1700s planes were the first planes that were ever used with a double iron to break chips, but it's pretty difficult to find specimens that are thousands of years old. I'd bet the same principle was applied back then, and lost. It's too practical and discoverable to have been practiced only in the last couple of hundred years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe. Maybe not.
Click to expand...


Good point about the green wood.


----------



## D_W

custard":2lf7z6pr said:


> Don't misunderstand me, he's an engaging and likeable chap, and he has the gift of weaving an engrossing story around a woodworking related theme. But the basic fact is that he earns his living as a _writer_ not as a _maker_, so I'd listen carefully to his advice about how to structure a magazine article, but setting up a plane? Not so much.



Perfectly stated. For some reason, if you say that in the states, people will literally register to a forum to complain about your opinion.


----------



## Zeddedhed

I've been reading this thread with interest and it prompted me to dig out some old notebooks from my first ventures into working with wood - my C&G in carpentry and Joinery back in 1985. I found a scribbled drawing of a standard Stanley Bailey type set-up with my appallingly hand written notes suggesting that the cap iron should be set (and I quote) "a gnats pube" away from the cutting edge.

So whilst it's apparent that my instructors at Poole Technical College were aware of the importance of a close set Cap Iron, I have no conversion tables handy that tell me what a gnats pube is in mm.

Incidentally, the guy who taught us (Mr Scott if I recall correctly) was an appalling communicator but a true genius as a maker. He did one day a week at the college under duress - and hated teaching - he was actually a very shy man.

A few of us who showed sufficient promise or interest were invited to spend a few weeks at his workshop and then he came to life - he was like a different person. A great old guy who couldn't talk the talk but certainly walked the walk.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

custard":15pd8d68 said:


> ....
> What I do know however is that working wood with higher moisture content is a very different experience compared to working thoroughly dried timber. Anything above about 15% and it's more like cutting a very crisp carrot than the relatively intractable material we're all more used to. And as well as being much easier to work, tear out is far, far less of a problem. I suspect that before the mid to late 1700's date you gave, craftsmen were much more likely to confine their efforts to timber that would be considered still too wet to work by later generations ....
> 
> So, to summarise, even though I don't know for sure I wouldn't be surprised to learn that cap irons were never used before 1750. Firstly because the raw material didn't require it and secondly because the market didn't request it.



Custard, the point about the wood is very relevant - all your points are relevant, but this one is often overlooked.

I said a number of times in the reviews I wrote that I suspect that most planes are overkill for most woodworkers. I wonder how many amateurs choose figured and interlocked wood for a furniture build? The fact that 50 degrees is considered a "high angle" in the USA forums suggests to me that the experience of interlocked wood is vastly different to the woods we have in Oz. And then would a professional woodworker choose such wood, or rather go with something less difficult and obstructionistic? In any event, how many pros rely on handplanes for dimensioning or finish?

Furniture makers in Australia did not always build out of Jarrah or similar woods with complex grain. Early makers used prized and then available wood, such as (from New South Wales) Australian Red Cedar. Link: http://www.australiancedar.com/Cedar/Au ... iture.html
Unhappily, this was overused and is rarely available today. Jarrah is not widely used in Australia as it is indigenous to Western Australian only. It is typical of the Eucalyptus found around Oz, which are hard and interlocked woods. Jarrah was being used in the mid 1800s, but this, too, like other local species, has become prized as its rarity increases. Most, if not all, the hardwoods I build are reclaimed from demolitions.

I very much doubt that the furniture makers of the 1800s in Australia used much of the woods we use today. They lacked the machinery to dimension the hard, hard woods, and there were other alternatives. The point I am making rather clumsily is that woodworkers choose their materials carefully if they have any sense (I clearly have none).

I also doubt that high angled planes were used in the early days of Australia. Most of the furniture makers came from the UK, as seen in the number of familiar branded vintage tools available locally for sale. The high angled planes appear to have been a rarity, and today are popularised by Terry Gordon (HNT Gordon). I'm surmising here, because I have not researched the history, but also have not seen any other brands but his. This suggests that one either made do with Stanley and infill planes with common angles, either fuelled by a chip breaker, or not, or scrapers and sandpaper. People make do. 

When I put aside the power tools and began using handplanes, about 20 years ago now, my influence was a US forum, Badger Pond (no longer with us). High angle planes were considered the answer. Clark and William (USA) and HNT Gordon (Australia) set the pace. After a short stint with Stanley planes, I moved to HNT Gordon. They were, and continue to be, superb at their job.

About 10 years ago I moved to using bevel up planes, initially with a resurrected Stanley #62, and then through the testing I was doing for Lee Valley/Veritas. The advantage for me of these planes is that they could achieve a high cutting angle (around 60 degrees, same as the HNT Gordon woodies). The disadvantage was that I prefer freehand sharpening, and BU planes really benefit from a honing guide to achieve a specific secondary micro bevel angle. I stuck with them as the common angled planes, such as Stanley, just tore out in the local woods (regardless of fine shavings, tight mouths and sharp planes). This was pre-chipbreaker days.

I would credit David (DW) with the renaissance with the chipbreaker (around 2012). David often mentions Warren, his mentor as his inspiration. He refers to Warren’s information as “vague”. I would describe it as “close to his chest”. He gave up few if any details. David figured them out, and then a number of others began to see the possibilities and started to contribute. There were a few. Kees (Corneel) was another who offered up useful information (a couple of good videos, and later an excellent piece of research). 

My own contribution (back in 2012) was very modest, just to compare high angled planes with- and without chipbreakers and against common angle planes. I must acknowledge that I really did not have the touch for setting the chipbreaker at that time. Still the results demonstrated to me there were variable settings and a number of features that interacted: bed angle, angle at the leading edge of the chipbreaker, distance of chipbreaker from the edge, and depth of cut. 

Currently, my preferred smoothers and jointers are bevel down and used with the chipbreaker. Indeed, I changed down from a LN #3 with a 55-degree frog to one with a 45-degree frog. The Veritas Custom #4 has a 42-degree frog. The Veritas Custon #7 has a 40 degree frog. These perform as well, or better, than a HNT Gordon with a 60-degree bed. Why change? Because the lower angles push more easily, and BD is easier to sharpen than BU. On the hardwoods I work, there is not much, if any, different in finish. It is the ease of pushing and sharpening that got my vote.

I believe that bevel up planes or Stanley-minus-chipbreaker are still going to be the choice for most amateurs since they are easier to use, and will suffice unless there is a need to plane more interlocked grain. I still maintain that, for most, the performance of these planes exceeds the difficulty of the wood worked, and high angle planes offer an easier route than learning to set a chipbreaker. However for those willing to take the plunge, the chipbreaker is an old revolution made new.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## MIGNAL

This is all complete and utter nonsense. Effectively people are arguing about who was the first to mention cap iron reducing tearout on the internet. :shock: As though it was a new found concept and that they should be given a Nobel prize for woodworking! It's just complete nonsense!
BTW. I was the first to mention hand stitched rasps back in 2001. I can also lay claim to many other inventions, one of which was a concept for maintaining the correct angle for the primary grind on plane blades. :roll: It's just that no one listened, probably because I actually make stuff rather than pretending that I do.

PS. Don't forget that Pedder invented the saw, Swagman invented the saw handle and some guy on Woodnet invented the saw vice.


----------



## Zeddedhed

MIGNAL":hftj09wx said:


> This is all complete and utter nonsense. Effectively people are arguing about who was the first to mention cap iron reducing tearout on the internet. :shock: As though it was a new found concept and that they should be given a Nobel prize for woodworking! It's just complete nonsense!
> BTW. I was the first to mention hand stitched rasps back in 2001. I can also lay claim to many other inventions, one of which was a concept for maintaining the correct angle for the primary grind on plane blades. :roll: It's just that no one listened, probably because I actually make stuff rather than pretending that I do.
> 
> PS. Don't forget that Pedder invented the saw, Swagman invented the saw handle and some guy on Woodnet invented the saw vice.



Quite right. The very idea that there has been a 'renaissance' of the chipbreaker' is an utter joke.

Amongst anyone who uses planes for a living the chipbreaker has always been a part of our knowledge/armoury or whatever you want to call it. Most of them don't even know the names that have been mentioned in this thread, let alone spend their time on the forums.

If I'd asked Mr Scott (see my previous post) who were the prominent figures in the world of wood working when i was doing my C&G he would have looked at me as though I had two heads.

It didn't matter and it doesn't now.

Only to woodworking fetishists and fanboys.


----------



## D_W

Ahh yes, I know you guys have just known more than everyone else. 

Mignal - that's a fairly cynical view of it. I am not going for that (clearly to me Warren Mickley mentioned the cap iron every time the question of difficult planing was asked long long before I figured it out - at least a decade? and if you discuss it with him, he will tell you that he hasn't used anything but since either the late 70s or early 80s. But as I recall, it was something he gleaned from reading, not from instruction. 

My point is, there is a popular question that gets asked, and it goes something like this:

"I'm planing curly maple and getting tearout, what should I buy?" I saw that question for 6 years and I don't remember a single person ever saying "get a plane with a cap iron and learn to use it, and don't buy anything else unless you want to buy it for sport". Well, warren would say things, but I couldn't put them together because there usually wasn't enough resolution. I thought maybe he was trolling the amateurs. 

I read blogs, I read magazines, whatever - some of us have to learn on our own and don't just have someone telling us everything. If I had someone who really shaped how I think about whether or not I even want to make something, let alone how well, it would be George Wilson, who politely will tell you what you can improve, and he'll tell you *how*. But dumping machines at the time, Warren would say things like "you should be able to finish every board with through strokes on a smoother plane, and if you can't, something is wrong". I had made some planes that were fairly costly to me in time and money, but they weren't that useful for dimensioning, and neither were some very good single iron wooden planes that I bought. Warren won some of those hand tool contests, and I was under the mistaken impression that one of them was smoothing with a #3 (I think there still was a contest where he used a #4 and dusted a bunch of people using planes that cost several thousand each). 

In all of that time, I don't remember a single person ever suggesting a double iron, and you have people in the US (just as the guy who charlie keeps linking) suggesting that the double iron doesn't do anything at a shaving thickness you'd use to finish a board. That there are plenty of other useful shaving thicknesses, notwithstanding. 

It really makes little difference why it would've been said and by who on the internet, what made me angry is that I had sunken hundreds of hours into making tools and not a single blogger, or professional woodworker in the states could've (or did). I still have those tools...fortunately, one of them could be set properly as a double iron plane, but others can't. If a single person would've given relevant instruction on the cap iron, I probably wouldn't have bought or made all of those specific single iron plane.

It took me two weeks to learn to use a double iron almost as well as I can use one now, it took less than two weeks for me to get a stanley #4 (millers falls #9 actually) to work better (as in do a better job eliminating tearout in some very difficult quartered woods) than a 55 degree infill with a mouth between 3 and 4 thousandths. 

What I'd like to know is if everyone was so well versed in using a cap iron and so competent with it, why didn't a single person lend me a hand in text form? George helped me make nice saws, but he wasn't allowed to use double iron planes at colonial williamsburg, the curators felt there weren't enough around to allow anyone to use them. So he wasn't any help on the whole topic. 

All the while, Lie Nielsen was making double iron planes where the cap iron didn't reach far enough to actually use the cap iron and not a single person anywhere ever said anything about it. Why would that have been? I wrote an article to keep people in my position from spending money they don't want to spend, and shortly after I wrote the article, several people started complaining that they ran out of adjustment on their LN planes. If this was widely known, why didn't anyone in the UK complain about it? Shortly after the complaints started in 2012, LN fixed the problem. 

I should never have had to figure anything of the sort out, this is something that someone instructing woodworkers should've covered in detail and described the way I described it in an article so that you can use the cap iron with greater effect than anything else. 

Or said differently, as Warren says (paraphrased), it works better than anything else and if you don't think it does, you don't know how to use it as well as you think.

That's why I am asking that if this was such a widely known (and presumably everyone was competent with it if that's the case) thing, why aren't there dozens of easily found archived posts where someone other than warren suggested learning to use the cap iron instead of buying another plane? As I said, perhaps there is on here, that's why I made the request. There aren't anywhere else that I've frequented, or I wouldn't have waited 6 or 7 years to figure it out.

Once it did come up, there was a myriad of discussion items that anyone who knows how to use a double iron plane already know. Less effort per volume of wood removed than any other setup that is similarly capable, irons that stay in the cut longer than they would a single iron plane, etc (meaning more work between sharpening), and Kees, who was onto this stuff the same time has done a good job of actually proving in an experimental context that those are true. Anyone who joints with a single iron vintage jointer and then a double iron with a similar hardness and durability iron will instantly recognize how much more work they can get done before sharpening with a double iron plane. Both because the plane will stay in the cut for more feet of work done, and because you can take a thicker shaving without risk (and because of the common pitch). 

I think derek is 100% correct that most people are looking for point and shoot, and the above isn't for them. If you want to do an appreciable amount of dimensioning in dried (thanks for pointing that out, custard) wood, then unless you like doing unnecessary work above and beyond that rendered due to working by hand, there's really no other way to go and it's easy to see from an economic standpoint why the double iron took over. 

I cast off the suggestion of links like charlie showed because the guy doesn't know that much about the double iron plane, and he found a way to plane a surface that takes much longer and more disassembling of tools than someone who was competent with a simple stanley plane. 

I would bet more people learned to use a cap iron in the last 4 years from Kees and I than in the prior 10 from the rest of you guys who "already know", and that's pitiful. Nobody should have to learn something from an amateur like me.


----------



## custard

D_W":2mc6q2ma said:


> All the while, Lie Nielsen was making double iron planes where the cap iron didn't reach far enough to actually use the cap iron and not a single person anywhere ever said anything about it. Why would that have been? I wrote an article to keep people in my position from spending money they don't want to spend, and shortly after I wrote the article, several people started complaining that they ran out of adjustment on their LN planes. If this was widely known, why didn't anyone in the UK complain about it? Shortly after the complaints started in 2012, LN fixed the problem.



What exactly did LN do in 2012?


----------



## D_W

custard":r1vk71lo said:


> D_W":r1vk71lo said:
> 
> 
> 
> All the while, Lie Nielsen was making double iron planes where the cap iron didn't reach far enough to actually use the cap iron and not a single person anywhere ever said anything about it. Why would that have been? I wrote an article to keep people in my position from spending money they don't want to spend, and shortly after I wrote the article, several people started complaining that they ran out of adjustment on their LN planes. If this was widely known, why didn't anyone in the UK complain about it? Shortly after the complaints started in 2012, LN fixed the problem.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What exactly did LN do in 2012?
Click to expand...


The problem with the planes was that the hole for the adjuster dog was in the wrong place. If you set the cap iron close to the end of the cutting iron (where it needs to be to actually mitigate tearout), you would run out of adjustment and not be able to get the iron projected out of the plane. 

I'd assume that they began machining the adjuster hole a little further from the edge, which would be the cheapest way to remedy the problem. 

I had only one LN plane left by then, and as soon as I learned to use the cap iron, I set it aside in favor of a lighter vintage plane. For reasons that I don't know (maybe setup) some planes had the problem, some didn't. Mine did, too, but I wasn't using it by then. I sold it (and disclosed it). 

While I think LN believes some nutty things about how to use their planes, they are a top top shelf company and I doubt anyone incurred any cost to get a chipbreaker made properly. 

I ask all of the questions and intentionally draw some heat about this because there seem to be half a dozen little things like this that weren't noticed by anyone. I doubt most established businesses bought LN planes, that may be part of this one.


----------



## custard

That's clear. Thanks.


----------



## PAC1

D_W 
Just as an example of one of us this side of the pond saying Set your chip breaker right see David Charlesworth's comment on CS's blog http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/
I doubt I was much into forums in those days and I bet most of my contemporaries were not using forums before circa 2008. I still do not respond much hence less than 100 posts per year and this thread is heading for a record for me.


----------



## Corneel

I did a quick and dirty search through UKworkshop's archives, and truth be told, indeed you find the occasional lonely voice recomending to set the capiron very close to the edge to prevent tearout. I found a guy named Ivan and Pekka Huhta from Finland (not heard from him in a long time?). but the vast majority of forum users recommend the tight mouth, high cutting angles and scrapers.


----------



## CStanford

Never trust a skinny chef or an out-of-shape/overweight 'hand tool' woodworker.


----------



## JohnPW

> What I'd like to know is if everyone was so well versed in using a cap iron and so competent with it, why didn't a single person lend me a hand in text form?



It's just a guess but could it be that a closely set cap iron is so basic to planing that other people thought you're already using it, so any suggestions would mention other things you could do, ie higher pitch, scraping, toothed blade, narrower mouth etc.

From a 1950 Stanley leaflet:








> The problem with the (Lie Neilson) planes was that the hole for the adjuster dog was in the wrong place. If you set the cap iron close to the end of the cutting iron (where it needs to be to actually mitigate tearout), you would run out of adjustment and not be able to get the iron projected out of the plane.



I think I saw a Lie Neilson plane like that at college, another student was trying to set the depth and the blade wouldn't stick out of the sole. I had a look at it and saw that the cap iron screw slot wasn't long enough, I just assumed Lie Neilson had deliberatly made the slot shorter to prevent a user from getting the most out of the blade.


----------



## bugbear

JohnPW":3a0drwfr said:


> ... I just assumed Lie Neilson had deliberatly made the slot shorter to prevent a user from getting the most out of the blade.



I've met TLN several times, and he really does not strike me as the kind
of guy who is THAT desperate for a few cents. 

"Heck", in weekend use, even the sabotage you suggest would still have
the profit (early blade replacement) coming to TLN's successor, if at all.

BugBear


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

I've just got in from work and for some reason I have had this business going around my head all day. Having read some of the responses, from Derek, Corneel and in a earlier thread from Graham Hayden I think that I may have been slightly wrong on some of my previous assertions. The conclusion that I have reached from this has very little to do with actually woodworking and a lot to do with the internet and tool makers being the go to resource for learning.
First there are some uncontroversial facts,
1. Setting the cap iron very close to the cutting edge is a useful way to control tearout
2. There are other ways to control tear such as high angle planes, tight mouths and scrapers
3. This information has been completely accessible in published literature for many years. My copy of wearing's Essential Woodworker published in 1988 for example, also in much older texts such as Planecraft. 

All the above are easily verified

Now for some slightly more controversial claims
1. At some time before 2012 this information was lost/forgotten by woodworkers in the internet forum world.
2. It was rediscovered by DW and some others in 2012 and is now known to most internet woodwork forum users

Now since DW started posting about this a few months ago I have found the above difficult to believe. There are many on this forum who have stated that that they have always been aware of the use of the cap iron to control tear, something that is quite easy to believe as it is all over the published literature. One example is Richard Jones who was taught by Wearing in the 60s (from a previous post on this forum). I can think of no reason not to believe him in this, also no reason why Wearing would write about it in his book but not share it with someone he was mentoring. Another example is Zedhead's tutor in the 1980s. However Derek, Corneel and Graham have all stated they were not aware of the use of the cap iron to control tear until they heard it from DW in 2012, so there is some truth in the above statements

Personally I had no problem with tearout before 2012 as I took boards out of the machine and used a RO sander or if tear was bad a belt sander. It is only only in the last couple of years that I have got more into using hand tools. To this end I have extensively used the internet as a resource and this is why I read this forum. It is here that we really get to the heart of the matter. Some of the leading figures on the internet are not necessarily outstanding craftsmen. Custard's comments about CS are a good example, however because people such as myself are looking for information online to help them the most prolific writers are often followed. Indeed Custard you are a good example of this. I always read your posts and believe you to be a very skilled craftsman whose advise I should follow, but I do not actually KNOW this. What you say seems to make sense to me and I have decided that you are worth listening to, but I have never seen you work, I have never touched your work, perhaps your just gifted at the blarney. I don't think that this is the case, but it is never the less possible. I can only judge you by the things I already know, perhaps you only know a little more than me and the rest is blarney that I swallow wholesale.

It would appear to me that pre 2012 and DW's cap iron renaissance that a lot of hobby woodworkers were talking to each other and not reading books by highly skilled craftsmen. This kind of crowd sourcing for information left noone any wiser. In my actual business, repairing and maintaining canal boats, this kind of "blind leading the blind" is rife I can't even read the boaters forums as there are so many people talking so much BS. I only offer my advise to people who come to my dock and ask for it and even then some people want to argue with me "but the man at the paint shop said....". The man in the paint shop sells paint, he doesn't black boats. this leads me to the other source for information, the tool makers/dealers. High end, high angle planes said the tool dealers, forget your old stanley or woody, spend a load of money with LN and Veritas and your problems are solved. Essentially adverts became the go to source for information. I am not saying that there are no good products from these people, but their vested interest is clear. selling stuff

It is interesting to note that Paul Sellers, who, like Custard, I always listen to, does not see a close cap iron as a particularly efficient way to deal with tear. His opinion is that most boards are fine with a sharp iron and a 1-2mm gap and the others need a quick clean with a no. 80. I think this comes from the fact that he teaches with the premis that you only have one no. 4 (maybe 2, one set up as a scrub) and that it needs to be able to be adjusted for a variety of cuts from coarse to fine. A smoother with a 0.1mm set to the cao iron is not useful for thicker cuts when shaping wood. Personally I have a 4 1/2 which is only for final smoothing and a 4 for general work (and a couple of 5s with different cambers and a wooden jointer, oh yeah and a few others that get less use).

So in conclusion I would say the thing to learn from this is if you are not lucky enough to have been taught by a master you can rely on careful about what you learn on the net. Where possible read classic published literature (this would have saved a lot of pre 2012 internet woodworkers a lot of grief and money). 

Paddy


----------



## D_W

Charlie, I'm currently at 185 pounds - a real monster given that I only get into the shop part time (I'd probably weigh 30 pounds less if I was in it 7 days a week). I have been heavier, and I have been less heavy - but less heavy was before hand tool woodworking. Of course, if I suggest something that's correct, if I were a little bit fatter, it wouldn't be correct. I understand your stellar deduction, whether or not something is correct is based not on fact, but appearance of the source. 

I'd certainly say something more along the lines of, "never ask for the opinion of someone who can only present advice after the fact". (notwithstanding the habit to try to wedge others' work all the time instead of ever referencing your own).


----------



## D_W

bugbear":2d5tqbwn said:


> JohnPW":2d5tqbwn said:
> 
> 
> 
> ... I just assumed Lie Neilson had deliberatly made the slot shorter to prevent a user from getting the most out of the blade.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've met TLN several times, and he really does not strike me as the kind
> of guy who is THAT desperate for a few cents.
> 
> "Heck", in weekend use, even the sabotage you suggest would still have
> the profit (early blade replacement) coming to TLN's successor, if at all.
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


I have talked to folks there several times, too. I have no doubt that folks at both LN and LV have nothing but the best intentions, and they've shown by their actions in responding to any issues that they are johnny on the spot any time they can help anything. 

I think this was a case where nobody making or using the planes there was setting the cap iron close, so they didn't notice there was a problem. They have covered in a decade or two (they've been around longer, but only "big time" for a short period of time) what other makers have had generations to learn and pass on.


----------



## AndyT

Paddy, that strikes me as a very sensible summary. 

Logically, another possible reason why reading on line forums is not the best source of information is this:

Much of the content is written by people who buy a lot of tools. Naturally, anyone who has just spent a lot on a new tool will want to justify their purchase. If they find that it solves a problem (such as tearout) they will say so.
The message becomes "if you have the same problem, you should buy this tool too."

Sometimes a lone voice will be raised saying that you don't need fancy new tools, only to be shouted down.


----------



## CStanford

Narcissist alert: every post isn't a response to you.


----------



## D_W

PAC1":1bzq258i said:


> D_W
> Just as an example of one of us this side of the pond saying Set your chip breaker right see David Charlesworth's comment on CS's blog http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/
> I doubt I was much into forums in those days and I bet most of my contemporaries were not using forums before circa 2008. I still do not respond much hence less than 100 posts per year and this thread is heading for a record for me.



I'll post what David Charlesworth said in 2012. I'm not sure what the deal was with the cap iron that he was suggesting in Chris's blog post (which I haven't seen before, I'll admit I don't consume that much information from bloggers since people like George Wilson have come on the scene - I can dial his phone number and ask about most anything else other than cap irons, and get a far better answer). 

"This chipbreaker information is quite the most exciting thing I have learned in a forty year career. I am quite clear that it was not common knowledge in England and I don't recall seeing it in the whole of Fine Woodworking.

My advice and practice was to set the C/B close for gnarly timbers but not that close!

Learning new stuff is very invigorating.

Best wishes,
David"

I hope David doesn't mind that I've posted what he said, he may find me unfavorable..so might a lot of other folks, that's OK. I *did* get my introduction to woodworking and sharpening through his videos, and never have I had to use a dull tool because of it. 

In the combination of settings he discussed on Chris's post, a chipbreaker set at .008 with a mouth set at .003" would lead to the mouth limiting what could get through it such that the cap iron wouldn't be of much use. That would then lead to the question, why not just set the mouth like that, and the answer is because the cap iron still when set properly is better at tearout control, but it doesn't limit shaving thickness to somewhere just south of 3 thousandth. 

Note also that Chris (and others who saw the video) didn't do their homework at the bench and try anything. What works best for surfaces and tearout reduction is cap iron angles around 50 degrees. 80 tends to work little or all at once, and when it's in the "all at once" end of things, it tends to smash a chip back into the surface of the wood and if severe enough, the surface of the wood shows that. 50-60 degrees is not so drastic and it provides a wider working range. The suggestion of 80 degrees was made for supersurfacer machines (the intention of the study) and the immediate assumption was that what's good for a fixed set on a machine is good for a plane. I shouldn't say assumption, but more that it was asserted by several people. 

What I'm saying is that I gather David's thoughts about the cap iron were not the same in 2007 as they were post 2012, otherwise he wouldn't have said the above. I also think details, like what I just suggested, and constantly beating the drum of leaving the stanley cap iron at stock curvature, etc, are not discussed often enough, and this business of 80 degrees comes up from time to time, leading people to set their planes up in a way that's not very favorable.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":3idf0zaa said:


> Narcissist alert: every post isn't a response to you.



Nice try, Charlie.


----------



## Sgian Dubh

Paddy Roxburgh":2g2ybhar said:


> One example is Richard Jones who was taught by Wearing in the 60s (from a previous post on this forum). I can think of no reason not to believe him in this, also no reason why Wearing would write about it in his book but not share it with someone he was mentoring. Paddy


Actually Paddy, it was in the early 80s when I went to college (some nine or ten years after I did my initial training as a furniture maker in a workshop) that Bob Wearing was one of my teachers (one day a week I think).

However, it's my experience that even the best tuned and set up plane (cap iron and all) isn't a complete panacea for tear-out free planing. I find, even in the finest hand work I do there's usually at least some call for something else to help a bit, scrapers and abrasive paper for example. I have prepped surfaces polish ready with only hand planes, but it can be very time consuming on particularly intractable woods - scrapers and abrasives can frequently be the woodworker's friend.

That's just my experience. Others may have a different experiences, and yet others might say I don't know how to set-up and use a plane properly, although I've always seemed to get by as a furniture maker with the hand planing I do! Slainte.


----------



## CStanford

This chipbreaker information is quite the most exciting thing I have learned in a forty year career. I am quite clear that it was not common knowledge in England and I don't recall seeing it in the whole of Fine Woodworking.

My advice and practice was to set the C/B close for gnarly timbers but not that close!

Learning new stuff is very invigorating.

Best wishes,
David

Amazing, really, when Graham Blackburn stepped in for him at WIA during his illness with precisely this information in 2011. And had been preaching this for years before. It's in his video series.


----------



## D_W

Certainly, by the time as much has been said here, it would've been much easier just to find some archived posts where the cap iron was suggested instead of buying more tools. 

I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago. 

Solving a problem at the bench is usually less popular than the product link that solves the problem, and most of the people who already know what they know disappear after being told they're clueless by people who are far more clueless. 

That warren frequents the american forums offering suggestions after being told he's an silly person (paraphrased) over and over is surprising. The same happens to George Wilson (and there may be a George or two who frequents this forum that I don't know about, because I haven't seen enough of everyones' portfolios), but he persists because he loves craft. I could name dozens of others off of the top of my head who have come and gone because it's not worth their time to deal with a newly retired engineer who just watched a sharpening video or just went to a Lie Nielsen event. 

Our own David C popped in to woodnet about five years ago, Charlie trolled him several times and he left. When I see the dynamic here, where some of Charlies advice is in earnest, it's something I haven't seen before. re: the axe to grind, I've got not much to grind, but the more familiar charlie was booted from Knots and then Sawmill Creek for heckling without offering much else, thus the increasing preference to not wait for that to return in most cases.


----------



## D_W

Sgian Dubh":1rn9txhu said:


> That's just my experience.



I would agree with it. Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo. 

It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.


----------



## CStanford

What you call 'trolling' David I call having a memory for dates and places. I guess it's a curse. Several of our friends here on this forum, trained in the British tradition, have distinct memories of being taught the cap iron (read this thread). I have no idea why one would be and another wouldn't be. I guess it's just the quality of instruction or apprenticeship program one may have come up in. It's not a question I can answer. It doesn't really matter all that much. There are other ways of dealing with tear out, if it's even a problem in the first place.

Otherwise, to call it anything but an unfortunate omission in his training is disingenuous to say the least. And to hold anybody to my ridiculously low standard, a self-taught woodworker from Memphis, is beyond absurd. I'm as much carpenter as furnituremaker and don't do justice to either pursuit.


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

Sgian Dubh":3hfsrj50 said:


> Paddy Roxburgh":3hfsrj50 said:
> 
> 
> 
> One example is Richard Jones who was taught by Wearing in the 60s (from a previous post on this forum). I can think of no reason not to believe him in this, also no reason why Wearing would write about it in his book but not share it with someone he was mentoring. Paddy
> 
> 
> 
> Actually Paddy, it was in the early 80s when I went to college (some nine or ten years after I did my initial training as a furniture maker in a workshop) that Bob Wearing was one of my teachers (one day a week I think).
> 
> However, it's my experience that even the best tuned and set up plane (cap iron and all) isn't a complete panacea for tear-out free planing. I find, even in the finest hand work I do there's usually at least some call for something else to help a bit, scrapers and abrasive paper for example. I have prepped surfaces polish ready with only hand planes, but it can be very time consuming on particularly intractable woods - scrapers and abrasives can frequently be the woodworker's friend.
> 
> That's just my experience. Others may have a different experiences, and yet others might say I don't know how to set-up and use a plane properly, although I've always seemed to get by as a furniture maker with the hand planing I do! Slainte.
Click to expand...


Sorry for misquoting you. As I've said before on this forum I always have the no. 80 handy, but I use a lot of reversing grain timber and my level of craftsmanship is pretty low, I always feel I've done well if the belt sander stays in the cupboard.
Paddy


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

D_W":ndphpshi said:


> I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
> .



On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.

Paddy


----------



## D_W

Paddy Roxburgh":oc6uh6g2 said:


> D_W":oc6uh6g2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
> .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.
> 
> Paddy
Click to expand...


I agree, and you're right, this whole cap iron discussion is sort of an after the fact thing. There's no shortage of information now, and the bonus I really wanted to learn from all of it is whether or not I could build a plane better than I could buy (if you can't, and really good planes are really cheap, why bother?). 

I tend to default to calling George these days. My interest in the forums has been waning because the people I'd like to learn from probably don't feel it's worth the trouble to post. It's been that way from the beginning, it just took several years to figure it out, and at least better understanding of plane design came of it, because I have a keen interest in that, and there's really very little out there - especially in the case of double iron wooden planes, to help someone build a really good one. Well, that and getting to know George and a few other people who are genuinely helpful and who have an encyclopedic knowledge of scads of things that go from design to execution in a mostly or all hand tools context. Those things have been worth the trouble. 

I'm out of this thread at this point, until or unless someone can actually dig up conversation about it before 2012 (more out of archival interest and less out of contest at this point, I just don't think there was much discussion of it - especially for David C. to say what I quoted from him above). For a hand tool forum, there's a a significant amount of planer then sander on this, and I'm not really aiming for that.


----------



## Sgian Dubh

D_W":1x4for5t said:


> Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo.
> 
> It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.


David, it's sometimes surprising just how tricky it can be to plane even common hardwoods. European ash can be troublesome, as can European beech - so too even the American maples, cherry and walnut, and so on. Even normally compliant wood species such as poplar (tulipwood) can be awkward around knots, and ribbon striped figure is sometimes a bear. I recall once, for example, back in the 80s, prepping some heavily rippled European ash where the only solution in the end really was planing perpendicular to the long grain direction. Even this didn't leave a great surface, being 'flat' but a bit woolly with lots of short fibres sticking up. So it was followed up with abrasive papers, probably from about 120 or 150 grit down to perhaps 180 or 220 grit, then polished. Then there are things like crotch walnut where the grain is all over the place, generally best tackled primarily with scrapers and abrasives right from the off, or abrasive papers all through if power sanding is available, especially for delicate veneers. 

Anyway, I'm forever a pragmatist when it comes to working wood polish ready - I do whatever I judge will work best for the job in hand, especially if there is customer paying for it in the end. Slainte.


----------



## Sgian Dubh

Paddy Roxburgh":e3afjo3q said:


> Sorry for misquoting you.


No biggie Paddy ... except if I'd received any training from Bob wearing in the 60s you'd have put me about twenty years older than my true age - and I'm more than old enough already, ha, ha! Slainte.


----------



## D_W

Sgian Dubh":2bk9l7bi said:


> D_W":2bk9l7bi said:
> 
> 
> 
> Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo.
> 
> It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.
> 
> 
> 
> David, it's sometimes surprising just how tricky it can be to plane even common hardwoods. European ash can be troublesome, as can European beech - so too even the American maples, cherry and walnut, and so on. Even normally compliant wood species such as poplar (tulipwood) can be awkward around knots, and ribbon striped figure is sometimes a bear. I recall once, for example, back in the 80s, prepping some heavily rippled European ash where the only solution in the end really was planing perpendicular to the long grain direction. Even this didn't leave a great surface, being 'flat' but a bit woolly with lots of short fibres sticking up. So it was followed up with abrasive papers, probably from about 120 or 150 grit down to perhaps 180 or 220 grit, then polished. Then there are things like crotch walnut where the grain is all over the place, generally best tackled primarily with scrapers and abrasives right from the off, or abrasive papers all through if power sanding is available, especially for delicate veneers.
> 
> Anyway, I'm forever a pragmatist when it comes to working wood polish ready - I do whatever I judge will work best for the job in hand, especially if there is customer paying for it in the end. Slainte.
Click to expand...


If I were working where time is money and with veneers, I would espouse the same view - especially with the stuff where the straws of the wood are pretty much perpendicular to the surface. 

I doubt very many customers would care about any of the stuff I care about when finish planing. Probably none.


----------



## G S Haydon

I'll agree with your summary about my understanding Paddy. In my day job using planes to get a finished surface is a non issue, it does not really happen. Although I can use hand tools I was not having to understand their full potential. D W's writing was a source that helped me understand things more fully. 

And when I contrasted that information with vintage tools and books I had previously read (but clearly had not understood fully) there was a match.

One or two oil stones, Stanley cap iron's were perfectly designed industrial genius and setting a cap iron close would tame any tear out apart from ultra, ultra nasty grain. As D W mentioned there are fewer postings about using and practicing with a stock Stanley or Wooden plane than there are about new steels various honing media. I truly don't mind at all as to what anyone uses or how they do it. It just happened D W's efforts were very useful and instructive to me.


----------



## JimB

I must say I've enjoyed this thread. Sixty years ago setting the chip-breaker was one of the first lessons I had in woodwork, and it wasn't by a guru or mentor or whatever; we called them woodwork teachers.
Journalists have a good deal to answer for with headings like, 'best kept secrets of...', 'the secret of...' etc., as if finishing wood, cooking, tourism requires some arcane knowledge on a par with the elixir of life or the holy grail.
All tools have limitations which become less the more you become used to them but there is no perfect tool for all woods. There'd be no pleasure if there were.


----------



## bridger

I'm planing some large panels of alder. It's easy stuff, a sharp blade and moderately set cap and it just gleams. Except for one spot about 3" x 8" where the grain gets tightly gnarled and it is much, much harder than the rest of the board. That area just didn't want to behave. Finally I worked it over with a toothing plane, then just barely took it to smooth with a #4 set close. Looks great.


----------



## MIGNAL

Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

MIGNAL":3gtawtgg said:


> Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.



Hi Mignal

Actually it is a "Big deal". 

There is documentation of the "double iron" back to at least the early 1800, perhaps earlier. There has been much discussion in this regard. No one here is attempting to lay claim to discovering the chipbreaker and how it is used. Quite the opposite - it is acknowledged as information missed by most (and in that was "lost"). What is important to recognise is that most woodworkers these days did not get their grounding in handplane use from apprenticeships or training, but from books, magazines, videos and the Internet gurus. How to set a chipbreaker was absent in the recent decades _in these media_. 

We are what we are taught, and many of the teachers we followed (myself included) appear to have had no awareness of the chipbreaker to tune a plane. Teachers such as David Charlesworth (who, to his great credit, acknowledged this publicly), Rob Cosman (many, many DVDs - and he still disavows the use of the chipbreaker), Paul Sellers (ditto), Chris Schwarz (late to the game, but also willing to accept something "new"), just to name a few. There are plenty of modern planemakers who support the single iron/high bed angle design, indicating that they, too, did not grasp the significance of the double iron: Old Street (formerly Clark and Williams), HNT Gordon, Philly Planes, Karl Holtey, and Sauer and Steiner, again just to name a few.

So ingrained was the perception that the chipbreaker just supported the blade, that many refused to acknowledge that it could do anything else - which is probably why Graham Blackburn made no impression at WIA in 2011.

So it may be just a small item to you, but it is a big deal to some. Others will just happily ignore that it exits. For myself, it is one of several methods of working, all important, but I do feel empowered by mastering the technique. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## bugbear

Lacking a "master craftsman" (and who decides on that designation) willling to give 1-on-1 lessons, most people are going to learn from "instructional media" be it magazines, books, DVDs, online video, or web sites.

So, yeah, it matters.

I know that many texts, both older and newer, simply say to set the cap-iron "close", which
is not very helpful at all. I quoted Planecraft because it actually, albeit implicitly, puts
an actual, usable measurement on "close".

Words like "steep", "hard", "close" etc are great when you're describing something
1-on-1, and have the item in front of you, but they're useless in a written description.

BugBear


----------



## Droogs

I would like to take a punt at answering the question posed in the title of this thread.

I've enjoyed reading this thread (I like a good barney :twisted: ), I do however feel that perhaps it has been miss-titled. To me it should be "Where or How did the Average American Woodworker Lose Their Knowledge About the Cap Iron/Chip breaker"
Now for our cousins across the puddle, this is not said with any disdain or arrogance. It does help however to point out what for me is the biggest difference between UK and US working practices with wood (as a generalisation). This being that the US a land of almost limitless space in regard to that available to the average Joe Shmoe is unbelievably massive when compared to the average John Smith. They also have a very large integrated and inexpensive home market for power tools and have had for over 50 years. On the other hand, we Brits have had to make do with spaces akin to the average American's front door mat and retailers (even discounted chains) that charge on average at least double, tool for tool when compared to the US (at least in the perception of UK buyers).

I do feel though that perhaps the greatest influence of all, is one that has not been mentioned at all in this sort of discussion and that's hardly surprising as it's more socio-economic in its basis than craft. That is the 2nd World War. The US was able to industrialise at such a rapid pace in order to prosecute said war, that it found itself with a very early need to re-jig its education system to accommodate the needs of industry. As a consequence US “shop” classes changed from having an emphasis on pre-industrial techniques to those suited to modern industry with an over-riding focus on using machinery to accomplish every task where possible. The UK on the other hand managed to hang on during the war by the skin of her teeth and found herself in the unenviable position of having “all the ideas but none of the gear” nor the money to get it and so found herself having to continue using outdated equipment and techniques in industry and as a result of this and trade union protectionist practices took another 40 years before she was able to re-define what was taught in schools in any meaningful way with regard to what industry needed. 
This therefore has lead to the position that most American woodworkers (hobbyists and pro’s) are more at home using machines to complete a task and find themselves with the space in which to use them and having them at an affordable price, even for the lowest paid worker. The UK on the other hand continued to teach more traditional hand skills in woodwork classes for the first couple of years (with for most students) the use of machinery restricted to those in their 3rd and 4th year at high school, by which time students taking any sort of academic based curriculum would not have any sort of “shop” classes. 
As a result in the US the knowledge of hand tool use declined in general where as for us in the UK, most hobbyists returning to woodwork in later years would find that by some form of osmosis the knowledge of how to use a cap iron had seeped into the grey matter and would just do it and assume that everyone else did the same.

Long winded I know but, have been thinking about this. Gentlemen, I open the floor in order for you to shoot me down or prop me up 

edit for typos


----------



## AndyT

Droogs, I think that's a valid and useful point to make.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

I agree. Well said Droogs. 

There may be other conditions that also helped set the information about the chipbreaker aside. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## bugbear

Does anyone know of an old text (other than Planecraft) where an
actual reproducible distance is given for the capiron/blade-edge gap required
to influence tear-out?

Given that most old texts don't seem keen on any units smaller
than an eighth, it may simply be that "close" did not mean,
to the modern reader, to imply distances that we know need
to measure in thou's, and hence the knowledge was lost in translation.

BugBear


----------



## CStanford

Charles Hayward, Practical Woodwork, 1965:

In the following passage Hayward is discussing planes in light of his advice that the hobbyist needs three bench planes: a jack, smoother, and panel plane (a no. 6). The passage is accompanied by two line drawings one of a single-iron plane planing wood against the grain and tearing out. The next illustration is a 'magnified' line drawing of a cap iron equipped plane planing wood against the grain and showing the shaving being immediately curled over. In the drawing the cap iron is all the way to the end of the cutter. You can't really distinguish any distance at all. Here is the verbiage that accompanied the drawings:

"... replace the back iron setting it about 1/16 in. from the edge [he's talking about the jack at this point], and less for the trying and smoothing planes. For difficult woods with twisted grain it should be as close to the edge as is practicable. Its whole purpose is to break the shaving as it is lifted, so robbing it of its strength and preventing it from tearing out the grain. It will be realized that the reason for this tearing out is that the wood is severed or split up ahead of the actual cutting edge as shown at (A), figure 21. By setting the back iron close the edge the shaving is broken almost immediately as it is raised and there is thus no rigid length of shaving to cause the split."

So he's talking about a 1/16th for the jack, less for try and smooth planes (all three as more or less 'normal' setttings) then even closer for twisted grain.

I imagine a guy like Hayward might roar with laughter if we scolded him for not giving us a measurement like 1/128" of an inch (or so) or its metric equivalent. The drawing that accompanied the text shows an extremely close setting.

Planecraft and Wearing imply such a measurement for anybody with enough sense of math to see the obvious arithmetic progression from 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, to as close as you can get it...


----------



## JimB

In my edition of his Cabinet Making for Beginners (1947) he puts the smoother as 1/32in or less.


----------



## CStanford

"Shop" classes existed in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. I had one in the 9th grade. Its focus was completely on rough carpentry (framing) and not furniture, joinery (trim carpentry), or cabinetmaking.


----------



## JimB

It's interesting to note that Hayward recognised the problems facing servicemen coming home to bomb-damaged houses and the Woodworker of the time (he was editor) reflected this. It backs up Droogs points.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

Hi BB

I doubt that there will be texts that offer up a specific distance for a smoother - as this will vary according to different parameters. For example, the distance of the chipbreaker to the edge of the blade is affected by the leading angle of the chipbreaker, and also the depth of the cut. The steeper the leading angle, the further back the chipbreaker can be set (think in terms of 0.1mm units - not hard to get after a while).

If you play around with different settings, it quickly becomes apparent when the chipbreaker is too close ( the shavings crinkle up like an accordion or, worse still, the plane will not cut) or too far back (the shavings are still very curly). Just right means that the shavings straighten up.

In short, eyeball the distance, take a test shaving, and adjust where needed.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## MIGNAL

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> MIGNAL":20rg478t said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Mignal
> 
> Actually it is a "Big deal".
> 
> There is documentation of the "double iron" back to at least the early 1800, perhaps earlier. There has been much discussion in this regard. No one here is attempting to lay claim to discovering the chipbreaker and how it is used. Quite the opposite - it is acknowledged as information missed by most (and in that was "lost"). What is important to recognise is that most woodworkers these days did not get their grounding in handplane use from apprenticeships or training, but from books, magazines, videos and the Internet gurus. How to set a chipbreaker was absent in the recent decades _in these media_.
> 
> We are what we are taught, and many of the teachers we followed (myself included) appear to have had no awareness of the chipbreaker to tune a plane. Teachers such as David Charlesworth (who, to his great credit, acknowledged this publicly), Rob Cosman (many, many DVDs - and he still disavows the use of the chipbreaker), Paul Sellers (ditto), Chris Schwarz (late to the game, but also willing to accept something "new"), just to name a few. There are plenty of modern planemakers who support the single iron/high bed angle design, indicating that they, too, did not grasp the significance of the double iron: Old Street (formerly Clark and Williams), HNT Gordon, Philly Planes, Karl Holtey, and Sauer and Steiner, again just to name a few.
> 
> So ingrained was the perception that the chipbreaker just supported the blade, that many refused to acknowledge that it could do anything else - which is probably why Graham Blackburn made no impression at WIA in 2011.
> 
> So it may be just a small item to you, but it is a big deal to some. Others will just happily ignore that it exits. For myself, it is one of several methods of working, all important, but I do feel empowered by mastering the technique.
> 
> Regards from Perth
> 
> Derek
Click to expand...


I had no formal training in woodwork. Pretty much everything I know was gleaned from either books, magazines or trial and error. I read of the chipbreaker effect around 1977. It was an article (or a book) in which a guitar maker stated that he set the chipbreaker very close to the blades edge to reduce tearout. I know for a fact that he was self taught too, so presumably he learnt it from someone else or from some literature. I did not mean to imply that using the chipbreaker wasn't a big deal. Perhaps some of us have been using the technique for decades and just assumed that it was common knowledge. It's obvious that some people were not aware of the effect but learnt of it through the internet. I'm not sure anyone can state that it was lost knowledge. 
A single iron plane is still a useful tool. For a lot of work the chipbreaker is irrelevant, not really needed. I've even planed highly figured Maple with a single iron, planing with the figure rather than planing with the grain.


----------



## CStanford

Paddy Roxburgh":6jf36cp4 said:


> D_W":6jf36cp4 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
> .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.
> 
> Paddy
Click to expand...


Best post in the thread.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

> A single iron plane is still a useful tool. For a lot of work the chipbreaker is irrelevant, not really needed. I've even planed highly figured Maple with a single iron, planing with the figure rather than planing with the grain.



Hi Mignal

That is important. The "advent" of the chipbreaker does not invalidate other planes or other methods. I am not getting rid of my HNT Gordon planes (single iron, 60 degree bed).

However, there are essentially two ways to get a single iron plane to smooth interlocked wood: either the bed angle is increased, or the shaving taken is very thin. Or both. I could add the mouth must be small, but I know that a high bed reduces the importance of the mouth, and the higher it goes, the less important the mouth size. These methods are less efficient than using a chipbreaker with a low bed.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## MIGNAL

Sometimes I use a single iron plane to remove wood, quickly.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

Hi Mignal

Ditto. I have been referring to the use of a double iron in a smoother or jointer. My jack is either a single-iron woodie or a #5, also with an 8" cambered iron (with chipbreaker pulled back out of the way). No need for a chipbreaker here.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford

The vast majority of woodworkers will have all cap iron equipped planes, said iron should be adjusted as classic and reliable sources recommend - a sixteenth or so (not much more) for jack planes and getting smaller from there. The time to worry about tearing and blowouts around knots and other swirly grain is during thicknessing with a jack. This is when it can easily go below planned thickness and therefore not fixable by any method.

One still can do no better than Planecraft, Wearing, Hayward, Jones, manufacturers' brochures, Audel's guides (U.S.) etc. It's all there. Just because one's favorite blogist, magazine polemicist, internet fanboy, etc. haven't gotten 'round to reading them matters little.


----------



## bugbear

CStanford":3t5527lw said:


> One still can do no better than Planecraft, Wearing, Hayward, Jones, manufacturers' brochures, Audel's guides (U.S.) etc. It's all there. Just because one's favorite blogist, magazine polemicist, internet fanboy, etc. haven't gotten 'round to reading them matters little.



I saw someone recommend a list of books in a post on the internet. Should I trust him?

:lol: 

BugBear (this forum needs an irony Emoticon)


----------



## CStanford

If the books were published after 1975, probably not! Wearing being a notable exception.


----------



## swagman

JimB":1lofhvfv said:


> I must say I've enjoyed this thread. Sixty years ago setting the chip-breaker was one of the first lessons I had in woodwork, and it wasn't by a guru or mentor or whatever; we called them woodwork teachers.
> Journalists have a good deal to answer for with headings like, 'best kept secrets of...', 'the secret of...' etc., as if finishing wood, cooking, tourism requires some arcane knowledge on a par with the elixir of life or the holy grail.
> All tools have limitations which become less the more you become used to them but there is no perfect tool for all woods. There'd be no pleasure if there were.



Well said Jim. =D>


----------



## swagman

CStanford":emk63bxc said:


> If the books were published after 1975, probably not! Wearing being a notable exception.



Hi Charles. I would bring that date back to pre 1960.


----------



## CStanford

This is more about setting the matter right from those who would rewrite history and therefore not give credit where it's due, though admittedly from their own stubborn ignorance as much as anything else. They refuse to say that it was there all the time, which of course it was. 

Credit belongs to British writers, craftsmen, and teachers. Period.


----------



## CStanford

swagman":2ggy8dnx said:


> CStanford":2ggy8dnx said:
> 
> 
> 
> If the books were published after 1975, probably not! Wearing being a notable exception.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Charles. I would bring that date back to pre 1960.
Click to expand...


Probably so, except for Wearing and the special printing of Planecraft underwritten by Woodcraft in 1982. I'm pretty sure there are also some articles dealing with all of this in the early years of Fine Woodworking magazine.

There are actually Woodcraft underwritten impressions of the book dated as late as 1988 on Amazon. Woodcraft apparently printed these for years. My Woodcraft sponsored impression is dated 1972. They may have had these printed for fifteen years or more. Very telling.


----------



## AndyT

bugbear":3c0gqyvr said:


> Does anyone know of an old text (other than Planecraft) where an
> actual reproducible distance is given for the capiron/blade-edge gap required
> to influence tear-out?
> 
> Given that most old texts don't seem keen on any units smaller
> than an eighth, it may simply be that "close" did not mean,
> to the modern reader, to imply distances that we know need
> to measure in thou's, and hence the knowledge was lost in translation.
> 
> BugBear



I'm sure we've been here before, but here are a few from earlier than Hayward.

These are the first four I looked in - they don't all agree or quantify the measurement in the same way, (not all books are good!) but the general drift is there.

Holtzapffel, Turning and Mechanical Manipulation Volume 2, 1847 p 497:

_The cutting iron having been sharpened, the top-iro is screwed fast at the required distance from the edge, say for coarse works one-sixteenth, and for fine work, one fortieth or fiftieth of an inch._

James Lukin, Carpentry and Joinery for Amateurs, 1879 p25:

_The position of the break iron is of great importance. The nearer its edge is to that of the cutter, the harder will be the work of planing, and the thinner the shaving, supposing the plane to be set "fine," ie with its edge projecting but slightly beyond the sole. Hence it is usual to set the the break-iron one-sixteenth from the edge for the first roughing-down process, and then to re-sharpen the blade and set the break iron but very slightly above the other, and thus to finish the work._

Francis Young, Every Man His Own Mechanic, 1882, p 166:

_Thus when the jack-plane is required for heavy work, that is to say, for hacking down a rough and uneven surface, the edge of the break-iron should be about 1/8 inch from the edge of the cutter, but for finer work it should not be more than 1/20 inch from the latter; and in the smoothing-plane the distance between the edges of the two irons should be less than this - indeed so slight as to be perceptible but nothing more. The higher the break-iron, the easier the plane will be found to work, and the lower it is the heavier the plane will work, but the cut will be cleaner._

William Fairham, Woodwork tools and How to Use Them, 1922, p97
_
For fine work the cap iron of the jack plane should stand back from the edge of the cutting blade almost 1/16 in.; whereas for rough planing, the distance may be increased to almost 1/8 in. The smoothing plane and the trying plane require the cap iron setting back from the cutting edge about 1/32 in. Steel smoothing planes will require a finer set than 1/32 in. when used on hardwood. No hard and fast rule can be given for setting the back iron; it is one of the points that will come to the worker by experiment and experience, and the above measurements are given as a general guide._


----------



## CStanford

Without doubt. 

Hayward and other sources (Audel's in the US) and Planecraft kept this going into the mid-20th century well after even hobbyists were predominantly using power equipment.


----------



## AndyT

CStanford":o7h2oras said:


> I'm pretty sure there are also some articles dealing with all of this in the early years of Fine Woodworking magazine.



FWW no 1 1975 had an article on Hand Planes by Timothy Ellsworth which recommended "Planecraft" as a good source of guidance on this and other matters. It suggested 1/64" for "very fine shavings on finish work and hard to plane woods."


----------



## CStanford

There you go. 

Woodcraft apparently continued to have Planecraft printed through the year 1988 based on dates I'm seeing on Amazon. They weren't doing this because the book wasn't selling!


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

Charles, this is such a ...







Dave (DW) made this point early on.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford

I'm touched you took the time to find such a neat image.


----------



## D_W

This Charles is much more recognizable. 

Since nobody else did it, I searched through the old posts on this site and I looked for anyone who commented on "chipbreaker, tearout" or "cap iron, tearout". There was a single person who suggested using the cap iron to eliminate tearout, a user who goes by the handle IVAN. Ivan's second post is a situation where he was actually using it. 

Bravo, Ivan. 

Nobody responded a peep to what he said, even when people disagreed with his assessment that the cap iron can provide a steepened angle like a scraper, but with a more favorable surface quality (which is exactly correct). Again, not getting into the argument that a customer usually has no clue what's sanded or planed, I worked for 3 summers in a cabinet factory with 500 employees and I certainly never saw anything other than wax sticks and shellac sticks to fix problems on doors and face frames, and we made 3000-3500 cabinets a week and never had trouble selling any for issues outside of *color matching*.

Ivan posted accurately about using the cap iron once in 2007 and once in 2009. In a world of such common knowledge, i'm surprised that someone didn't agree with him when others were disagreeing. I guess it was too subtle, and it just went by, even though it's buried in the research results between gobs of posts talking about chipbreakers stabilizing blades and needing heavier and thicker blades or heavier cap irons. 

It seems much easier to point out you heard it or read it before (as I suggested to Bill we'd hear), but the actually suggestion of *doing* it with an accurate bit of instruction doesn't appear on this site that I can see except from above. that's too bad. It probably would've saved a lot of people a lot of money that they could've spent on wood and finish supplies.


----------



## ED65

Some related reading I just unearthed while looking for a particular post referenced elsewhere. 

Thread from here from 2005: 
What's all this bevel up stuff anyway?

More from Chris Schwarz, July 2012:
More Experiments with Chipbreakers


----------



## D_W

ED65":rapd90i6 said:


> Some related reading I just unearthed while looking for a particular post referenced elsewhere.
> 
> Thread from here from 2005:
> What's all this bevel up stuff anyway?
> 
> More from Chris Schwarz, July 2012:
> More Experiments with Chipbreakers



Thanks for those links. The first one has a bit of incidental contact in it. I read through it all, and it appears that there is some favor for heavy shavings in it. If I missed others, let me know. 

The second one was post forum discussion, which occurred in about march/april 2012.

It did result in me (after writing an article, which I'm not claiming by any means to be something spectacular, just an article to describe how to functionally set the cap) getting PMs from people offering to put me in contact with Chris Schwarz so that I could "understand it better" because "he could probably help". 

Ivan's description in 2009, however, was perfection.

I vaguely recall when I first got into this hobby, Larry, Derek and Warren (on another forum) in constant roundabouts about various things. I believe that was 2005 or 2006. Larry argued with such vigor I figured he must be correct (the discussions were much more heated than this thread). Except since starting to make double iron wooden planes, I've proved his assertions incorrect (which will surprise nobody, but again, in the states, there is not much out there - especially about making a good double iron plane). 

It was a first taste into problems that you didn't know were problems until someone else said they were (e.g., the "long wear bevel" that's so hard to remove on a bevel up plane - one that's not that hard in practice to remove, and I was using planes of that type back then). 

The regret I have in discussions of this type (where there are obviously knowledgeable folks on here) is that when they get heated, we actually learn things because people who wouldn't otherwise post are motivated to do so out of anger. It is like the cap iron question I have here, in ten years of posts on this site, we have one conclusive mention of the cap iron before 2012 (that is accurate) in friendly discussion, and then scads of recent posts because people have their hackles raised. 

I am one half drawing heat like a heel wrestler on purpose, but one half also honest about being a bit annoyed that nobody did much to accurately describe a very useful (and free) thing that makes a stock plane work superbly. Every time I see suggestions now about "improvements" over a stanley plane, something that the makers and retailers of the ECE planes readily declare - that they've overcome all of the shortcomings of a stanley plane - when functionally they have come up short of lord stanley in actual use. Well, the improvement is in user function, not plane function, and it didn't get enough press. Regardless of how many people can point to texts that said something about it beforehand. Warren gets the award for pointing to the earliest texts - something he has been doing for a decade.

Until the next fun discussion comes up - thanks for humoring me and others on this one.


----------



## CStanford

You don't seem to get that the appearance of this issue on the internet is your metric but not everybody else's.

Not sure what this isn't registering but I'm reminded of the Phil Hartman as Frank Sinatra sketch on Saturday Night Live.... "Not gettin' through..." Chris Rock's sketch about books being kryptonite also comes to mind.

Patronize your local library. Please.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

ED65":3riutr48 said:


> Some related reading I just unearthed while looking for a particular post referenced elsewhere.
> 
> Thread from here from 2005:
> What's all this bevel up stuff anyway?
> 
> More from Chris Schwarz, July 2012:
> More Experiments with Chipbreakers



Interesting links.

The first one is a long lecture (boring) by Alf and myself about the virtues of BU planes (well, it was 2005, and BU planes were taking off). Near the end, the chipbreaker makes an appearance and "ydb1md" suggests that he finds it helps the performance. At the end of the thread - blow me over - I am recounting the Kato research (but getting the name wrong) and stating that the chipbreaker makes a difference if placed about 0.5mm from the edge of the blade! This is 2005, 7 years before we returned to the subject. I recall not taking this recommendation too seriously - not because it did not work - but because it seemed so impossible a setting to achieve. How attitudes have changed.

The second link illustrates how easily it is to ascribe technique to those who reinvent the wheel. "Deneb of Lie-Nielsen has a good theory", reports Chris Schwarz in 2012. "He thinks that a closely set breaker “fools” the wood into thinking that it is being planed by a high-angle plane". Deneb must have been reading the posts on Wood Central forum.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## PAC1

I know I have mentioned it before but Ernest Joyce The Technique of Furniture Making published between 1970 and 1995 (Revised by Alan Peters from 1987). Talking about the setting of the cap iron to deal with fine cuts or difficult timber at page 105 "_Practical experience will give the best setting of the cap iron, which may vary from a hairs's breadth for the final surfacing of difficult timbers to 1/16th in (1.5mm) for the first rough levelling_".
Not sure it can get any clearer than that. Unless you want to argue that a hair's breadth varies from person to person.


----------



## AndyT

Nice one PAC - I don't have many modern books but I should have thought of looking in there!


----------



## D_W

PAC1":p8aqgn3c said:


> I know I have mentioned it before but Ernest Joyce The Technique of Furniture Making published between 1970 and 1995 (Revised by Alan Peters from 1987). Talking about the setting of the cap iron to deal with fine cuts or difficult timber at page 105 "_Practical experience will give the best setting of the cap iron, which may vary from a hairs's breadth for the final surfacing of difficult timbers to 1/16th in (1.5mm) for the first rough levelling_".
> Not sure it can get any clearer than that. Unless you want to argue that a hair's breadth varies from person to person.



Certainly there is post evidence of you suggesting this to someone to plane a difficult surface, right? That's the link that's missing here. I still see only one precise suggestion of actual use of the cap iron by someone on here (and suggesting it to others) and that is by Ivan, who apparently doesn't post any longer. 

There are many mentions after 2012, of course. Kees was the first I could find on here, in May. But Kees was talking about it everywhere else. I always say I can't remember Kees' motivation, and I'm sure he responds and says what it was, but I can't ever remember it. Sorry Kees! I know he certainly didn't read it from me.


----------



## bugbear

AndyT":3osiuseg said:


> Nice one PAC - I don't have many modern books but I should have thought of looking in there!



I think viewing "close", "very close","as close as possible", "hair's breadth" and "gnats rear" as good, helpful descriptions is involving quite a lot of hindsight, like reveling in the excellence of a crossword clue when someone's told you the answer.

It's disappointing that none of the "old guys" use the most obvious description of all - the cap
iron distance should be of the order of the thickness of the shaving you're taking.

Look ma - no numbers!

Mind you, it looks like "some one" noticed the Cato/Kato video, back in 2002.

http://www.swingleydev.com/ot/get/111751/single/

And here, from 1996 (!!)

http://swingleydev.com/ot/get/7284/single/

_The rule of thumb that i was taught
years ago was to set the lever *[obvious typo]* as far from the edge as the thickness of
thickest shaving you are planning on taking. so short of my scrub plane
(which lacks a chipbreaker anyway), the furthest back i ever set a
chipbreaker is about 1/16th of an inch.
_

In 2006:
http://swingleydev.com/ot/get/156493/single/

_OH! Some really cool info can be accessed about chip
breakers through Brent Beach's site - in his links go
to (I think) Steve Elliots pages... really cool stuff
about cap irons as chipbreakers! Go figure! To sum it
up - 50 to 80 *[degree]* bevels on cap irons set very close to
the edge (around .005" I think) produce excellent
surfaces with no throat.
_

And with the help of the Wayback machine, here we are, planing like it's 2006;

https://web.archive.org/web/20060828095 ... aking.html

I note that David Weaver's 2012 article on woodcentral acknowledges Steve Elliott.

http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml 

BugBear


----------



## PAC1

D_W":2ihxa3wq said:


> PAC1":2ihxa3wq said:
> 
> 
> 
> I know I have mentioned it before but Ernest Joyce The Technique of Furniture Making published between 1970 and 1995 (Revised by Alan Peters from 1987). Talking about the setting of the cap iron to deal with fine cuts or difficult timber at page 105 "_Practical experience will give the best setting of the cap iron, which may vary from a hairs's breadth for the final surfacing of difficult timbers to 1/16th in (1.5mm) for the first rough levelling_".
> Not sure it can get any clearer than that. Unless you want to argue that a hair's breadth varies from person to person.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Certainly there is post evidence of you suggesting this to someone to plane a difficult surface, right? That's the link that's missing here. I still see only one precise suggestion of actual use of the cap iron by someone on here (and suggesting it to others) and that is by Ivan, who apparently doesn't post any longer.
> 
> There are many mentions after 2012, of course. Kees was the first I could find on here, in May. But Kees was talking about it everywhere else. I always say I can't remember Kees' motivation, and I'm sure he responds and says what it was, but I can't ever remember it. Sorry Kees! I know he certainly didn't read it from me.
Click to expand...


nope because I do not post too much on here or any forum. I kept out of this debate until this thread was started and thought it was time to say something.


----------



## PAC1

bugbear":2pzfr8qo said:


> AndyT":2pzfr8qo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nice one PAC - I don't have many modern books but I should have thought of looking in there!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think viewing "close", "very close","as close as possible", "hair's breadth" and "gnats rear" as good, helpful descriptions is involving quite a lot of hindsight, like reveling in the excellence of a crossword clue when someone's told you the answer.
> 
> It's disappointing that none of the "old guys" use the most obvious description of all - the cap
> iron distance should be of the order of the thickness of the shaving you're taking.
> 
> Look ma - no numbers!
> 
> Mind you, it looks like "some one" noticed the Cato/Kato video, back in 2002.
> 
> http://www.swingleydev.com/ot/get/111751/single/
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


Bugbear there is no magic number the quote I used starts with "Practical experience will give the best setting of the cap iron". If you are still confused it means trial and error or suck it and see or just refine the distance until you get success.


----------



## D_W

PAC1":108ea1kh said:


> D_W":108ea1kh said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PAC1":108ea1kh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I know I have mentioned it before but Ernest Joyce The Technique of Furniture Making published between 1970 and 1995 (Revised by Alan Peters from 1987). Talking about the setting of the cap iron to deal with fine cuts or difficult timber at page 105 "_Practical experience will give the best setting of the cap iron, which may vary from a hairs's breadth for the final surfacing of difficult timbers to 1/16th in (1.5mm) for the first rough levelling_".
> Not sure it can get any clearer than that. Unless you want to argue that a hair's breadth varies from person to person.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Certainly there is post evidence of you suggesting this to someone to plane a difficult surface, right? That's the link that's missing here. I still see only one precise suggestion of actual use of the cap iron by someone on here (and suggesting it to others) and that is by Ivan, who apparently doesn't post any longer.
> 
> There are many mentions after 2012, of course. Kees was the first I could find on here, in May. But Kees was talking about it everywhere else. I always say I can't remember Kees' motivation, and I'm sure he responds and says what it was, but I can't ever remember it. Sorry Kees! I know he certainly didn't read it from me.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> nope because I do not post too much on here or any forum. I kept out of this debate until this thread was started and thought it was time to say something.
Click to expand...


Well, you may be in the majority, because other than Ivan, it doesn't appear that anyone actually suggested it accurately. Perhaps that's the case with many things, that requests go by repeatedly and nobody answers with something they know because they don't feel like it's worth the trouble to help. 

Admittedly, when someone asks the age old question now of "I have tearout on ____ with my plane, what should I buy", I don't answer that either, except from time to time I will tell someone to google setting a cap iron. most of the time, it doesn't amount to anything, but once in a while I get a nice PM back from someone who took the time to go out and read the information that's out there and they're very happy they don't have to buy anything.

I kind of know the answer to the question I'm asking, David C. is a sharp guy and for him to say what he said on SMC in 2012 makes it clear that it was never provided as advice here in any quantity or with any regularity. Perhaps because in the context of working wood that comes off of a machine, there's really not much left to do and any plane will generally do the work fine unless the machine has left damage. 

I don't know (because I don't follow much machinery stuff) how this forum gets on with modern stuff, but a friend of mine who is a hobbyist with less output than me has two spiral headed machines, including a DC 580 planer (which is a substantial piece of gear for a hobbyist who rarely uses their tools), and there is not much to do with the wood that comes off if it is desired dimension. The wood shines already.

There has been a small sect of mostly or only hand tool users over the past decade, though, and advice like I'm digging for just really wasn't provided very often. Not nearly as often as thicker blade / sharper iron / modern replacement / bevel up / scraper plane, etc.


----------



## iNewbie

D_W":14vp8ftz said:


> This Charles is much more recognizable.
> 
> Since nobody else did it, I searched through the old posts on this site and I looked for anyone who commented on "chipbreaker, tearout" or "cap iron, tearout". There was a single person who suggested using the cap iron to eliminate tearout, a user who goes by the handle IVAN. Ivan's second post is a situation where he was actually using it.
> 
> Bravo, Ivan.
> 
> Nobody responded a peep to what he said, even when people disagreed with his assessment that the cap iron can provide a steepened angle like a scraper, but with a more favorable surface quality (which is exactly correct). Again, not getting into the argument that a customer usually has no clue what's sanded or planed, I worked for 3 summers in a cabinet factory with 500 employees and I certainly never saw anything other than wax sticks and shellac sticks to fix problems on doors and face frames, and we made 3000-3500 cabinets a week and never had trouble selling any for issues outside of *color matching*.
> 
> Ivan posted accurately about using the cap iron once in 2007 and once in 2009. In a world of such common knowledge, i'm surprised that someone didn't agree with him when others were disagreeing. I guess it was too subtle, and it just went by, even though it's buried in the research results between gobs of posts talking about chipbreakers stabilizing blades and needing heavier and thicker blades or heavier cap irons.
> 
> It seems much easier to point out you heard it or read it before (as I suggested to Bill we'd hear), but the actually suggestion of *doing* it with an accurate bit of instruction doesn't appear on this site that I can see except from above. that's too bad. It probably would've saved a lot of people a lot of money that they could've spent on wood and finish supplies.



David I think you'll find Ivan was inspired by the Kato video. I think his knowledge was internet gained... Theres a post from 2006 (a year before your 2007 post) talking about it. 

I'm not sure why you have a hard-on for David C but he replies on page two of that Ivan thread and of using a close setting: plane-whispering-of-bevel-angle-and-frog-t13410-15.html 

In 2012 he mentions: _The setting is quite difficult but not impossible. I find this research most exciting and a little galling, as the advice I have given over the last 35 years or so could have been better. i.e. Close is not good enough, ultra close works like magic_. 

new-planing-behaviour-knowledge-microscopes-etc-t61233.html

I'm not sure what you are looking for but he certainly isn't hiding anything.

/and no I'm not a fanboy I just respect the guys credentials.


----------



## D_W

I don't have any such thing for Charlesworth, just that he was one of the few English folks I can remember who stated something on SMC. 

He's memorable to me because I learned many of the basic skills from watching his videos, and regardless of discussions on here, I have very high regard for him and figure if he said something like that on SMC, I expect it's accurate. 

As in, I figure when he speaks about anything, it's worth noting - and I wouldn't gather that it is anything but direct and honest.

I'd expect that since that post in 2012 (which was not long after the whole discussion blew up on wood central and the SMC forum in the states) that he's since found it easier to set the cap iron where he wants it. 

Just in case anyone thinks otherwise because of recent discussion about LN or the "improved" cap iron on here, I am still overall a "fanboy" of David C's..nobody should think I'm a critic of David C. I disagree with Larry Williams all the time, too, but I still tell people to purchase his videos, as I do with David's (and there really isn't much that I would actually refer to people to buy). I still tell people who are brand new that David's plane sharpening video is the most comprehensive and easy instruction to get instant results with (not that I am confining it to those who are new, but just as a statement that it's well done enough that I think it's hard to miss on the that method when you're in need).

What I was looking for, though, was evidence (OK, this is the sixth or seventh time I've said this now) that if using the cap iron was so well known, that someone suggested that it is a practical (in fact I would assert that it's superior for someone who will learn to use it) method for controlling tearout, to the point that as far as planes go, it is dominant. Or even anything close, like a basic post responding to someone with the following:

* on your first try, set the cap iron as close as possible until the plane literally is not cutting or is nearly jamming with shavings, then back the cap iron of enough so that the shavings are straightened out by it. If the plane jams or offers too much resistance, the cap iron is too close. If you still experience tearout, then it is not close enough.

I am also trying to piece together the logical puzzle pieces, like the LN issue (how would nobody have noticed that the cap iron couldn't be set on large numbers of planes if this is a common knowledge item that presumably would've been used in practice?)


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

just noticed I misread the OP. I have been under the impression it was "WHEN did knowledge of the cap iron get lost?", but it's actually "WHERE did knowledge of the cap iron get lost"

I know the answer, it got lost on the internet. Blooming big place so easily done, probably spent a few years hanging out on amateur astronomy forums. Let's keep a careful eye on it from now on so it doesn't wander off again.


----------



## D_W

Certainly someone could tie a line to it so's we could give a tug when retrieval is needed. I normally respond to anything cap iron related like a ready-to-pop pimple, but this is my last cap iron thread - it's been like pulling teeth just to try to get truly objective responses and I care a lot less about it lately. I don't expect anyone to withhold applause.


----------



## bugbear

D_W":1canvh9x said:


> What I was looking for, though, was evidence (OK, this is the sixth or seventh time I've said this now) that if using the cap iron was so well known...



Well, there's the thing.

It wasn't well known.

But it wasn't _unknown_ either.

Some people knew it (Steve Elliott in 2006, for example, per the link I gave).

Some people didn't know it (like several authors of instructional texts).

I think that about covers things.

I do have a practical question; it's fairly "well known" that raising the effective pitch of a plane to reduce tearout makes the plane harder to push, and also decreases the quality (gloss, if you like) of the surface.

I remember this being explored quite thoroughly my Lyn Mangiameli and Steve Knight.

Does a close cap iron have similar side effects?

BugBear


----------



## Droogs

D_W":2ow2cl8x said:


> I am also trying to piece together the logical puzzle pieces, like the LN issue (how would nobody have noticed that the cap iron couldn't be set on large numbers of planes if this is a common knowledge item that presumably would've been used in practice?)



If I may DW, from my personal experience, in the time that I've been frittering around with wood, I have never met anyone who owns a L-N or Veritas plane. admitedly most of my woodworking has been an on off afair, especially whilst I was a serviceman. First in the RAF and then in the Royal Corps of Signals. woodwork for me has been a pastime that has been done using old tools, usually left over in woodwork clubs on camp from when they were used in anger either by RAF riggers (chaps who repaired hurricane and mosquitto wings etc) or were donated by village locals near to the camp. Currently I have around a dozen planes of various types and have never spent more than $30 to buy one. Most hobbyists I know could not afford to buy the likes of L-N et al until very recently (the last decade or so). Also here in the UK it seems the vast majority of woodworkers are older than I and don't do t'interweb thingy, so wouldn't be aware of events as you describe them and therefore wouldn't have been able to comment or give advice. usually they are more than happy to pass on their knowledge and use their experience to help those wishing to learn, if* they could find someone to do so*, and as has happened on several occasions, bequeath that person their tools just so they go to someone who will use and appreciate them instead of rotting in grandads old shed.

I do hope this perhaps helpyou understand our mindset on this side of the pond

rgds
droogs


----------



## bridger

Paddy Roxburgh":3oci6il9 said:


> just noticed I misread the OP. I have been under the impression it was "WHEN did knowledge of the cap iron get lost?", but it's actually "WHERE did knowledge of the cap iron get lost"
> 
> I know the answer, it got lost on the internet. Blooming big place so easily done, probably spent a few years hanging out on amateur astronomy forums. Let's keep a careful eye on it from now on so it doesn't wander off again.




I think it's more a matter of that it never reached critical mass on the internet until Kato. This is the problem with echo chambers- a couple of loud voices harmonizing out of time will drown out the quietly correct.


----------



## Woodmonkey

This has got to be a contender for most tedious thread of the year


----------



## D_W

bugbear":l6ceiz7a said:


> D_W":l6ceiz7a said:
> 
> 
> 
> What I was looking for, though, was evidence (OK, this is the sixth or seventh time I've said this now) that if using the cap iron was so well known...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, there's the thing.
> 
> It wasn't well known.
> 
> But it wasn't _unknown_ either.
> 
> Some people knew it (Steve Elliott in 2006, for example, per the link I gave).
> 
> Some people didn't know it (like several authors of instructional texts).
> 
> I think that about covers things.
> 
> I do have a practical question; it's fairly "well known" that raising the effective pitch of a plane to reduce tearout makes the plane harder to push, and also decreases the quality (gloss, if you like) of the surface.
> 
> I remember this being explored quite thoroughly my Lyn Mangiameli and Steve Knight.
> 
> Does a close cap iron have similar side effects?
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


If the cap iron is set properly (not too close, but so that it is forcing the chip downward some) it has no effect on the surface other than to reduce tearout. So, you wouldn't look and see crushed fibers or anything. 

It's been a while since I used a high angle plane and looked really close at the wood, but you and I would conclude that on softer or medium hard woods that you can feel and see a difference in finish. the softer, the greater the difference. On stuff like hard maple, we won't notice much (which I'm convinced is why Derek and I have so many disagreements about surface quality, and though it seems like it sometimes the way I come across, I've never discounted his experience - I think it's tempered by circumstances). 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is if you set the cap iron properly on a medium hardwood, you won't notice anything. But if it's set a little too close, the surface quality will start to suffer (and if on a quartered wood that's fairly soft like sycamore, you'll be able to see that the fibers have been crushed a little bit. Not exactly the same as wood that has planer chatter evidence despite being flat (if you don't plane enough after removing chatter marks to also remove the wood that was crushed by the planer below the surface level), but similar look. 

If it's set way too close, then the wood surface just isn't smooth and it looks and feels bad. 

So, no, it shouldn't affect surface quality unless it's unintentionally set too close, which is why it's preferable to a high angle plane. The effort to push should be less than a high angle plane for the same tearout protection, and the iron longevity should be better if the cap iron is properly set.

The reason that I don't like 80 degrees on a cap iron is that it narrows the distance the cap iron can be set. The range between too close and not close enough is shorter, and the chance of getting an affected surface is greater. That's not a problem on a super surfacer, apparently. I don't know if other people agree with me on that, but I checked bed angles with a cap iron from 38-50, and cap iron bevel angles from 45-80 (I didn't get enough effect at 45 to get a perfect surface, and I didn't like the abruptness of 80. Coincidentally, the best working chipbreakers that I've found are stock stanley cleaned up and polished - no steeper angle than what's already there. Best working being easiest to get a chip that's worked or straightened some and a good result on the wood).


----------



## D_W

Woodmonkey":7dagi888 said:


> This has got to be a contender for most tedious thread of the year



Well, we'd better finish it soon before the new year so that it's not the most tedious of two separate years.


----------



## D_W

Droogs":1g14b96i said:


> D_W":1g14b96i said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am also trying to piece together the logical puzzle pieces, like the LN issue (how would nobody have noticed that the cap iron couldn't be set on large numbers of planes if this is a common knowledge item that presumably would've been used in practice?)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If I may DW, from my personal experience, in the time that I've been frittering around with wood, I have never met anyone who owns a L-N or Veritas plane. admitedly most of my woodworking has been an on off afair, especially whilst I was a serviceman. First in the RAF and then in the Royal Corps of Signals. woodwork for me has been a pastime that has been done using old tools, usually left over in woodwork clubs on camp from when they were used in anger either by RAF riggers (chaps who repaired hurricane and mosquitto wings etc) or were donated by village locals near to the camp. Currently I have around a dozen planes of various types and have never spent more than $30 to buy one. Most hobbyists I know could not afford to buy the likes of L-N et al until very recently (the last decade or so). Also here in the UK it seems the vast majority of woodworkers are older than I and don't do t'interweb thingy, so wouldn't be aware of events as you describe them and therefore wouldn't have been able to comment or give advice. usually they are more than happy to pass on their knowledge and use their experience to help those wishing to learn, if* they could find someone to do so*, and as has happened on several occasions, bequeath that person their tools just so they go to someone who will use and appreciate them instead of rotting in grandads old shed.
> 
> I do hope this perhaps helpyou understand our mindset on this side of the pond
> 
> rgds
> droogs
Click to expand...


Thanks for the perspective. I've heard the retailers here say that 90% of their sales are to people who don't read the internet, and there are "schools" here (which are just private class type affairs like paul sellers operates) that have folks who don't ever read anything other than fine woodworking (that's getting to be an outdated statement, but that sentiment from when FWW was in its heyday). 

I'd imagine that people who started to woodwork more than 20 years ago are less likely to have bought any premium planes, and those who started and found bloggers as resources are more likely to have bought premium planes here. Plus, LN has a traveling show, and we used to have a lot of brick and mortar stores with the planes in them where people could sometimes get a trial. 

I haven't met too many people even in person around here who use hand tools, though plenty of woodworkers who do stuff like make tables, cabinets, et al for their houses. Usually when I show someone a plane that I've made, their eyes cross trying to figure out where the wood goes in it or how someone would use it. 

Long and short, I'd imagine a larger percentage of woodworkers there have exposure to hand tools, but a larger percentage of those with exposure over here would have bought some sort of premium plane.


----------



## G S Haydon

In a broad stroke all knowledge in this craft/trade is old news. We figure it out or someone else passes the knowledge on to us. Books are written and printed all the time and pretty much the same info is contained within. 

However DW is broadly correct. Most advise gleaned from the interweb did go through a phase where modern versions of tools were highly praised or really old single iron planes got the love. west-dean-pics-t24308.html Rob was kind enough to pimp out the wood from hell to me. Excellent surface was had on it with a Stanley is stock trim and even the Silverline #4 was pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kURYRhTDzMg (9:56) is where I try it. 

So advise for someone with tearout when using a POS Silverline? Learn how to use the cap iron .


----------



## n0legs

bugbear":23gt921g said:


> Some people knew it (Steve Elliott in 2006, for example, per the link I gave).



Aye! Along with every woodwork teacher, nearly every second fix chippy, most probably every cabinet maker and a hell of a lot of the members on here. 
I guess we just needed telling :wink: 



Droogs":23gt921g said:


> I do hope this perhaps help you understand our mindset on this side of the pond



=D> =D> That's our problem, we're on this side of the pond and we this third world nation that used to be called Great Britain, have never contributed anything anywhere :wink: 




Woodmonkey":23gt921g said:


> This has got to be a contender for most tedious thread of the year



Abso_f******_lutely =D> 





D_W":23gt921g said:


> I care a lot less about it lately.




Thank f****** god for that.



Professionals who use the plane on a daily basis will know all there is to know. The tool becomes part of them, they feel when it's not performing and know exactly what to do to get the best out of it. All good craftsmen get to this point in all trades. 
What people think of as the latest thing or a new trick has 9 times out of 10 been known by every professional practitoner for years, the difference being they were too busy working the tools to be talking about it.


----------



## MIGNAL

It's quite possible that many people took their eye off the ball through the 'noise' of the new fangled planes, upgraded thicker blades and upgraded chipbreakers. In other words the advice became more about buying a better plane (Veritas, LN, Clifton) rather than using a specific technique. Don't forget that in the bad old days many of us only had the use of standard Stanley/Record planes. That was your lot. We really didn't have the option of buying one of the better engineered planes. It's as though the answer to tearout had become more about spending money. I actually don't remember that many threads about reducing tearout. Mostly they were about which was the best plane, the best blade steel, the best chipbreaker.


----------



## n0legs

MIGNAL":2rjr7ty2 said:


> Don't forget that in the bad old days many of us only had the use of standard Stanley/Record planes. That was your lot.



Aye for sure, look at some of the work those tools have produced in the right hands.


----------



## ED65

Woodmonkey":1uea1ylr said:


> This has got to be a contender for most tedious thread of the year


Tedious though some of it has been, I for one have found it very interesting and informative. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has benefited. Speaking for myself the important information I've gleaned was not about cap iron settings but about the issues surrounding the thread title and D_W's points about why the simple truth about it was not given as standard advice any time the issue came up – and still is not! – which I happen to think gives some extremely valuable perspective to those learning woodworking online. 

It is not like the knowledge of the cap iron as the major (or only) means to control tearout is so universally known that there isn't value in bringing that point itself to light. No matter how old hat it might seem to those who have known about it since the year dot, I can state as a fact: that information could still do with being more widely disseminated on other forums. And by more widely disseminated I mean _hammered home_ (hammer)


----------



## Zeddedhed

These forums (and probably others like it) are not the domain of full time joiners/cabinet makers/carpenters as a rule. I know many, many carpenters and joiners and a dozen or so cabinet makers and not a single one of them are on these forums, despite my encouraging them to join. Neither have any of them read Fine Woodworking or any of the other magazines. They've never heard of David Charlesworth (sorry David) or any of the other popular figures we've discussed yet for all of them using a plane correctly would be as natural as breathing.

For the most they simply do their job, go home, eat their tea and zone out in front of the tv.

Whilst I accept that there are full timers/professionals here we are certainly in the minority. For myself I've been on this forum for only a couple of years if that and I've never been interested in discussions about tearout or Cap Irons (until now!!).


----------



## condeesteso

I think Zed above is absolutely right, and the actual debate has been the attraction of this thread.
Regarding the OP, I am fairly sure the answer is this:
- where? between Connecticut and Maine
- when? 90's
- how? the collective work of Tom LN and Chris S, then editor of the most influential woodworking magazine in the World
- why? lack of deep knowledge at that time

That's about it.


----------



## PAC1

condeesteso":30vkveii said:


> I think Zed above is absolutely right, and the actual debate has been the attraction of this thread.
> Regarding the OP, I am fairly sure the answer is this:
> - where? between Connecticut and Maine
> - when? 90's
> - how? the collective work of Tom LN and Chris S, then editor of the most influential woodworking magazine in the World
> - why? lack of deep knowledge at that time
> 
> That's about it.


Douglas I think that is a tad harsh on Tom and Chris. Tom had a young business to promote and Chris was doing his job as a journalist. It might be more accurate to blame the perception of the power of the WWW. If you assume all have equal access then you ask the question D_W and the OP asks. The reality is that only those who chose to access and comment do so. It cannot and should not be equated to the sum of the human races knowledge. This thread is a good example I only saw the argument when D_W joined this forum a few months ago and only decided to comment to this thread not the others where he has raised cap irons on this forum. Statistically self selecting responders would be ignored in most proper studies but D_W is trying to use them to support his case that because we were silent, we only pretend we knew. The silence could be from not being on the relevant forum to apathy. Neither prove anything 
But our silence is criticised as if we were required by law to respond. I have shown that the knowledge was there in writing not lost.
The point people should take from this thread is that the WWW is not the font of all knowledge. Books and the apprenticeship system still have a role to play.


----------



## D_W

That's a bit of an extrapolation. I don't assume that you didn't know anything. I assume that anything of the following could be true:
* you know it well, and choose not to respond for various reasons (it's not worth your time, etc, or it's not your first use)
* you are aware of the benefit of the cap iron due to having learned it, but haven't done it in practice much or at all
* you are aware of the benefit of the cap iron, but it's not at the top of your head, it's something you remember if you're reminded
(all of the above I am assuming means you knew it before, or not because of anything to do with the company who makes the super surfacer and the related japanese study). 
* you didn't know it, but you're responding that you did
* Insert many other possibilities

For all I know, 200 people could be in any one of the bullet points above - i believe that it wasn't brought up much because most people aren't doing it in practice because they have no economic reason to, and perhaps for some, a lack of courtesy (you're not obligated to do something, but if you see somewhere that you could help with a minute or two of typing, it sure is discourteous not to). I don't believe nobody knew anything about the cap iron, it works too well for it to have been wiped off of the map. 

Also, I don't know how much tradesmen in the UK would've used a hand plane, lets say from the 1950s on. In the US, it's not much or many. Perhaps it's more common there, but I've never seen one in use in a shop here - even mennonite shops, and the amish folks I know use power tools with the motors replaced with pneumatic or hydraulic motors that are driven off of a diesel power supply. 

I will add one more that I found in the search yesterday - someone who is from Finland who mentioned that they use the cap iron with good effect. Add that to Ivan. The strange thing is that when they responded they use the cap iron, that response was followed with a defensive statement that they didn't want to get into a debate about it. What does that suggest? It suggests that it would get you into the same spat that was occurring on american forums at the time - that suggesting that you can use the cap iron to control tearout would invite disagreement (the Finnish responder - and I can't remember his handle now) was prior to 2012.

So, I'm sure there are plenty of people who were aware of the cap iron effect. What I'm curious about is how many people were using it and suggesting it. It doesn't seem to be many. Even on this forum, high angle, tight mouth, resharpen, scraper and sand are far and away the more common response I can see from the archives. 

I am genuinely curious, that's all, because I have gone from a huge array of planes (including scraping planes) to just a couple of stanley 4 planes for final smoothing, and scrapers (for surfaces that can't be planed). I haven't sanded anything other than kitchen cabinets and one moulding profile in quite a long time - the kitchen cabinets because they are mostly ply, and the wife requested they look manufactured. 

The cap iron works so well if you demand something of it that it's dominant on anything that can be planed. Dominant is a term from game theory (a follow on to linear algebra and statistics) - it asserts that a strategy is better than another no matter what.

That the cap iron is dominant only seems to be evident if you demand from yourself that you work with it until it's completely mastered. That is why I made admittedly rude comments to Derek in 2012 when he was not quite so sold on the cap iron as he is now - at least not at the level I am (the heel wrestling thing, sometimes you draw heat to egg someone on). I said to him that I figured as time went on, he would see my way. I don't know that he actually does at this point, but it doesn't matter quite so much. I in no way expect everyone to see my way, but it is fun to draw heat and push discussion a little bit to see where things will end up. Most polite discussions on forums end up with this "everyone's right" kind of attitude. If the market had seen planes with that attitude, we wouldn't see so many double iron planes everywhere - it'd be a mish mash of all kinds of things, single irons, very steep, etc. 

(Ivan and the Finnish individual can't be the only people who have ever recommended the cap iron on here, either, it's just in the couple of dozen or so threads I've read about tearout, they made a brief suggestion of it and their comments don't seem to have gotten any traction).


----------



## AndyT

Here's another possible category. 
Maybe some of us were aware of various strategies for coping with tearout, but had little or no experience of it being a big problem, as we only used well-behaved timbers where it didn't really happen. So if anyone did ask (and not many did) we kept quiet.

I try to give only advice based on experience and make it very clear if I give an answer based on theory or guesswork.


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

DW, I just put in a search for tear out on this site. The first result, from 2010, had 2 responses on the first page saying set the cap iron close . is-it-just-me-hand-plane-soft-pine-tearout-t46340.html
I haven't read the rest of the thread or looked at the other results.

You definitely did help some people learn about the effects of the cap iron on tearout as has been attested to by some of the posts on these threads. It was known before 2012 by many others. If you are really keen on helping people realise the potential of the cap iron stop going on about this 2012 thing and respond to threads where people are having problems with tear. Better still spend some of the time you are posting making more of the fantastic planes you make and post us WIPs
Paddy


----------



## D_W

There's a third person (both posts by the same one in that thread). I searched on the word tearout and found the incidence relatively hit and miss (for cap iron, though). 

I've somewhat enjoyed this discussion, but my forum interest wanes a little just like everyone else's does, and it's the last one for me (I think I said that already). 

No need to talk much more about plane making, by the way. I think it's something that doesn't garner much interest - truthfully, there's little response because it's deemed too fiddly to make planes of that type. I haven't decided how much more of it I'm going to do, because I don't have anywhere to go with the planes. The whole purpose of all of the double iron thing and figuring out what makes a good double iron plane tick was to be able to make a plane better than I can easily buy, and I'm at a stopping point. My planes are no better than a good english plane would've been when new and tight, but they are about as good as those. I've done that now with the jack and try plane, but I can't better a stanley 4. Not with infills and not with coffin smoothers. I would *love* to see more planemaking threads on here, of course, but many of the people who used to frequent forums and talk about planemaking have moved on.

This was Kees's thread, and I've hijacked it satisfying my curiosity. I'm glad at this point with where we are, when you say the cap iron works, you don't get debate as people did in those older threads. 

I'll leave one parting shot, and this is one of the things that got me in the weeds with David Charlesworth, who I'd still have dinner with if he came to the states and western PA (I don't expect he'd stop by, for fear of frustration, but that's OK!!). ......And that is, that once the double iron is put into practice properly, i finally understand why vintage irons are the hardness they were. It's because they work wonderfully with the double iron set properly - despite seeming far too soft when not. The cap iron makes sharpness secondary to edge uniformity for a finish, and that is why I don't think modern irons are quite the improvement that everyone thinks they are. that would be an interesting topic in another thread, but somehow that always turns into a fight and I don't do much good to stop it from it!


----------



## Paddy Roxburgh

Did you check out this recent thread. oliver-sparks-coffin-mitre-t93701.html 

single iron, bevel up... Maybe not your thing but well worth watching Jim's video, lovely looking plane


----------



## D_W

I did. Thanks for reminding me, as I forgot to leave a comment on it, and it's certainly a comment worthy plane!


----------



## JimB

I suspect that part of the problem has been the rubbish churned out under famous manufacturers' names. This allowed the new plane makers to step in with their 'improvements' and their evangelical followers on the internet. Again the presence of precision measuring tools means that many people expect a definitive setting in thousands of an inch. Wood isn't like that.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto

Don't know so much if it is "rubbish", JimB, but more that some have to add some sizzle to continue sales growth, plus the fact that often there is more than one way to "skin a cat"! 

The "cap iron" works, and I recall reading of adjustments far longer ago than 3, 4 or 5 years ("Planecraft", one of Graham Blackburn's books, just to name a couple). But, we've also had craftsmen (both professional & hobbyist) point out/develop other ways of taming wild grain, including thicker irons, different style of cap irons, higher bed angles, back bevels, and so forth (I suppose we can even toss in the variety of scrapers available-both vintage & new, and maybe even sandpaper). 

What is the right way? I would contend whichever method is the one that works for you and the type of wood worked. Just as in the middle of a project, I'm not going to change honing methods, or go from a traditionally sharpened push saw to a Japanese pull saw, I doubt that I would risk tearout with smoothing by putting a 1/4" bevel up iron in my vintage #4 (even if it would fit and I could get it to adjust-and stated just because our friend Rob Lee had as an April Fool's joke some years back, an iron that was, what 1/2" thick?).


----------



## JimB

By rubbish Tony, I meant the poor quality planes put out by the major manufacturers. 
As you say, what works works especially if a bloke's home from work and is trying to get an hour or so in the shed. A power sander must look attractive then.


----------



## DennisCA

I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.


----------



## D_W

DennisCA":2l4gve48 said:


> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.



You're closer to success than you think. Back the cap off a fine hair from where you had it, and you should see a shaving come straight up from the mouth.

Once you've successfully set the cap a couple of times, you'll be able to do it by sight without having to reset it any more often than you'd otherwise disassemble the plane for sharpening.


----------



## swagman

DennisCA":x6b2ms8w said:


> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.



The Australian Carpenter & Joiner, 5th Edition (1985) recommends 0.75mm clearance for fine shaving with a smoothing plane; & 3mm for a jack plane. 

Stewie;


----------



## DennisCA

Thanks, good to have some figures to go after. I think I must've had less than .5 when I tried last night.


----------



## iNewbie

D_W":1y8rdp94 said:


> DennisCA":1y8rdp94 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're closer to success than you think. Back the cap off a fine hair from where you had it, and you should see a shaving come straight up from the mouth.
> 
> Once you've successfully set the cap a couple of times, you'll be able to do it by sight without having to reset it any more often than you'd otherwise disassemble the plane for sharpening.
Click to expand...


I may be reading this wrong - apologies if I am. Is your view of where to set it different to Warren Mickley's, Dave? 

I'm reading as you having one setting where as he seems to vary his: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... ost2489122


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

swagman":1obv9kgn said:


> DennisCA":1obv9kgn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Australian Carpenter & Joiner, 5th Edition (1985) recommends 0.75mm clearance for fine shaving with a smoothing plane; & 3mm for a jack plane.
> 
> Stewie;
Click to expand...


The fine shaving setting of 0.75mm is far too large. For Australian hardwoods, I find 0.3 - 0.5 to be a working distance. Beyond 0.6 you may as well set the chipbreaker at 3mm.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## D_W

DennisCA":ujs04njl said:


> Thanks, good to have some figures to go after. I think I must've had less than .5 when I tried last night.



You'll need something around a hundredth of an inch, but don't think too hard about measurements. Set it close as you did, and then back it off a smidge and try the plane again. If not enough, back it off a smidge again. The distance depends on the thickness of the largest shaving you want to take (but you'll likely come up with one practical set for a smooth plane will allow a shaving up to about 4 thousandth thickness or so before the plane becomes hard to push).

Earlier in this post I suggested that if you have tearout, the cap isn't close enough. if the plane bulls you around and doesn't take a cut, then it's too close. Somewhere in between is what you want, and it's easier to get than it would seem at first.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

DennisCA":2foxqs89 said:


> Thanks, good to have some figures to go after. I think I must've had less than .5 when I tried last night.



Hi Dennis

The distance may be fine. But what is the angle of the chipbreaker at the leading edge? Is it a standard Stanley - approximately 45 degrees? That should do. Check the angle is about 45-50 degrees. If the angle is around 30 degrees, as on LN and LV chipbreakers, it will not work. The angle at the leading edge needs to be raised with a microbevel.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## Beau

DennisCA":1o493vq7 said:


> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.



Just a thought but have you relieved the mouth on the plane? If not the shaving is likely to have nowhere to go presuming the mouth is set small as well.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

Beau":1oqxplqb said:


> DennisCA":1oqxplqb said:
> 
> 
> 
> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just a thought but have you relieved the mouth on the plane? If not the shaving is likely to have nowhere to go presuming the mouth is set small as well.
Click to expand...


That is not necessary. Just pull the frog back a little and open the mouth.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## Beau

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> Beau":3dpjvdvt said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DennisCA":3dpjvdvt said:
> 
> 
> 
> I tried setting the cap iron reaaal close last night on my No.5 stanley and I think I must've gone too far. The plane was harder to use and would really work if you had it set sp light it barely took any wood off. I think I will go back to my previous setting where I had 1mm or so of the blade sticking out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just a thought but have you relieved the mouth on the plane? If not the shaving is likely to have nowhere to go presuming the mouth is set small as well.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That is not necessary. Just pull the frog back a little and open the mouth.
> 
> Regards from Perth
> 
> Derek
Click to expand...


Realy? Always thought the mouth size was every bit as important as a close capiron on difficult timbers.


----------



## D_W

Beau":2v2nf5po said:


> Realy? Always thought the mouth size was every bit as important as a close capiron on difficult timbers.



If you're going to use the cap iron as well as possible, you want to get the mouth out of the way. It's less effective than the cap iron, and only necessary in the absence of the cap iron. The critical limit of the mouth's size once the cap iron is set properly is only to make the mouth not so large that it literally gets stuck on the end of a board and pries a chunk off like a bottle cap opener.


----------



## Beau

D_W":3efjd2rv said:


> Beau":3efjd2rv said:
> 
> 
> 
> Realy? Always thought the mouth size was every bit as important as a close capiron on difficult timbers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you're going to use the cap iron as well as possible, you want to get the mouth out of the way. It's less effective than the cap iron, and only necessary in the absence of the cap iron. The critical limit of the mouth's size once the cap iron is set properly is only to make the mouth not so large that it literally gets stuck on the end of a board and pries a chunk off like a bottle cap opener.
Click to expand...


Going to have to try this as always worked on as small a mouth as possible.


----------



## David C

I have a piece of English Yew, that has always been very challenging.

It works well with an increased effective pitch of 75 degrees.

Planed it today with ultra close chipbreaker and got very good result.. I have no means of measuring this set up but the C/B edge was probably between 0.004" and 0.006" from the cutting edge.

During my career, I paid attention to published works about plane tuning and avoiding tearout. Those were principally;
Flat sole.
Sharp blade. (Waterstones).
Fine mouth. (I got down to 0.004").
Fine shaving. (No problem with 0.0005")
Close set C/B. I thought that 0.3 mm was close! Always scared of going over the edge and blunting the blade before work began!
Raised effective pitch.
Scraper plane.

Now even this set up caused significant tearout on extra difficult timbers. The Yew is a perfect example.
So I resorted to increased effective pitch. i.e. a tiny backbevel on a standard bench plane blade.
This works very well on hard woods as does the scraper plane.

No where did I see the "very close capiron" quantified until the Kato Kawai video.

I did not work in a large shop with old cabinetmakers who might have told me. Hoadley did not mention it and I have not had time to look up every book and article that lurks in the depths of my bookcases.

I am quite sure that this knowledge was not readily available or widely published in the 70s. The people who have subsequently told us that they knew this all the time and had been using it for years, failed badly on the educational front.

The ultra close setting, as I call it, has been one of the greatest revelations of my career! And I think it's great.

best wishes,
David Charlesworth


----------



## D_W

Beau":189pa5vz said:


> Going to have to try this as always worked on as small a mouth as possible.



Good deal. it's a one or the other sort of thing. Both together will make for no escapement for chips, I missed asking about that on the first go around. 

My favorite setting on a stanley plane is to have the flog set flush with the back casting. That's nice because a stanley plane doesn't usually have that big of a mouth above and beyond that, but plenty big to allow clearance. 

I have had planes that I thought were cut with too big of a mouth, even though I probably tolerate that more than most (because of the fandom of the cap iron). If it gets so big that the iron catches on things when you don't want it to, that's a problem. 

A very close mouth can limit catastrophic tearout, but it has to be tiny to eliminate it completely. This is very evident with something like a japanese plane with a tight (but not tight enough) mouth, because there will be tiny little tearouts among a very bright and reflective surface. 

Also, when we talk about mouth size, I had made a panel plane common pitch (before understanding the cap iron) and set mouth size at .01" after making a smoother that worked well with a 55 degree pitch and a mouth set at .003-.004" (these were infill planes, so the bed and mouth were fixed). I was disappointed to find that even a hundredth of an inch did not control tearout at a finish level very well. It prevented catastrophe, but it would not finish a surface. The cap iron on the first plane works much better than the tight mouth, but I had to file the mouth a little bit to not create a jam. 

Good luck (though you won't really need any), it's something that's definitely worth mastering.


----------



## D_W

David C":2fn92oso said:


> The ultra close setting, as I call it, has been one of the greatest revelations of my career! And I think it's great.
> 
> best wishes,
> David Charlesworth



Thank you for the thoughtful clarification, David.


----------



## thikone

I was in the similar position, learning from Internet and such. Even though it is 2015 now, I still was caught by the trap of bevel up planes and no chip breaker hype that was left after decade of blogs and videos left by amateurs, mostly. I'm getting to the bottom of it, but only after spending money on Veritas trio bevel up planes. So, old posts and reviews do still mislead beginners like me. Could we just delete that part of Internet? 

I find that most great woodworkers just luck scientific education and mostly have some feelings based on extensive experience and not able to formulate it in reproducible manner. Nobody did such study as that Japanese professor before, right? So, we have to reinvent things and redeclare them the new way. And others must have the courage to acknowledge that  

As a side note I also find that learning woodworking is like learning martial arts. Training and watching master for 10 years to be worthy of anything. See the details, practice, that allows to see more details and so on. Posture, body movements and rithm are also important. Like very much the English Woodworker videos for that. That is how experience of several generations looks like, I think.

Andrey Kharitonkin


----------



## bugbear

David C":t4sn67t9 said:


> No where did I see the "very close capiron" *quantified* until the Kato Kawai video.



My emphasis. 

I think many people had seen the word "close" in old texts.

I think very few people (certainly including myself, and David C) realised just how small "close" meant.

BugBear


----------



## MIGNAL

David C":cdqj3u7e said:


> I am quite sure that this knowledge was not readily available or widely published in the 70s. The people who have subsequently told us that they knew this all the time and had been using it for years, failed badly on the educational front.
> 
> The ultra close setting, as I call it, has been one of the greatest revelations of my career! And I think it's great.
> 
> best wishes,
> David Charlesworth




Perhaps, but we certainly did know about it. Not sure that anyone 'failed' on the educational front. If someone like myself was aware of it (self taught) perhaps you failed to take heed.


----------



## bugbear

MIGNAL":19qvw6jw said:


> If someone like myself was aware of it (self taught) perhaps you failed to take heed.



Did you discover (re-invent) it, or did you read it?

I'm not sniping, I'm genuinely curious

BugBear


----------



## MIGNAL

We are going around in circles. Let's stop pretending that this fking thing was discovered on the internet and by a bunch of modern woodworking gurus.


----------



## D_W

MIGNAL":3or8oq4b said:


> We are going around in circles. Let's stop pretending that this fking thing was discovered on the internet and by a bunch of modern woodworking gurus.



That wasn't ever suggested. What was suggested was that the number of people who "knew about it" before 2012 seems to have increased since 2012.

Even on the US side of the discussion, I don't remember Warren Mickley ever *not* jabbing people with it, and that was eons before 2012.

The other thing that always makes me squint is when someone says they know how to use the cap iron properly and they advocate continuing to set the mouth finely (which is a nuisance). I'm not accusing you of that, just an observation that I can't remember who is responsible for it - quite often in the last nearly 4 years, I've seen someone say they are competent with a double iron, but they prefer a scraper or a high angle plane. I could only understand that being the case if someone worked only very hard wood.


----------



## Student

I must confess that I have not read all 170 posts but, with that number in 4 days, are capirons going to replace sharpening as the major contentious topic on this forum?


----------



## Tony Zaffuto

I have to admit that that it was in this thread that it dawned on me to not be anal with a closely set mouth! I honestly cannot recall that showing in print and if anything, it has always been to set the frog close!


----------



## D_W

Student":178au82r said:


> I must confess that I have not read all 170 posts but, with that number in 4 days, are capirons going to replace sharpening as the major contentious topic on this forum?



I hope to see no contentious sharpening threads!!


----------



## bridger

D_W":grrtxx8t said:


> Student":grrtxx8t said:
> 
> 
> 
> I must confess that I have not read all 170 posts but, with that number in 4 days, are capirons going to replace sharpening as the major contentious topic on this forum?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I hope to see no contentious sharpening threads!!
Click to expand...


What's the best way to sharpen a cap iron?


GD&R....


----------



## bridger

So I was taught to use a cap iron a a beginning woodworker. I just wasn't a very good student. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes not. As a result I was willing to listen to the bevel up/ high angle stuff as being the way to go. I knew that the idea that the chipbreaker was just to stiffen/ carry the adjuster was wrong, but I still struggled with tearout. So for me, Kato and the subsequent discussions have been very helpful.


----------



## DennisCA

I don't know a lot about hand planes and my only idea of the frog was that it was there to hold the plane blade at the right angle and to provide side and depth adjustment. This whole idea of adjusting the frog back and forth, a topic I had to research after reading last nights replies, is new to me. So that's what's meant by opening the mouth of the plane up, I first thought people where saying "take a file to the mouth and make it bigger". But that didn't seem reasonable.

So that's my level of knowledge about hand planes 

I've always just set the frog so the back of the plane iron would lie supported evenly against the plane and frog the whole way.


----------



## condeesteso

Some small points if I may. 
I agree with Bugbear - there's close, but then there is a few thou close. Close was knowledge to be had if you looked, but Kato-close is different and seeing it helps believe it.
I was accused of being harsh to Chris Schwarz and Tom LN - harshness was not the intention, but I absolutely stand by what I said. (Off to one side, those 2 have done a huge amount to advance the ownership and sometimes the use of fine hand tools, particularly planes - there's an observation tucked away in there).
If it is agreed that this particular piece of knowledge became lost to many (or overlooked, disregarded, whatever), then this happened well before the internet - that is proven here with (for example) CS's writings in the 90s, and LN cap irons that could not be closed right down, etc.
The knowledge in question became 'lost' within the modern history of the production handplane (say from the 70s). Nothing at all was happening until LN bought some old tooling and went back to his dad's farm to try making planes. That was the 80s. He was quite quick to make the best production handplanes in the World. And Popular Woodworking (just down the road really) was equally quick to get excited and propogate their own enthusiasm. The fact that CS was then editor at the World's most influential magazine was just good karma.
If all that is right, everything else follows. LN pioneered the enthusiasm for bevel-up planes, the 'new' wonder capable of doing everything. Premium competitors followed but the new market maker was Lie Nielsen and his principle voice was Chris S (around the early/mid 90's by now). Others followed of course, but that is all. I'll mention Clifton because they ploughed thier own furrow, but they were marketed so very badly that they were lost in the shadows.
I agree with a lot of what is said about the internet, but I remember exactly where I was standing and who with, when I was first shown a beta of Google. It took 7 or 8 more years before magazines began to use the internet, forums emerged etc.
Whatever the answer to the OP question is (if there is an actual answer), it is not the internet.

The very best thing I think is, stop reading and get out there. Be prepared to spend longer on prepping your cap iron than ever before (probably much longer), don't measure anything, don't mess with tight mouths, get planing and keep an open mind.


----------



## Beau

DennisCA":wi6to1n2 said:


> I don't know a lot about hand planes and my only idea of the frog was that it was there to hold the plane blade at the right angle and to provide side and depth adjustment. This whole idea of adjusting the frog back and forth, a topic I had to research after reading last nights replies, is new to me. So that's what's meant by opening the mouth of the plane up, I first thought people where saying "take a file to the mouth and make it bigger". But that didn't seem reasonable.



When I said relieve the moth on the plane I did mean take a file to it. Not to make the mouth bigger on the soul but file at an angle so as the shavings get pushed forward by the chip breaker they have somewhere to go. I am poor at explaining but done a quick doodle on sketchup to show what I mean. I have drawn the mouth square but marked how I would file it back to give the shavings somewhere to go. (Nothing is to scale) I should add that I think more expensive planes come like this but my basic Records did not


----------



## DennisCA

Ah yes there was that too, it was all a bit confusing as you both where using terminology that didn't make sense to me at the time, now that I've researched it a bit it's all much clearer. I didn't have time last night to even look at my planes, home alone with my twin 2 year old boys while their mother was attending some meetup, kept me pretty busy.


----------



## Jacob

Where did the knowledge about the capiron get lost? 
Not so much lost, more discovered, during the development of the new sharpening with its inherent need for precise flat surfaces and straight edges (jigs don't work well without them). The new precision made possible a new level of tool fiddling.
Previously almost all sharpening was freehand on less than perfect stones and fine adjusting (as per BBs thread here for instance post1015435.html#p1015435) was not an option as all blades would be slightly cambered.


----------



## CStanford

Thanks for that post and your link to BB's post, which has a link to an article on Woodcentral which clearly shows a board that *HAS NOT* been planed tear out free. There is still tear out and chatter plainly evident in the reversing stripe of grain. The board is not in acceptable condition for a prominent component of an article of fine furniture. There also looks to be a plane track that has caught the light in the upper quarter of the photo. The poor quality would be even more evident after applying a finish. The section of board in the photo is nowhere near being 'planed to a finish-ready condition.' Not really even close. If these results are supposed to represent the results that are being crowed about then it explains a lot. In the context of an article touting the benefits and abilities of a closely set cap iron why are we seeing a board in such a state?

Here: http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml

Compare and contrast the amount of beginning tear out and the end result above with that shown here:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html

The results at Jeff Gorman's site are at least as good if not better and in an as difficult or more difficult species/board to plane.


----------



## D_W

Beau":1xs0byyp said:


> DennisCA":1xs0byyp said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know a lot about hand planes and my only idea of the frog was that it was there to hold the plane blade at the right angle and to provide side and depth adjustment. This whole idea of adjusting the frog back and forth, a topic I had to research after reading last nights replies, is new to me. So that's what's meant by opening the mouth of the plane up, I first thought people where saying "take a file to the mouth and make it bigger". But that didn't seem reasonable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When I said relieve the moth on the plane I did mean take a file to it. Not to make the mouth bigger on the soul but file at an angle so as the shavings get pushed forward by the chip breaker they have somewhere to go. I am poor at explaining but done a quick doodle on sketchup to show what I mean. I have drawn the mouth square but marked how I would file it back to give the shavings somewhere to go. (Nothing is to scale) I should add that I think more expensive planes come like this but my basic Records did not
Click to expand...


That is the type of filing I referred to a few posts earlier when I mentioned a panel plane that needed to be filed. The mouth is still the same size, but that type of relief was filed ( sloping away from the cap iron) for escapement room.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":1ogvwsmt said:


> Thanks for that post and your link to BB's post, which has a link to an article on Woodcentral which clearly shows a board that *HAS NOT* been planed tear out free. There is still tear out and chatter plainly evident in the reversing stripe of grain. The board is not in acceptable condition for a prominent component of an article of fine furniture. There also looks to be a plane track that has caught the light in the upper quarter of the photo. The poor quality would be even more evident after applying a finish. The section of board in the photo is nowhere near being 'planed to a finish-ready condition.' Not really even close. If these results are supposed to represent the results that are being crowed about then it explains a lot. In the context of an article touting the benefits and abilities of a closely set cap iron why are we seeing a board in such a state?
> 
> Here: http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml
> 
> Compare and contrast the amount of beginning tear out and the end result above with that shown here:
> 
> http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html
> 
> The results at Jeff Gorman's site are at least as good if not better and in an as difficult or more difficult species/board to plane.



Nice try Charlie, but wrong again. Those are Ellis Wallentine's pictures. I told Ellis I'd never leave that tearout in the wood and that was his first try making pictures by following the article instruction as he was editing it. 

He disagreed and felt a reduction was as important as elimination, and in order to not be an argumentative prick, I let it go, but told Ellis that I'm sure I'd get grief for those pictures at some point. I could remove that tearout in two passes.

That's literally ellis's first try, and if you knew how to use a cap iron, you'd know that could be removed easily.

Ellis and Steve took pictures because I don't have the setup or lighting to take good ones.

Maybe you can try again tomorrow.

The other guy you keep linking to, I could duplicate his results in a tiny fraction of the time it took him to get them, and without resharpening.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

I recall filing the mouths of planes that way about 20 years ago, having been shown the way through an article by David Charlesworth. 

My earlier reply when this was raised was that the mouth still needed to be opened. Filing the mouth enables shaving to pass more easily, but the size of the mouth, itself, determines the thickness of the shaving that can be taken. One aim is to move away from fine smoothing cuts, to deeper cuts that still remain tearout-free.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford

D_W":181n7w9o said:


> CStanford":181n7w9o said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for that post and your link to BB's post, which has a link to an article on Woodcentral which clearly shows a board that *HAS NOT* been planed tear out free. There is still tear out and chatter plainly evident in the reversing stripe of grain. The board is not in acceptable condition for a prominent component of an article of fine furniture. There also looks to be a plane track that has caught the light in the upper quarter of the photo. The poor quality would be even more evident after applying a finish. The section of board in the photo is nowhere near being 'planed to a finish-ready condition.' Not really even close. If these results are supposed to represent the results that are being crowed about then it explains a lot. In the context of an article touting the benefits and abilities of a closely set cap iron why are we seeing a board in such a state?
> 
> Here: http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/tes ... _935.shtml
> 
> Compare and contrast the amount of beginning tear out and the end result above with that shown here:
> 
> http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html
> 
> The results at Jeff Gorman's site are at least as good if not better and in an as difficult or more difficult species/board to plane.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nice try Charlie, but wrong again. Those are Ellis Wallentine's pictures. I told Ellis I'd never leave that tearout in the wood and that was his first try making pictures by following the article instruction as he was editing it.
> 
> He disagreed and felt a reduction was as important as elimination, and in order to not be an argumentative prick, I let it go, but told Ellis that I'm sure I'd get grief for those pictures at some point. I could remove that tearout in two passes.
> 
> That's literally ellis's first try, and if you knew how to use a cap iron, you'd know that could be removed easily.
> 
> Ellis and Steve took pictures because I don't have the setup or lighting to take good ones.
> 
> Maybe you can try again tomorrow.
> 
> The other guy you keep linking to, I could duplicate his results in a tiny fraction of the time it took him to get them, and without resharpening.
Click to expand...


What a load of baloney. 'Ellis made me do it.' You're always good for a laugh. I'll give you that. He couldn't have taken the picture he did, let you make two more passes and taken another one?


----------



## DennisCA

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> I recall filing the mouths of planes that way about 20 years ago, having been shown the way through an article by David Charlesworth.
> 
> My earlier reply when this was raised was that the mouth still needed to be opened. Filing the mouth enables shaving to pass more easily, but the size of the mouth, itself, determines the thickness of the shaving that can be taken. One aim is to move away from fine smoothing cuts, to deeper cuts that still remain tearout-free.
> 
> Regards from Perth
> 
> Derek



I suppose I'll have a look at the mouths of my planes then too.


----------



## D_W

Ellis is 300 miles away. I wrote that article sitting on the couch one day, not sitting in the local office of the magazine Ellis publishes.(?) Ask him about the pictures. It's not hard to find him unless you're afraid of what you'll find out.


----------



## CStanford

So we have the 'before' photo. 

And afterward the collective, conventional, or whatever kind of wisdom was to stop, quite literally if you are to be believed, two plane passes before we could have had the final 'after' photo of the board completely planed and ready for the finish of choice?

"Finding" Ellis has nothing to do with this. He's welcome to corroborate this ridiculous tale if he wants to. "Hey, you all should have been there, David took two more passes and bada bing, bada boom the board was perfect." Except we didn't have time for one last photo. Nevermind the word count of the article itself and other accompanying graphics. We didn't have time for that last shot. Two plane passes away from the promised land.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":f39xe526 said:


> So we have the 'before' photo.
> 
> And afterward the collective, conventional, or whatever kind of wisdom was to stop, quite literally if you are to be believed, two plane passes before we could have had the final 'after' photo of the board completely planed and ready for the finish of choice?
> 
> "Finding" Ellis has nothing to do with this. He's welcome to corroborate this ridiculous tale if he wants to. "Hey, you all should have been there, David took two more passes and bada bing, bada boom, the board was perfect." Except we didn't have time for one last photo. Nevermind the word count of the article itself and other accompanying graphics. We didn't have time for that last shot. Two plane passes away from the promised land.



Let me summarize for you, put your drink down for a second - I can practically smell the fumes through the screen: 
* I wrote an article, Ellis offered that he would edit it (something I believe he's done professionally before). 
* steve and ellis said they thought pictures would be helpful, above and beyond the first diagram (I guess everyone involved in the original topic did - including bill)
* I agreed that pictures would be helpful, but at the time had no video camera or good camera and lighting setup that can take pictures of things, especially like the reflective nature of the cap iron picture that steve took. The discussion didn't go long - ellis and steve said they'd take pictures. That whole exchange lasted about as long as this bullet point. I said that was good. 
* Ellis added his pictures. I told ellis I'd like if he'd retake them with the tearout removed because it would invite criticism and it shouldn't be a problem to remove it. Ellis mentioned to me that he literally was using the cap iron for the first time as he was reading the article, and he felt that it was a good demonstration of the capability of the tool, in his words "showing reduction in tearout is useful, too, not just elimination". I would rather have a finished surface, but Ellis did several hours of editing and photo work for free. It would be discourteous to keep disagreeing with him just to appease an internet troll or two. Nobody got paid anything in this whole exchange. The major point of the article was to stop the ridiculous talk at the time of creating contraptions or shim setups or any number of other goofy things that the "blog experts" were saying that they were going to promote so a beginner could set a cap iron without relying on touch. You understand the principle of being agreeable to someone who is a gentleman (something Ellis is of the highest order) above pushing his buttons to appease a troll like you are being in this case? I don't expect you might, but i'll offer that up, anyway. 
* all of the above happened long before the article hit the web (the discussion of the pictures, etc). I have never seen the piece of wood that's in that picture in person, or I would've finished it. It isn't difficult to understand that on Ellis's first attempt at setting the cap iron, something he hadn't done before, that he might not have gotten the setting right to remove all tearout. 

Now, if you want to address reality in some way, shape or form - well, first go learn to use a cap iron. Something that it's obvious you don't know how to use because of the arguments you make. After that, if you ask Ellis the above (you still post on wood central, he's right there) and he disagrees with me, i'll entertain it further. Otherwise, I won't. I didn't write the article for trolls, and your suppositions are not close to what I've heard from anyone who has read the article and implied it (every response I've gotten has suggested complete elimination of tearout, no surprise).


----------



## ED65

CStanford":fz9gzj6f said:


> So we have the 'before' photo.
> 
> And afterward the collective, conventional, or whatever kind of wisdom was to stop, quite literally if you are to be believed, two plane passes before we could have had the final 'after' photo of the board completely planed and ready for the finish of choice?
> 
> "Finding" Ellis has nothing to do with this. He's welcome to corroborate this ridiculous tale if he wants to. "Hey, you all should have been there, David took two more passes and bada bing, bada boom, the board was perfect." Except we didn't have time for one last photo. Nevermind the word count of the article itself and other accompanying graphics. We didn't have time for that last shot. Two plane passes away from the promised land.


Oh please. I don't know the personalitiies in this thread and the (obvious) long history of animosity so I consider myself reasonably impartial here, and it's clear to me at least that you're _wilfully _misintepreting what D_W is saying here. 

He was not planing the board, that board was planed by someone else. That same someone who took the photos.
D_W could have sorted it out, because of his longer experience in using the cap iron, but he wasn't planing the board because he was 300 miles away.

That clear enough for you or are you capable of trying to skew even that?


----------



## CStanford

"Showing reduction in tearout is useful too..."

The whole thing is ridiculous and absurd on its face. 

"Let me write the article, you plane the board we'll use in the photos (or get somebody else to do it or whatever) but for Pete's sake stop two passes before it's done."

Oy vey. Gullible doesn't even begin to describe this rapidly increasing excrement.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":qew2ed5v said:


> "Showing reduction in tearout is useful too..."
> 
> The whole thing is ridiculous and absurd on its face.
> 
> "Let me write the article, you plane the board we'll use in the photos (or get somebody else to do it or whatever) but for Pete's sake stop two passes before it's done."
> 
> Oy vey. Gullible doesn't even begin to describe this rapidly increasing excrement.



Ask Ellis, see what he says. I'm certainly not going to bother Ellis with your fantasies, but you're welcome to. 

Or have another drink. Whatever you prefer, I guess.


----------



## CStanford

As many people who want to are welcome to confirm one of the most egregious examples of collective stupidity I've ever read on a woodworking forum.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":17qvn78u said:


> As many people who want to are welcome to confirm one of the most egregious examples of collective stupidity I've ever read on a woodworking forum.



Glad to know your standards for a brief internet article are so high. You should go learn to use the cap iron so you don't frustrate yourself so much next time. You could've skipped it. 

Your reasoning makes no sense - that it's such a huge deal that politeness and courtesy allowed something like those pictures to slide in an internet article. I guess the stuff in read is what's causing the inability to understand.

(I did speculate to Bill that you would troll the article, among others, but you got top billing. I'm surprised that it took this long, though).


----------



## Jacob

Nobody has commented on the traditional way of avoiding tear out, from the bad old days before precision sharpening/fiddling was invented (mid 80s or thereabouts?)
It was to take a thin narrowish shaving with a very sharp cambered blade.
I wonder how it compares.
Personally I reach for the ROS more often than not.


----------



## D_W

Jacob":3vdydl54 said:


> Nobody has commented on the traditional way of avoiding tear out, from the bad old days before precision sharpening/fiddling was invented (mid 80s or thereabouts?)
> It was to take a thin narrowish shaving with a very sharp cambered blade.
> I wonder how it compares.
> Personally I reach for the ROS more often than not.



It works, but it's slower and requires more stopping to resharpen. An accidental over-depth cut can create a lot of additional work. I came from that direction to the cap iron, admittedly it wasn't until starting to dimension by hand that I was irritated with the limitations of some rather nice single iron wooden planes that I'd spent time tracking down (and making single iron smoothers, etc). 

On small work, especially, very little difference between any method. On larger work, the cap iron will save you a lot of time and effort - only an iron with no damage to it and some clearance remaining is required (meaning you can plane a nice finished surface all the way until the iron runs out of clearance and refuses to stay in the cut). 

My personal interest in all of the details in this is that I was looking to do manual dimensioning, but in the most economical way. I'd suspect the reason that the cap iron took over was economics in use (because it wasn't more economical to buy), which means less time and effort for the user. 

Sanding is certainly fine if you can tolerate the dust or wish to do it in general.

If you've got very good machines, then all of this becomes very trivial, and the context of the commercial dominance of a double iron doesn't matter much (I'd imagine that's why so much of this stuff isn't practiced or discussed in much detail, and probably hasn't been practiced to it's potential by most for at least 100 years - even in my grandparents' furniture that was made locally in a one-man shop between 75 and 50 years ago, there isn't the slightest hint of anything but power tool use).


----------



## Racers

D_W you might want to use the friend/foe option, it works for me.


Pete


----------



## D_W

Racers":33a9hom7 said:


> D_W you might want to use the friend/foe option, it works for me.
> 
> 
> Pete



Thanks, Pete. I have it setup. I have an abhorrence for inaccurate accusations, but I should rely more on the foe option without overriding it. Your post is a reminder, and I'll do just that.


----------



## CStanford

D_W":9l7x19ak said:


> CStanford":9l7x19ak said:
> 
> 
> 
> As many people who want to are welcome to confirm one of the most egregious examples of collective stupidity I've ever read on a woodworking forum.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Glad to know your standards for a brief internet article are so high. You should go learn to use the cap iron so you don't frustrate yourself so much next time. You could've skipped it.
> 
> Your reasoning makes no sense - that it's such a huge deal that politeness and courtesy allowed something like those pictures to slide in an internet article. I guess the stuff in read is what's causing the inability to understand.
> 
> (I did speculate to Bill that you would troll the article, among others, but you got top billing. I'm surprised that it took this long, though).
Click to expand...


Farcical beyond belief.


----------



## D_W

Jacob":3erdajxu said:


> Nobody has commented on the traditional way of avoiding tear out, from the bad old days before precision sharpening/fiddling was invented (mid 80s or thereabouts?)
> It was to take a thin narrowish shaving with a very sharp cambered blade.
> I wonder how it compares.
> Personally I reach for the ROS more often than not.



(by the way, I agree on the camber - cap iron or not, it's essential to finish a surface. The only other relatively impractical option is a straight iron and progressive shavings right to left or left to right to avoid leaving lines. I have heard people advocate that, but I can't imagine doing it).


----------



## CStanford

I've seen rank beginners handle a plane with more aplomb. If it were not obvious this was earnest attempt, I would swear I was watching a parody of the process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hylKg_7ZvY

Anybody not aspiring to something much more elegant than this should consider another hobby.

Honestly painful to watch.

The plane is skipping and juttering, taking a shaving barely a quarter of an inch wide on one pass and then too wide on the next. It's a total mess. If you think this is what competent hand planing looks like (regardless of the cap iron 'stuff') you are sorely mistaken.


----------



## D_W

Choosing a stick of ash that wasn't prepared probably wasn't a great choice for a smoother, but I'm not applying "impress charlie" standards to the videos. The point of that one has more to do with jamming as thick of a shaving through the cap iron to show that you can't produce tearout if it's set right. 

Perhaps the "smoothing without marks" video suits you better, where I wasn't pushing anything or trying to demonstrate extremes, just doing routine smoothing. 

(I've got more painful to watch videos if you're just looking to criticize, I'm sure you can find them. i don't generally retake videos unless something is literally out of the screen or someone in the house ends up in them and doesn't want to be in them). 

if it doesn't suit you charlie, i'm not much worried about your opinion. What are you going to do, go to someone else's page and show me yet another link of someone else's work?

Where's your work?


----------



## CStanford

David, I'm seeing what I'm seeing and you always have some excuse. The cap iron article without a payoff photo of the completely planed board and now the video whose purpose is to show how to set a cap iron and then use the plane. Ash isn't always the easiest species to plane, I'll grant you that, but the piece you were planing didn't look that bad in the portions of the video that showed the grain of the wood. That video in no way, shape, or form shows a competent effort in wielding a hand plane on any species. It just doesn't. 

Why wouldn't you have planed the piece ready for the smoother before you shot the video? None of this makes sense, just like the bit about the Woodcentral article makes no sense. Somebody was in a hurry, a crucial part of the process was done haphazardly, by someone else, or not at all, perplexing at best.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":2v0vmevs said:


> David, I'm seeing what I'm seeing and you always have some excuse. The cap iron article without a payoff photo of the completely planed board and now the video whose purpose it to show how to set a cap iron and then use the plane. Ash isn't always the easiest species to plane, I'll grant you that, but the piece you were planing didn't look that bad in the portions of the video that showed the grain of the wood. That video in no way, shape, or form shows a competent effort in wielding a hand plane on any species. It just doesn't.
> 
> Why wouldn't you have planed the piece ready for the smoother before you shot the video? None of this makes sense, just like the bit about the Woodcentral article makes no sense. Somebody was in a hurry, a crucial part of the process was done haphazardly or not at all -- makes no sense.



Go look at the other video I referenced, Charlie. I take one take on a video because I expect to take the video, upload it and be done. Not take several hours taking various takes. I don't remember what the problem was with that stick, but it probably wasn't that straight because it was an offcut. If I did a second take, I would've set the cap iron slightly less far back, but I was guarding against tearout and in combination with that taking the thickest shaving I could take with the setting so that nobody would say "that looks like a thousandth and you won't get tearout with a shaving that thin, anyway, because it doesn't have enough strength to lift". I'm pretty sure I said that in the video somewhere.

In the context of a piece of dimensioned wood that is fresh and straight, I've planed still much thicker shavings than you'd finish plane on quartered beech in the video I referenced. You can go look at it, perhaps it's a more accurate display of smoothing than picking up a piece of ash that was a table saw offcut and that had a couple of months to twist or do whatever. I expect you'll twist this some other way, too, but go ahead, Charlie. I haven't ever learned anything from you, and I don't expect that will change.

I don't have this insecurity that you must have where I am afraid of any possible criticism from something, or the need to go back and keep correcting. If I was that insecure, I'd take the other video down, but what am I afraid of - peoples' judgement? Come on. What I would be afraid of is spending hours and hours making videos if I didn't take them in one take, something that you may notice, I don't have any ad revenue turned on, and by far the biggest point of the channel has been documenting how the inside parts of a double iron plane are laid out and made. That's done, and I don't have much else to prove. 

Same deal with the article which probably took a combined write and edit time of 8 hours. I'm not going to spend another 8 arguing with people to make it perfect. Anyone who wants the information can take it and run with it, and plenty of people have. 

You want to add something positive to the discussion, I'll respond from now on. You want to cherry pick stuff from me and propose fallacies, then I won't.


----------



## Carl P

CStanford & D_W, I've learnt a lot from both of your posts at various times, so with respect to both of you, perhaps pm's would save a great deal of tedium on the behalf of other forum users, and a possible diminishing of said respect.

Cheerio,

Carl


----------



## D_W

Duly noted, Carl. I certainly would also like no more and will do my part in making it zero from this point on.


----------



## pedder

Let me beat this horse one last hit. (hammer) (hammer) 

I think the knowledge was never gone. Some people just didn''t walk the last step in mind. 

Did you ever read any of the instructions for a card scraper? 
In every instruction is written: Why do they work so well? 
_Because the burr makes them look and work like a very fine set smoothing plane._ 

Ever looked at a burr at a card sraper? If so, you know how a fine setted smothing plan has to look like.
(The same thought just being thought in the other direction.)
So everybody how knew how to set up a card scraper, had the potential knowledge to set up a smoothing plane. 
Maybe they just didn't walked the last step. But the knowledge was there even without the video.

That being said: I prefer the card scraper over a fine set smoothing plane. 
I get much faster to the goal. To get the setup with a plane iron and a chipbraker (sic!) is much more difficult. 

Cheers
Pedder


----------



## DennisCA

Had some time to look at my plane, also at the Kato video, very informative. My plane doesn't have a bevel at the inside of the mouth, and the mouth is too small to get a file through. I suppose I will leave it alone as I don't see a way of accomplishing it. 

Filing the cap iron to get an 80 degree angle seems like a useful modification that is more easily accomplished.

I should perhaps look at my 3½ smoother instead for further modifications and let the 5 be for coarser work. Also have a 4 of swedish make I could tune a bit.


----------



## Jacob

pedder":34eownsi said:


> ........ I prefer the card scraper over a fine set smoothing plane.
> I get much faster to the goal. To get the setup with a plane iron and a chipbraker (sic!) is much more difficult.
> 
> Cheers
> Pedder


But getting a perfect finish with a plane is a challenge, even if it is otherwise pointless and impractical!


----------



## pedder

People who work with difficult grained wood obviously need one extra fine tool for the last step.

It maybe a fine setted plane or a scraping plane or a card scraper or sand paper. 
More or less a matter of taste.


----------



## swagman

http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html ... aking.html
http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html ... ngles.html
http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html ... sults.html
http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html ... ation.html

Source of information; http://planetuning.infillplane.com/index.html


----------



## D_W

Here is the second video I was referring to:

https://youtu.be/Uc02mxDhX6A?t=1m50s

Perhaps more typical because it's with a stick that has just seen the try plane. Charlie is right that I didn't do my due diligence in setting up for the other video if the intention is to make it look easier. 

Jacob's right, it may not be necessary, but I guess it's a challenge, and in context it's often faster and preserves crisp lines. 

Anyone who has ever watched Larry Williams smoothing with a 55 degree smoother will note that he skews it to avoid tearout. 

The whole notion of what is going on in this video, boring that it is, is that finish planing (truly finish, can apply finish afterwards) is something that is easily done with overlapping through strokes if you don't have to contort a plane everywhere. It's an exercise of something that warren said, that if you can't plane a board with through strokes just pushing the plane forward, something is wrong. Beech is not generally difficult wood, but willy nilly planing of the quartered side does result in tearout.

The rest of the video is a diatribe about something that I think gets short shrift (the idea of using a single washita stone to sharpen) and can be ignored. 

I can count on any debate with Charlie to result in picking of selective material, and of course the above wouldn't have been referred to because there's nothing incompetent about it. So be it.


----------



## CStanford

From Steve Elliot links:

"To test the effect of a much higher cutting angle, I honed a 12º back bevel on a blade and used it in a plane with a bed angle of 47½º. On a difficult piece of Bolivian rosewood, it gave the best finish I’ve yet produced on that species. "


----------



## CStanford

David, you lost me at "I forgot what plane I was using."

I could be that woodworking instruction just isn't your thing, or that the presentations need tighter editing.

Search YouTube for Chris Tribe's videos if you want to see what a solid presentation from an extremely competent craftsman looks like. He is worth watching. You, unfortunately, are not.


----------



## D_W

Charlie, I am not a woodworking teacher and have no interest in being one. Several people requested planing without leaving marks and I made a video (one requested seeing the sharpening, which has a lot to do with planing without marks).

The material part of the content is quite good - in one take with no editing as usual. It might seem haphazard, but in this case, it is the chance to make a video to respond to a request or but down gobs of text that don't do a very good job of explaining what's shown in the video. It does the job well, better than a forum where the first response is "no you can't", leaving whoever asked the question wondering who is right. 

If I was promoting something, I'd certainly clean up the garage and bench. And turn on google ads as I've forgone a couple of hundred bucks of ad revenue. In putting up unedited videos, I don't think it's appropriate for me to expect someone to sit through an ad, and i'm generally against that sort of thing when I'm using youtube (aside from the double iron plane thing) as a method of responding to questions. 

I don't know yet if it's a good medium to *ask* questions, but I'm going to test that out, too.


----------



## ED65

pedder":3gqeyijw said:


> People who work with difficult grained wood obviously need one extra fine tool for the last step.


Many old books do emphasise that you should get the wood as smooth as you reasonably can with the smoother (even if they don't go into quite enough detail how that's done!) and then go to the scraper or a scraper plane to solve any stubborn areas of tearout. Or to work the whole surface if it's just one of _those _pieces of wood. 

It's easy to gain the impression that it was rare that this would be needed, and looking at old furniture for support you can see in a lot of cases that little of the wood used would have been any great challenge to smooth by plane for an experienced user.


----------



## ED65

CStanford":2q0zprfo said:


> David, you lost me at "I forgot what plane I was using."
> 
> I could be that woodworking instruction just isn't your thing, or that the presentations need tighter editing.
> 
> Search YouTube for Chris Tribe's videos if you want to see what a solid presentation from an extremely competent craftsman looks like. He is worth watching. You, unfortunately, are not.



Perhaps you missed this from the previous page so allow me to bring it to your attention:



Carl P":2q0zprfo said:


> CStanford & D_W, I've learnt a lot from both of your posts at various times, so with respect to both of you, perhaps pm's would save a great deal of tedium on the behalf of other forum users, and a possible diminishing of said respect.
> 
> Cheerio,
> 
> Carl


----------



## CStanford

Lots of woodworking videos on YouTube of varying quality. If one ***chooses*** to self-publish there and then posts links on various woodworking forums pointing potential viewers to the videos, then comparisons and critiques are inevitable. True for anybody, not just David. 

ED65, thank you but I read Carl's post yesterday.

Didn't The English Woodworker post a series of videos (or a couple at least) on cap irons and planing without tear out, planing in general too?

His stuff is usually very well done, fwiw.

Here's one from another fellow that looks promising. I've teed it up to watch later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id2XeZ2TD5Y


----------



## D_W

CStanford":24iwrgy8 said:


> Lots of woodworking videos on YouTube of varying quality. If one chooses to self-publish there and then posts links on various woodworking forums pointing potential viewers to the videos, then comparisons and critiques are inevitable. True for anybody, not just David.
> 
> ED65, thank you but I read Carl's post yesterday.



So, of all of the stuff I've said about the cap iron, i will take it that you've got nothing in rebuttal at least to this small display where a finish surface comes off of a fat shaving. Something that wouldn't occur with a single iron plane. In furniture work, you would take one more thin shaving after the fat one to get a brighter surface. It still takes less time than anything else if conditions allow, because even if you sand or scrape, you have to plane first, and if you sand, you will have to put twice as much finish on the wood and deal with a lot more grain raising. 

I was hoping to have something bigger on the bench to plane a larger surface to show the same, but the biggest thing I'm likely to encounter in a continuous surface in the next 6 months is door panels, and they're cherry and easier planing than quartered beech. Someone requests demonstration of something (in this case, including sharpening since that has a lot to do with leaving no marks) and I make it. 

I keep two 4s, by the way, because once in a great while you may drop one (in the past 4 years, I dropped one by accident and it broke). It's very uncommon that two are on the bench like that (because it makes it hard to remember which one was sharp), but it's not worth reshooting a video over when you literally are not making videos to promote anything. 

I can't imagine how long it takes to shoot good videos and edit them, but I sure wouldn't do it if I had to do that. To answer a question in this format, it takes video time plus about two minutes to harvest the file and upload it. It keeps me from referring to other peoples' hypotheticals. Or dealing with the instant "you can't finish straight off of the plane, there are lines on the work and chatter marks" that I have always gotten every time I've explained what's in the video. 

Perhaps you can set up a phone or camera and record something that someone would find useful. It's free to do.


----------



## CStanford

Like I said David, maybe video just isn't your medium. I don't know. Nobody is making you do any of this stuff. I don't for one moment think it's easy. Your videos are a reminder of this. It isn't easy and I doubt they show you in your best light. I applaud your courage.

You ought to talk Warren, your mentor, into letting you shoot a video of him giving a presentation on the cap iron. We've heard so much about him I think it would be very well-received, don't you? Maybe it would be worth of a professional videographer. Perhaps Ellis could help?


----------



## D_W

CStanford":2wqo68f7 said:


> Like I said David, maybe video just isn't your medium. I don't know. Nobody is making you do any of this stuff. I don't for one moment think it's easy. Your videos are a reminder of this. It isn't easy and I doubt they show you in your best light. I applaud your courage.



I couldn't tell you what it takes to make a good video, either. It would require a separate plan, it's like a separate trade. You'd have to want to go a lot further with the videos than I want to to invest the time and money to learn it.

First off, you'd have to clean and organize your shop and do something as simple as plan what you're going to say above and beyond the general topic, and second I can't imagine that there are many good videos that don't involve editing. That's a time soak. 

And you have to smile more and "sell" what you're talking about, I guess. Like I said, I don't know. I'm sure I could make and sell a few planes. i couldn't sell a video (or even muster the enthusiasm to figure what it would take), and won't even expect someone to sit through a google ad. I do expect that whoever asked me about the planing without following with scraping or sanding, they'll get that out of that video and that's as far as it needs to go. Perhaps that standard isn't met on other videos. I thought on one that I would be able to get a difference showing on planed vs. sanded surface on squirrely cherry, and the only thing I could tell from it was that it took twice as much shellac to seal the surface on the sanded take. If I was going to make a more specific video for that, I'd have gotten five subject pieces of wood and then picked the one that gave the results I wanted. That would be disingenuous. 

Like I said above, I think the value in the videos for the average user is less in trying to make a video that will appeal to someone who didn't have a specific question, and more in addressing questions that aren't very easily demonstrated in text. The former requires a higher level of considering what the draw is - i'll leave that to natural salespeople.

It doesn't take that much courage to put stuff of yourself up where you're not in your best light. It just takes no interest in being seen as someone who makes well produced videos.

In the same note, if you put up videos and talked in monotone like me, but I could learn something from them, I'd be delighted to see them. Honestly. Something on layout or design for carving, moulding proportion, whatever it might be.


----------



## thikone

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> I said a number of times in the reviews I wrote that I suspect that most planes are overkill for most woodworkers. I wonder how many amateurs choose figured and interlocked wood for a furniture build? The fact that 50 degrees is considered a "high angle" in the USA forums suggests to me that the experience of interlocked wood is vastly different to the woods we have in Oz. And then would a professional woodworker choose such wood, or rather go with something less difficult and obstructionistic? In any event, how many pros rely on handplanes for dimensioning or finish?
> 
> I believe that bevel up planes or Stanley-minus-chipbreaker are still going to be the choice for most amateurs since they are easier to use, and will suffice unless there is a need to plane more interlocked grain. I still maintain that, for most, the performance of these planes exceeds the difficulty of the wood worked, and high angle planes offer an easier route than learning to set a chipbreaker. However for those willing to take the plunge, the chipbreaker is an old revolution made new.
> 
> Regards from Perth
> 
> Derek



Not sure if I'm qualified to say something here as I'm beginner internet woodworker, as I taught by internet completely. Thankfully to all that buzz and the people around chip breaker, it didn't take long to see advantages of chip breaker. Not without turning to BU planes at first, but in a few month of time.

Not sure about first statement that planes can be overkill. I didn't like sanding when I tried. And sometimes dimensions are a few mm out that has to be corrected. It is just more accurate and convenient way. Unfortunately or fortunately, I chose to start with European spruce with lots of knots. Probably bad choice, definitely bad for BU planes that I had, even with 50 degree cutting angle. In Europe we do a lot of things from it, it is cheapest wood here, Siberia is full of it  

Thanks again for the buzz! Interesting read. Buzz more, since buzz from BU and no chip breaker still caught me and a lot of others like me I'm sure 

So, amateurs, don't buy whole set of BU only planes first, buy one of each BU and BD, probably in this order.

Regards,
Advanced amateur.


----------



## CStanford

D_W":22byz4n0 said:


> CStanford":22byz4n0 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Like I said David, maybe video just isn't your medium. I don't know. Nobody is making you do any of this stuff. I don't for one moment think it's easy. Your videos are a reminder of this. It isn't easy and I doubt they show you in your best light. I applaud your courage.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I couldn't tell you what it takes to make a good video, either. It would require a separate plan, it's like a separate trade. You'd have to want to go a lot further with the videos than I want to to invest the time and money to learn it.
> 
> First off, you'd have to clean and organize your shop and do something as simple as plan what you're going to say above and beyond the general topic, and second I can't imagine that there are many good videos that don't involve editing. That's a time soak.
> 
> And you have to smile more and "sell" what you're talking about, I guess. Like I said, I don't know. I'm sure I could make and sell a few planes. i couldn't sell a video (or even muster the enthusiasm to figure what it would take), and won't even expect someone to sit through a google ad. I do expect that whoever asked me about the planing without following with scraping or sanding, they'll get that out of that video and that's as far as it needs to go. Perhaps that standard isn't met on other videos. I thought on one that I would be able to get a difference showing on planed vs. sanded surface on squirrely cherry, and the only thing I could tell from it was that it took twice as much shellac to seal the surface on the sanded take. If I was going to make a more specific video for that, I'd have gotten five subject pieces of wood and then picked the one that gave the results I wanted. That would be disingenuous.
> 
> Like I said above, I think the value in the videos for the average user is less in trying to make a video that will appeal to someone who didn't have a specific question, and more in addressing questions that aren't very easily demonstrated in text. The former requires a higher level of considering what the draw is - i'll leave that to natural salespeople.
> 
> It doesn't take that much courage to put stuff of yourself up where you're not in your best light. It just takes no interest in being seen as someone who makes well produced videos.
> 
> In the same note, if you put up videos and talked in monotone like me, but I could learn something from them, I'd be delighted to see them. Honestly. Something on layout or design for carving, moulding proportion, whatever it might be.
Click to expand...


I'm actually more qualified, from a pure professional perspective, to post a video on actuarial mathematics and financial engineering than I am woodworking. Maybe one day I'll get around to it. Maybe something scintillating on bordered hessians to put one to sleep. Maybe I could somehow relate constrained optimization to the setting of a cap iron. Might win a Nobel Prize for that one...


----------



## thikone

CStanford":21zwtd5f said:


> I'm actually more qualified, from a pure professional perspective, to post a video on actuarial mathematics and financial engineering than I am woodworking. Maybe one day I'll get around to it. Maybe something scintillating on bordered hessians to put one to sleep. Maybe I could somehow relate constrained optimization to the setting of a cap iron. Might win a Nobel Prize for that one...



That might give absolutely correct answer but so absolutely useless. I have a friend he is mathematician. Solving live problems as min-max problems leads to answers like alpine skiing is not is not effective fun activity - you spend more time waiting for lift and getting up!


----------



## CStanford

Some folks find math useful every now and then. Hard to put a man on the moon or price an exotic financial derivative without it.


----------



## D_W

CStanford":w8ihuap3 said:


> Some folks find math useful every now and then. Hard to put a man on the moon or price an exotic financial derivative without it.



I would have some difficulty working without it. You may not be able to work as a CPA without it, either.


----------



## swagman

> *If you are still in analysis paralysis mode, you simply have extra energy that’s not being channeled into more meaningful areas! *


----------



## swagman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1LoYrmsW6k


----------



## D_W

The decision is easy, Stewie!! Common pitch plane with cap iron for everything!


----------



## thikone

CStanford":3ccotmpf said:


> Some folks find math useful every now and then. Hard to put a man on the moon or price an exotic financial derivative without it.


True, it is useful. When it's proven to be useful. I merely remind that it has limitations. It requires a model and should have predictive power. It might be difficult to put numbers on everything, especially on how fibers go in the piece of wood that you are holding. 

Speaking of a man on the moon (if that ever happened), when space ship is docking ISS it uses fuzzy logic (google for "spacecraft docking fuzzy logic"). It doesn't use strict numbers and calculations. Which basically means "to get less tear out take shavings of lesser thickness". Does match what is written in woodworking books, conceptually. The only thing is left is to collect such rules and roughly calibrate it. Which is done brilliantly by David (D_W). I just had to see border cases when shavings curl, straighten up and form accordion to grasp it. And that brings warm glow of joy and gratitude to my heart! =D>


----------



## JohnPW

Just for interest, here's a section from Hayward's Complete Book of Woodwork, 1970s edition but originally published in 1955.














In some of the books I've seen on setting the cap iron, they usually say for a finer finish, set it closer etc, but here there is actual mention of tearout, saying that the back iron/cap iron is there purely to reduce tearout when planing against the grain.

I don't have the book on me at the moment but I think in the section on setting up a plane, it said 1.5mm for a jack plane and "somewhat closer" for a smoothing plane.


----------



## AndyT

JohnPW":3tdunue9 said:


> I don't have the book on me at the moment but I think in the section on setting up a plane, it said 1.5mm for a jack plane and "somewhat closer" for a smoothing plane.



Indeed it did - on page 34 - "For the Jack plane which takes coarse shavings it might be about 1½mm (1/16 in) or more; for the fore plane which takes fine shavings rather less. For the smoothing plane when set for cleaning up difficult wood with twisted grain it should be as close as it is possible to get it."

Good spot!


----------



## JohnPW

AndyT":32x2v4av said:


> Indeed it did - on page 34 - "For the Jack plane which takes coarse shavings it might be about 1½mm (1/16 in) or more; for the fore plane which takes fine shavings rather less. For the smoothing plane when set for cleaning up difficult wood with twisted grain it should be as *close as it is possible to get it*."



My bold.

Well, that's just about as unequivocal as you can get!

As for the question of why people didn't say that (as close as it is possible) when answering a question on how to reduce tearout, my feeling is that people already assume the plane is already set like that, because it's just a very basic set up for a plane. So people will suggest other things like scraping, toothed blades etc.


----------



## thikone

AndyT":15auomsj said:


> Indeed it did - on page 34 - "For the smoothing plane when set for cleaning up difficult wood with twisted grain it should be as close as it is possible to get it."
> 
> Good spot!


That's the problem. It doesn't say how to test the result and which direction to adjust depending on it. I assume, that left for the practice to find out 

So, it was not taught and knowledge was not lost. Everybody had to discover that in practice or apprenticeship. Looks like we are all cheaters now and stealing someones' secrets.


----------



## condeesteso

Excuse me heading sideways for a moment - just wondered about getting a new chipbreaker for my old LN No3. They do make them, but why don't Axi do them?? After all Axi and Brimark (UK distributor for LN) are one. Rubbish. Reminds me years ago when I got my 62, and Axi didn't even think to stock the irons for them (for a very long time). Double-rubbish.

p.s. just ordered a Quangsheng from WH, no patience. If it doesn't fit I'll put it on my other No3 anyway.


----------



## iNewbie

Axminster are a dealer - no longer a distributor afaik.

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/dealers/GB


LN missing in action...

http://www.brimarc.com/products


----------



## D_W

JohnPW":2xm47a9q said:


> As for the question of why people didn't say that (as close as it is possible) when answering a question on how to reduce tearout, my feeling is that people already assume the plane is already set like that, because it's just a very basic set up for a plane. So people will suggest other things like scraping, toothed blades etc.



Seriously? I doubt it. There are gloms of people saying "make sure your plane is sharp and the mouth is closed tight". You'd assume that people see the cap iron being set close as an assumption, but they wouldn't assume that the plane is sharp or any of the other myriad of things that are mentioned hundreds of times?

So far, in digging through the archives, there are three people who said to set the cap iron close, and one of them answered defensively saying they wouldn't debate it. 

A betting man would say so far that:
* a fair number of people know that you can set the cap iron close and reduce tearout
* a far greater number is either not aware of it or not skilled enough (skill referring exclusively to setting the cap iron) to use it to its full potential and uses other things that take more time and require more money
* the instant overwhelming reflex of the group advising here in historical posts is still to increase angle, close mouth, sharpen (all of those lost out badly in history to a double iron, and for good reason).


----------



## D_W

condeesteso":21vvuhs1 said:


> Excuse me heading sideways for a moment - just wondered about getting a new chipbreaker for my old LN No3. They do make them, but why don't Axi do them?? After all Axi and Brimark (UK distributor for LN) are one. Rubbish. Reminds me years ago when I got my 62, and Axi didn't even think to stock the irons for them (for a very long time). Double-rubbish.
> 
> p.s. just ordered a Quangsheng from WH, no patience. If it doesn't fit I'll put it on my other No3 anyway.



Is the old cap iron broken or something that it can't be used, or maybe a prior design? You may find that other caps don't have the adjuster hole in the right place for an LN plane, and if that's the case, you might want to enlist someone from the states to buy one for you and have it sent to the UK. That's a fairly expensive option, though, as it will involve two shipping charges, and an already fairly steep price for what is a piece of mild steel.


----------



## condeesteso

D_W - my #3 is an early bronze with the thin pressed cap. It was some time later they introduced the current heftier design and I do fancy trying that, my LN3 is a real day-to-day basic so i'm not chasing rainbows with it. You are right, I can get an LN one over there and have someone I know bring it back. As for the QS if it doesn't fit it'll go on my Record 3 so not wasted.


----------



## D_W

I have had many of the new type, and in my opinion it's not an improvement, but I would've wanted to try it out to find that for sure, too. 

As is always the case, when you're spending money, your opinion is more important than mine by a mile.


----------



## swagman

D_W":20rhcrcx said:


> The decision is easy, Stewie!! Common pitch plane with cap iron for everything!



DW. Looks like Veritas disagree with you. 

Figure 4: Blade with micro-bevel.

In a bench plane, the blade is used bevel down, so the bevel angle has no bearing on the cutting angle. This is determined by the angle of the bed which, in this case, is 45°. In the past when steeper cutting angles were desired, particularly for smoothing, special planes were produced with bed angles of 50° or 55°. However, the same net effect of altering the cutting angle can be achieved by introducing a back bevel on the face of the blade. In this way, a 5° back bevel will yield an effective cutting angle of 50° (commonly known as a York pitch). A back bevel of 15° will yield a cutting angle of 60° (see Figure 5); this will result in an entirely different cutting action from the standard 45°, producing what is known as a Type II chip (or shaving) as opposed to a Type I (reference: The Complete Guide to Sharpening). With this type of chip the wood shaving fails right at the cutting edge, eliminating tear-out and enabling the working of difficult grain patterns. This type of cutting action is similar to that produced by a scraper. The higher cutting angle increases the force necessary to propel the plane and is not required when working with the grain. However, when you have to work wood with widely varying grain (e.g., bird's-eye maple) it's handy to have a back bevelled blade at hand. Changing blades has the same effect as using a high-pitch plane.

We recommend a back bevel of 15° to 20° for most difficult planing situations, which yields a cutting angle from 60° to 65°. Note that even within this range, there is a significant difference in how the plane performs. At 60°, the plane will cut well against the grain, except around knots and the more dramatic grain swirls. Increasing the angle to 65° will all but eliminate tear-out, even around knots and rippled grain such as found in bird's-eye or curly maple. The 5° increase will, however, make the plane noticeably more difficult to push. We therefore recommend beginning with a 15° back bevel to produce a 60° cutting angle, and only increase it by another 5° to 65° if you still experience tear-out. It is also important not to skew the plane in use when a back bevel is employed as described here as this has the effect of reducing the included angle. http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.a ... 48944&ap=1




Stewie;


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

condeesteso":3vhkw9xi said:


> D_W - my #3 is an early bronze with the thin pressed cap. It was some time later they introduced the current heftier design and I do fancy trying that, my LN3 is a real day-to-day basic so i'm not chasing rainbows with it. You are right, I can get an LN one over there and have someone I know bring it back. As for the QS if it doesn't fit it'll go on my Record 3 so not wasted.



Hi Douglas

David and I disagree here, but I favour the newer LN and LV chipbreakers over the thin Stanley pressed metal version. I have not used the LN version that is similar to the Stanley, but I have used many Stanley versions. My criticism of the Stanley type is simply that the ones I have are easily flexed, and difficult to set accurately without moving. I think that David would argue that the rounded front is critical to set up (because Warren says so), and I will dispute this being the case.

Two years ago I argued the case against the Stanley chipbreaker here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReview ... eaker.html

The front angle of the Stanley is around 45 degrees. What is the LN? The new LN and LV chipbreakers are 30 degrees, which is too low to use as is, and a secondary bevel must be added. I added these at 50 degrees. The leading edge is about 1/16" (around 1mm) high. 

Recently I compared a new LN chipbreaker which I rounded ala Stanley/vintage woodies with a straight/secondary bevel LV chipbreaker. Planes were the LN #3 (45 degree frog) and LV Custom #4 (42 degree frog). The wood is Fiddleback Marri, a _very_ interlocked hardwood that would tearout just looking at it!

This is what I got from the LN (the straight shaving indicates that teh chipbreaker is effective) ...







The shape of the chipbreaker ..






And its positioning (about 0.2 - 0.3mm back) ..






Here is the LV. It should be at a slight disadvantage since the bed is slightly lower. Nevertheless, the shaving is the same ...






The shape of the chipbreaker ..






The positioning of the chipbreaker ..






Conclusion: same as 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## DennisCA

I tried setting the cap iron reaal close again last night on my no 5 but I think the mouth of this plane is too small for it to work. There is no configuration of frog (to open the mouth) and depth of cut on this plane that will allow a shaving to rise up through the mouth with the iron set so close. I had to back it off to 1mm at least before I was able to get a shaving again. So based on this it seems a plane needs a big enough mouth as well. But it's a jack plane so perhaps not meant for this kind of job.

Based on what I've read earlier the recommendations have always been to have as small a mouth as possible though, but that seems counter productive based on last nights experiences.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

Hi Dennis

How close to the edge of the blade were you setting the chipbreaker? Too close and it will not cut - check for concertina shavings.

A jack plane should have a large mouth to take thick chips. Can you pull the frog back?

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## DennisCA

Like I said I tried all kinds of settings with both depth of cut and the frog, I had the frog extremely far back but no configuration with the plane about .2mm (as per the kato video) would work in that position. The closeness of the cap iron itself closed off the mouth too much.


----------



## Corneel

Grab a file and open up that mouth! A good size mouth for a smoother is about 0.5 to 1 mm. For a jackplane, quite a bit more. 

A tight mouth has always been mentioned in combination with the close set capiron, but the combination is not ideal. With carefull modelling both the front edge of the capiron and the shape of the mouth it is possible to combine the two. But it is a bit of a belt and suspenders way of working. The close set capiron is capable enough of its own. A tight mouth, not so much. To be effective the mouth needs to be in the 0.1 to 0.2 mm range, which is really bloody damned tight and the sole should absolutely be pressing down on the wood all the way to where the mouth interrupts the continuity of the sole. Normal wear in this area completley negates the function of the tigh mouth.


----------



## DennisCA

I should probably take some pictures and show measurements before anything further is done.


----------



## pedder

DennisCA":zp5my2c9 said:


> I should probably take some pictures and show measurements before anything further is done.


And look like Konrad does:

http://sauerandsteiner.blogspot.de/2015 ... rface.html


----------



## matthewwh

Dennis,

What is the angle of the leading edge of your cap iron?

This can have a significant influence on performance and a steeper angle makes the cap iron effective when not set quite so eyewateringly close to the edge. 

Widening the mouth should if anything have a detrimental effect, if the plane is clogging it is more likely to be chipbreaker preparation that solves the problem.


----------



## Corneel

That's right Matthew.

But I would still select a wider mouth when you use the close set capiron. It just makes life a whole lot easier.


----------



## DennisCA

matthewwh":38x0ctl4 said:


> Dennis,
> 
> What is the angle of the leading edge of your cap iron?
> 
> This can have a significant influence on performance and a steeper angle makes the cap iron effective when not set quite so eyewateringly close to the edge.
> 
> Widening the mouth should if anything have a detrimental effect, if the plane is clogging it is more likely to be chipbreaker preparation that solves the problem.



I made it steeper than whatever factory angle it was after the kato video, but I think it's best I show pictures rather than try to explain from memory. Will have to wait for now though.


----------



## D_W

swagman":2vos7gij said:


> D_W":2vos7gij said:
> 
> 
> 
> The decision is easy, Stewie!! Common pitch plane with cap iron for everything!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DW. Looks like Veritas disagree with you.
> 
> Figure 4: Blade with micro-bevel.
> 
> In a bench plane, the blade is used bevel down, so the bevel angle has no bearing on the cutting angle. This is determined by the angle of the bed which, in this case, is 45°. In the past when steeper cutting angles were desired, particularly for smoothing, special planes were produced with bed angles of 50° or 55°. However, the same net effect of altering the cutting angle can be achieved by introducing a back bevel on the face of the blade. In this way, a 5° back bevel will yield an effective cutting angle of 50° (commonly known as a York pitch). A back bevel of 15° will yield a cutting angle of 60° (see Figure 5); this will result in an entirely different cutting action from the standard 45°, producing what is known as a Type II chip (or shaving) as opposed to a Type I (reference: The Complete Guide to Sharpening). With this type of chip the wood shaving fails right at the cutting edge, eliminating tear-out and enabling the working of difficult grain patterns. This type of cutting action is similar to that produced by a scraper. The higher cutting angle increases the force necessary to propel the plane and is not required when working with the grain. However, when you have to work wood with widely varying grain (e.g., bird's-eye maple) it's handy to have a back bevelled blade at hand. Changing blades has the same effect as using a high-pitch plane.
> 
> We recommend a back bevel of 15° to 20° for most difficult planing situations, which yields a cutting angle from 60° to 65°. Note that even within this range, there is a significant difference in how the plane performs. At 60°, the plane will cut well against the grain, except around knots and the more dramatic grain swirls. Increasing the angle to 65° will all but eliminate tear-out, even around knots and rippled grain such as found in bird's-eye or curly maple. The 5° increase will, however, make the plane noticeably more difficult to push. We therefore recommend beginning with a 15° back bevel to produce a 60° cutting angle, and only increase it by another 5° to 65° if you still experience tear-out. It is also important not to skew the plane in use when a back bevel is employed as described here as this has the effect of reducing the included angle. http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.a ... 48944&ap=1
> 
> Stewie;
Click to expand...


I think that the technical advice that Rob and those in charge get may not be very good. That's just my opinion, though I haven't seen them say much publicly. 

I don't get any tearout around knots with a 45 degree plane with a cap iron. It's strange that they'd have to go to 65 degrees to achieve that but I sure wouldn't want to use a 65 degree plane much (or 60, either). 

I think i could surprise them internally with a few simple demonstrations, but I don't anticipate technical staff there would be interested in opinions differing from theirs.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

David, I think that it is likely to be closer to the truth that that description is about 10 years old. It was written for the previous model #6, not the newer Custom Planes. Clearly due for a description update. I very much doubt that the Lee Valley team are ignorant about the chipbreaker - why do you think that the Custom planes feature one? Originally (<2113), they were designed to be single iron planes, that is, without the chipbreaker. The chipbreaker was subsequently designed in because it was considered important.

Stewie, you are so transparent in your (frequent) attempts to find support for high bed planes (because that would support the few you have made), and denigrate any other plane type because it somehow threatens you. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## D_W

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> David and I disagree here, but I favour the newer LN and LV chipbreakers over the thin Stanley pressed metal version. I have not used the LN version that is similar to the Stanley, but I have used many Stanley versions. My criticism of the Stanley type is simply that the ones I have are easily flexed, and difficult to set accurately without moving. I think that David would argue that the rounded front is critical to set up (because Warren says so), and I will dispute this being the case.



Hi Derek - I came to the conclusion of preferring rounded cap irons before discussing any of that with Warren. I'm glad to see that Warren agrees, but I got to that point after using all of the cap irons in my shop. 

My biggest hope was that I would find the cap iron really opening up the use of japanese smoothers more since they leave such a bright finish, but that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped (it's just much easier to set and adjust a stanley plane, and the simple fact is that if a stanley iron develops a nick, it's little work, but if a japanese iron develops one, you will not be working with it again in 2 or 3 minute, which is the time it takes to grind and hone out a nick in a stanley plane. It's more like 10). 

At any rate, I've tried everything and I came to the rounded cap iron preference from the stanley cap iron without outside coaching or even outside knowledge of any preference (it seems logical that a single flat bevel would be more precise, but I didn't end up preferring that in practice just based on feel). 

I always take the stock cap iron and work the edge to a uniform finish by rolling them on a stone. I'm sure mine have an angle above 45 degrees and probably above 50 right at the point of contact with the iron, but I don't know what it is.


----------



## D_W

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> David, I think that it is likely to be closer to the truth that that description is about 10 years old. It was written for the previous model #6, not the newer Custom Planes. Clearly due for a description update. I very much doubt that the Lee Valley team are ignorant about the chipbreaker - why do you think that the Custom planes feature one? Originally (<2113), they were designed to be single iron planes, that is, without the chipbreaker. The chipbreaker was subsequently were designed in because they were considered important.
> 
> Stewie, you are so transparent in your (frequent) attempts to find support for high bed planes (because that would support the few you have made), and denigrate any other plane type because it somehow threatens you.
> 
> Regards from Perth
> 
> Derek



I don't think they are ignorant to the workings of the cap iron. I have never talked further than to Rob (and not about the cap iron, unless I had thoughts about a specific particular LV plane), but I think the conclusions are a little bit off to my experience at the bench. 

Of all of the companies out there, if anyone would have rigged up the cap iron and put it in practice on a machine before this second go around, I would think it would've been LV - they test everything. Sometimes work at the bench comes out a little different than controlled tests, though.


----------



## swagman

D_W":2xgjb23k said:


> swagman":2xgjb23k said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> D_W":2xgjb23k said:
> 
> 
> 
> The decision is easy, Stewie!! Common pitch plane with cap iron for everything!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DW. Looks like Veritas disagree with you.
> 
> Figure 4: Blade with micro-bevel.
> 
> In a bench plane, the blade is used bevel down, so the bevel angle has no bearing on the cutting angle. This is determined by the angle of the bed which, in this case, is 45°. In the past when steeper cutting angles were desired, particularly for smoothing, special planes were produced with bed angles of 50° or 55°. However, the same net effect of altering the cutting angle can be achieved by introducing a back bevel on the face of the blade. In this way, a 5° back bevel will yield an effective cutting angle of 50° (commonly known as a York pitch). A back bevel of 15° will yield a cutting angle of 60° (see Figure 5); this will result in an entirely different cutting action from the standard 45°, producing what is known as a Type II chip (or shaving) as opposed to a Type I (reference: The Complete Guide to Sharpening). With this type of chip the wood shaving fails right at the cutting edge, eliminating tear-out and enabling the working of difficult grain patterns. This type of cutting action is similar to that produced by a scraper. The higher cutting angle increases the force necessary to propel the plane and is not required when working with the grain. However, when you have to work wood with widely varying grain (e.g., bird's-eye maple) it's handy to have a back bevelled blade at hand. Changing blades has the same effect as using a high-pitch plane.
> 
> We recommend a back bevel of 15° to 20° for most difficult planing situations, which yields a cutting angle from 60° to 65°. Note that even within this range, there is a significant difference in how the plane performs. At 60°, the plane will cut well against the grain, except around knots and the more dramatic grain swirls. Increasing the angle to 65° will all but eliminate tear-out, even around knots and rippled grain such as found in bird's-eye or curly maple. The 5° increase will, however, make the plane noticeably more difficult to push. We therefore recommend beginning with a 15° back bevel to produce a 60° cutting angle, and only increase it by another 5° to 65° if you still experience tear-out. It is also important not to skew the plane in use when a back bevel is employed as described here as this has the effect of reducing the included angle. http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.a ... 48944&ap=1
> 
> Stewie;
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think that the technical advice that Rob and those in charge get may not be very good. That's just my opinion, though I haven't seen them say much publicly.
> 
> I don't get any tearout around knots with a 45 degree plane with a cap iron. It's strange that they'd have to go to 65 degrees to achieve that but I sure wouldn't want to use a 65 degree plane much (or 60, either).
> 
> I think i could surprise them internally with a few simple demonstrations, but I don't anticipate technical staff there would be interested in opinions differing from theirs.
Click to expand...


DW. It might explain why Veritas then moved on to these; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPK1IppxqU

Stewie;


----------



## condeesteso

Thanks Derek. I am firmly in the hefty cap school (is there one?). Years with the Record SS, numerous woodies and the odd premium one-off universally support my intuition. Your LV chipbreaker looks and sounds what I aim for, I estimate around 60 degrees and make a flat probably around .6mm, i mean under a mil. I then flat that just because I need two flat planes (surfaces) meeting on the leading edge to create a dead striaght line / edge, so this bit is about mating mainly. I then quickly polish but have not explored leaving that surface, maybe polishing it is of no significance... I just do it.
Regarding higher piches (and fuzzy logic maybe, I liked that point) for my part I resign to the compromises which the Bailey is. For all the tuning, my Sparks no70 beats any of them every time for smoothing. It happens to be 52½ degrees - but that's where fuzzy comes in, or maybe chaos theory. More variables with many of them interacting. I will say that given its versatility the Bailey design is quite an achievement, but if we had a blank sheet and wanted a dedicated fine smoother, we wouldn't start there would we?


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## D_W

swagman":2zv8kabg said:


> DW. It might explain why Veritas then moved on to these; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPK1IppxqU
> 
> Stewie;



Could be. I don't know what their reasoning was. I'll bet they had noticed that everyone seems to want something different, and put a platform together to attempt to provide choice.


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## swagman

D_W":rgk0u4jb said:


> swagman":rgk0u4jb said:
> 
> 
> 
> DW. It might explain why Veritas then moved on to these; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPK1IppxqU
> 
> Stewie;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Could be. I don't know what their reasoning was. I'll bet they had noticed that everyone seems to want something different, and put a platform together to attempt to provide choice.
Click to expand...


It might also be from what you suggested;_ I think that the technical advice that Rob and those in charge get may not be very good. _

Stewie;


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## DennisCA

Took some photos of my planes and tried some settings





I took apart the 5 first:





That's what my setting was, about 1.35mm:





I set it to .25 or .3mm, as close as I got it reliably. What I found was I was able to take super super light shavings that turned out like this, but if I tried to take a bigger shaving, even the teeniest big bigger, it'd be like running the plane into a brick wall and it skipped and caused a surface on the wood that looked like it was full of chatter,





So these where the best shavings I was able to get with the plane configured like this. I also tried the 3½ and I had much better luck there, with the chip breaker set to about the same I was able to take a thicker shaving without the same issues. So partial success, got it working more or less with my small smoother, which is where I guess it's most useful.


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## D_W

swagman":2493g7wq said:


> D_W":2493g7wq said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> swagman":2493g7wq said:
> 
> 
> 
> DW. It might explain why Veritas then moved on to these; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPK1IppxqU
> 
> Stewie;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Could be. I don't know what their reasoning was. I'll bet they had noticed that everyone seems to want something different, and put a platform together to attempt to provide choice.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It might also be from what you suggested;_ I think that the technical advice that Rob and those in charge get may not be very good. _
> 
> Stewie;
Click to expand...


I don't think it's implied as such, but id like to make clear that I'm not talking about derek, but rather internally. I'm speculating in general, as it's not as if I know, but I know derek has been on board with the cap iron from the start.


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## swagman

DW. Personally; I cant see the merit of using a cap iron to control tear out above _york pitch_. 

Why Veritas made the decision to skip _york pitch_ in favor of _middle pitch_ as a standard issue within their range of interchangable frogs does raise some unanswered questions on their technical insight. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPK1IppxqU

http://www.handplane.com/45/perfect-pit ... explained/

Stewie;


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## D_W

I got a chuckle out of this on the handplanes page:

"Japanese style planes don't need a chipbreaker because the blades are usually quite thick."

One of the best things I've done so far in making a japanese plane nicer to use for middle work is to work the dai a little at the escapement so it's easier to set the cap iron. 

As far as the 55 and 45 gap for stock pitch, I guess you can custom order 50. I don't actually see a reason to have even 50 if one is using the cap iron capably. 45 is ideal to me, you can only just set the cap off in heavy work and have disaster prevention (in a penultimate plane) and set it close for finishing for smoothing. I've been away from the bench for a while, but just sized 6 and thicknessed stock for 6 moulding plane blanks from rough tonight and I'd hate to make it any harder than it has to be. quartered beech yields nicely to a plane with the cap set, and evenly so you can size stocks for pairs very quickly. 

I only wish it sawed as easily (speaking of ripping long rough lumber, the small lengths obviously don't provide much challenge). 

Oh.. I've got a guess why there's 55 and 45. I think most people looking for a do all plane with the cap iron will not want higher than 45 degrees because the implication of a less nice finish in softwood. Anyone buying 55 is probably not going to use the cap iron to control tearout, that's just a guess.


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## condeesteso

This has become a substantial thread, and generally the chat has been around Bailey-style planes. For those of us who will find time to break off from making in order to tune a plane or two can I mention woodies? Discussions have mentioned tight mouths but with the typical old woodie that is not an option (unless you do an insert). I am a fan of jacks - I personally find smoothers too short, too tall and the ergonomics don't work for me. But the jack can be tuned to be a really good smoother for panels etc - OK, not for localised due to bed length, but for larger areas. It's all there to play with in a simple package: hefty laminated irons, hefty caps and otherwise an appealing simplicity with some variables deleted (no frog, no mouth adjustment). I almost always find a little time spent tuning a woodie is rewarded, and it might inform more widely on the subject of plane tuning. The same point would apply to infills but generally speaking I can grab a woodie jack for a tenner or so, a decent infill adds a nought (or so). And I'm not saying a tight mouth doesn't make a difference - just that I am not personally convinced. This pic is not a tricky wood, I'll try and get some that are!


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## matt_southward

DennisCA - from my own experience a few days ago (where after this endless cap iron debate I revisited my old WS no 4). I would suggest you look at the quality of the meeting surfaces between the cap iron and the iron. I had exactly the same symptoms as you - exactly! I went back over the cap iron as suggested by Richard Maguire (ex of workbench fame) and undercut the leading edge of my cap iron - by hanging off the edge of my coarse stone - until the there was a good clean edge which mated perfectly with the iron. I also ensured there was something like a 50 degree, clean angle to the top of the cap iron. The results were pretty impressive as I could take a pretty thick shaving - definitely not wispy - which also came straight up out of the throat, with the cap iron set - 'gnat's nadger' close ( I didn't measure it) whereas before that I got the concertina shavings, with the cap iron less close. It also _sounded_ right.
Worth a try?


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## bugbear

matt_southward":1ohkupss said:


> ... and undercut the leading edge of my cap iron - by hanging off the edge of my coarse stone - until the there was a good clean edge which mated perfectly with the iron.



I can recommend diamond stones for this kind of grinding/tuning. About the right level of grit, and reliably flat.

BugBear


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## bugbear

condeesteso":2ncg2qhg said:


> More variables with many of them interacting.



Yeah - exploring non-linear performance envelopes with multiple local minima and maxima is always "interesting".

BugBear


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## condeesteso

woodie just for info. A lot is spoken of difficult woods like bird's eye and some of the exotics, but far closer to my day-to-day are the inoccuous ones - ash for example. Looks harmless, grain flow lying just a few degrees off surface, hard to read sometimes - then wham, one big deep tear. Basically I think the low incident angles between surface and flow are the tricky bits, knots are easy in comparison.
Here is oak dead against grain, needed flatting first with a proper jack, then my razee tuned quite fine:





Beech, same, against grain flowing a few degrees against surface





In background there is the earlier waste with a slightly heavier cut. I can't really show the beech finish, it is silky, honest.

Not the biggest mouth I've seen on a woodie, but not tight... about a Joan Rivers say 





Cap setting, a fair camber still


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## G S Haydon

Douglas I'm equally partial to the woodies! It is interesting to note that when browsing e-bay, boot sale etc you don't tend to find any single iron bench planes. 
I think it's pretty clear the cap iron added versatility otherwise why bother! It's a lot of extra work to make a double iron and I'm sure tradespeople would not have wasted the extra money unless they saw benefit.


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## Beau

Had a go with a super close set cap iron (0.1) yesterday. What looked like a shaving just turned to crumbs between my figures. Also the finish it left was not exactly silky. Is this what's to be expected with a super close cap iron?


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## D_W

Beau":23vjybwu said:


> Had a go with a super close set cap iron (0.1) yesterday. What looked like a shaving just turned to crumbs between my figures. Also the finish it left was not exactly silky. Is this what's to be expected with a super close cap iron?



No, that's too close. You should get a solid shaving from the start to the end of the cut and it should look just a little bit different than a normal shaving (like it will straighten some coming out of the plane, and it may stay straight if it's thick enough and have waviness in it showing evidence it was flattened when it hit the cap iron. 

Your surface with the cap iron set should be identical to without. Bright and clean.


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## Corneel

Good call. A gap under the capiron also lures the shavings inside. So when you find shavings under the capiron, that's a sure sign that the fit is not very good. Cutting immediately stops when that happens. Setting the capiron closer to the edge increases the likelihood of this to happen. So the fit must be better then when you only leave the capiron "far" away from the edge.


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## matt_southward

bugbear":3t97fa5h said:


> I can recommend diamond stones for this kind of grinding/tuning. About the right level of grit, and reliably flat. BugBear



This was my experience exactly. I _thought_ I'd tuned the cap iron before - on oilstones - but after buying some diamonds stones a few weeks ago (and after wading through this thread) I went back to it on the diamonds and they did seem to give me the results I wanted more easily. I'm certainly happy with it now. I tried it on some fairly coarse mahogany earlier, and the surface sheen was lovely.


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## D_W

condeesteso":q4uavwo0 said:


> This has become a substantial thread, and generally the chat has been around Bailey-style planes. For those of us who will find time to break off from making in order to tune a plane or two can I mention woodies? Discussions have mentioned tight mouths but with the typical old woodie that is not an option (unless you do an insert). I am a fan of jacks - I personally find smoothers too short, too tall and the ergonomics don't work for me. But the jack can be tuned to be a really good smoother for panels etc - OK, not for localised due to bed length, but for larger areas. It's all there to play with in a simple package: hefty laminated irons, hefty caps and otherwise an appealing simplicity with some variables deleted (no frog, no mouth adjustment). I almost always find a little time spent tuning a woodie is rewarded, and it might inform more widely on the subject of plane tuning. The same point would apply to infills but generally speaking I can grab a woodie jack for a tenner or so, a decent infill adds a nought (or so). And I'm not saying a tight mouth doesn't make a difference - just that I am not personally convinced. This pic is not a tricky wood, I'll try and get some that are!



I am a huge fan of woodies!! but I don't generally use them to smooth. For everything else, though, for sure. 

The lighting in this photo isn't doing anyone any favors, but I use these four planes almost exclusively. Only the continental smoother when sizing something short like moulding planes blanks in the background, it sort of does try plane level work (shavings three or four times as thick as those coming out of the smoother).


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## condeesteso

matt_southward":2qxm0zxe said:


> bugbear":2qxm0zxe said:
> 
> 
> 
> I can recommend diamond stones for this kind of grinding/tuning. About the right level of grit, and reliably flat. BugBear
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This was my experience exactly. I _thought_ I'd tuned the cap iron before - on oilstones - but after buying some diamonds stones a few weeks ago (and after wading through this thread) I went back to it on the diamonds and they did seem to give me the results I wanted more easily. I'm certainly happy with it now. I tried it on some fairly coarse mahogany earlier, and the surface sheen was lovely.
Click to expand...


Matt, just a mention and I think it's been touched on earlier. If/when tuning this close the cap becomes as critical as the cutting edge of course, and the leading edge of cap has to be perfect straight (assuming iron back is dead flat where they will mate). I think there are these essentials:

1] get a small degree of clearance behind the leading edge on the underside - aim for a line of contact with 'nil' area. We know nil is impossible but that is the target. The clearance angle can be small but there needs to be one to be certain the leading edge is contacting totally, right across.

2] Raise the leading edge angle of the cap - consensus here seems 50 degrees, I have been doing roughly 60 (by eye) but thereabouts. Just a ribbon along the edge, noting the shavings are v thin so this surface strip can be.

3] Important bit - use a medium you know to be flat (stones are not flat for this purpose) and get 2 flat planes/surfaces meeting at the leading edge of the cap. Only this way can you be sure to have a truly straight line of contact. Make the 2 surfaces fine, finishing on about the finest flat medium you have. Check and remove any wire edge that may have formed. I run a final 10 second check. A flat surface held to the edge and check no light through (I use a sine bar!, be careful if using a straight edge, a flat surface object is better).

Good news - once done well, you will hardly need to touch it again for a long time. And any appearance of micro-dust in that contact line is a sign it needs more work.

Sorry if this is obvious or covered in sections elsewhere, but I think this is the complete prep process.

edit: re diamond stones BB, good ones flat but many not I find. Just best to check.


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## AndyT

Another tack on the question of getting no gap between the front edge of the cap iron and the back of the blade...
I've seen this suggested in an old book, though I can't find which one at the moment. The suggestion was to fit the cap iron, then run a bit of hard steel such as the tip of a screwdriver across its edge, deforming the relatively soft steel so that it makes perfect contact.
This would perhaps be most useful to those who don't have perfectly flat backs to their cutting irons.

Edit: I'm not recommending or condemning this - I've never done it - but as we seem to be writing a collection of all that we know about cap irons, I thought I'd add another little pebble to the tottering cairn.


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## J_Cramer

AndyT":23slb2q1 said:


> Another tack on the question of getting no gap between the front edge of the cap iron and the back of the blade...
> I've seen this suggested in an old book, though I can't find which one at the moment. The suggestion was to fit the cap iron, then run a bit of hard steel such as the tip of a screwdriver across its edge, deforming the relatively soft steel so that it makes perfect contact.
> This would perhaps be most useful to those who don't have perfectly flat backs to their cutting irons.




It's in 'Modern Practical Joinery' by George Ellis, p. 50 in my reprint of the 1908 edition.
Not my favourite method for mating the cap iron to the blade, though.

Cheers
Jürgen


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## bugbear

condeesteso":1hnf3n79 said:


> matt_southward":1hnf3n79 said:
> 
> 
> 
> edit: re diamond stones BB, good ones flat but many not I find. Just best to check.
Click to expand...


My two DMT stones are flat; I just bought one of the on-offer Trend stones;

trend-diamond-stone-t93971.html?hilit=trend

Following your advice, I will check it (carefully - don't want to abrade a known good straight edge!)

EDIT; thanks for the tip - the Trend is significantly convex (on the coarse side); I Haven't
measured the convexity, since measuring convexity is fiddly. 

BugBear


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## swagman

No complaints with this combo grit. http://www.fallkniven.com/en/shop/detai ... ners/dc521


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## DennisCA

About getting the cap irons flat to the blade, I've been told that the common method of using a flat surface and making the cap iron itself a truly flat surface is incorrect. The reasoning is that once you tighten that screw the cap iron will bend slightly and you won't have a perfect contact surface anymore. The method I was told use layout fluid to see where the cap iron makes and doesn't make contact when tightened, then keep honing and tuning very, very finely until the contact surfaces mate perfectly.


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## Tony Zaffuto

AndyT":24lavqmo said:


> Another tack on the question of getting no gap between the front edge of the cap iron and the back of the blade...
> I've seen this suggested in an old book, though I can't find which one at the moment. The suggestion was to fit the cap iron, then run a bit of hard steel such as the tip of a screwdriver across its edge, deforming the relatively soft steel so that it makes perfect contact.
> This would perhaps be most useful to those who don't have perfectly flat backs to their cutting irons.



If I remember correctly, the best description of fitting the cap iron to the blade, was done by our own, Mr. David Charlesworth, in one of his fine books. What made his books so valuable, were the pictures shown at the most opportune time, of the preparation task. 

The method demonstrated, was a side to side method of the lip on a stone, sitting on a bench, with the top end nearly touching the bench top. The elevation of the lip end of the cap iron permitted all the metal removal to be concentrated on the area most needing it.


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## Jacob

19 pages - will this pleasure never end? :lol:


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## Cheshirechappie

DennisCA":2nqj2f4n said:


> About getting the cap irons flat to the blade, I've been told that the common method of using a flat surface and making the cap iron itself a truly flat surface is incorrect. The reasoning is that once you tighten that screw the cap iron will bend slightly and you won't have a perfect contact surface anymore. The method I was told use layout fluid to see where the cap iron makes and doesn't make contact when tightened, then keep honing and tuning very, very finely until the contact surfaces mate perfectly.



Dennis, I think you're spot on with your point about cap-iron deflection when the cutter and cap-iron are screwed together. However, I think there's another factor often forgotten, and that's the extra deflection applied by the lever cap (or wedge in a woody) when the cutter and cap-iron are locked into the plane. That pressure, applied to the top of the cap-iron hump, will deflect the cap-iron leading edge forwards, and bend it slightly so that if the cap-iron fits exactly to the cutter back along the mating surfaces, a tiny bird's-mouth will open, and that will obviously fill with shavings and clog the plane to a standstill at the first use.

That deflection under lever-cap or wedge pressure will depend on how thick the cutter and cap-iron are; thicker components are stiffer, and in consequence will deflect less. Thus, the iron and cap-iron in an old woody won't deflect much at all, but the thin cutter and bent-metal cap-iron of a standard Bailey type plane will deflect quite a bit. That will influence two things. Firstly, how much clearance is needed behind the leading edge of the cap-iron to get a true seat in working condition (not out of the plane), and also how close the cap-iron has to be set to the cutting edge to get the 'cap-iron' effect. The thick, heavy iron and cap-iron from a vintage woody will need the cap-iron pushed a small fraction of a millimetre from the edge. So will the thick irons and cap-irond of most modern premium planes. The cutter and cap-iron pair from a standard Bailey plane will need to be set a bit further back to allow for the deflection as the lever-cap pressure comes on.

Maybe rather than worry about measurements, the pragmatic way of getting used to setting up a smoothing plane to get good cap-iron effect is to set it somewhere, try it, reset, try again, and so on. Once you have the set you feel is best, make a mental note of the gleam of light between cutting edge and cap-iron leading edge, and aim for that every time - with THAT PARTICULAR iron and cap-iron. The gleam might well be different for a another double iron pair in a different plane. I'm pretty sure that's how the craftsmen of old went about it - if you'd started talking thous or fractions of a millimetre to Charles Hayward, he'd probably have looked very blankly at you, but he could certainly set up a plane.


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## condeesteso

bugbear":pzaxwmwl said:


> condeesteso":pzaxwmwl said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> matt_southward":pzaxwmwl said:
> 
> 
> 
> edit: re diamond stones BB, good ones flat but many not I find. Just best to check.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My two DMT stones are flat; I just bought one of the on-offer Trend stones;
> 
> trend-diamond-stone-t93971.html?hilit=trend
> 
> Following your advice, I will check it (carefully - don't want to abrade a known good straight edge!)
> 
> EDIT; thanks for the tip - the Trend is significantly convex (on the coarse side); I Haven't
> measured the convexity, since measuring convexity is fiddly.
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


Yup, I got the 5 and I reckon they are generally convex. And they flex a little when using so measuring would be a hobby too far IMHO


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## D_W

bugbear":1p84yd5s said:


> condeesteso":1p84yd5s said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> matt_southward":1p84yd5s said:
> 
> 
> 
> edit: re diamond stones BB, good ones flat but many not I find. Just best to check.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My two DMT stones are flat; I just bought one of the on-offer Trend stones;
> 
> trend-diamond-stone-t93971.html?hilit=trend
> 
> Following your advice, I will check it (carefully - don't want to abrade a known good straight edge!)
> 
> EDIT; thanks for the tip - the Trend is significantly convex (on the coarse side); I Haven't
> measured the convexity, since measuring convexity is fiddly.
> 
> BugBear
Click to expand...


I don't know which type you've got, but I suspect the trend stones are made in china due to the fact that they don't say where they're made. The large bench stone sold in the US is, in my opinion, highway robbery. It appears to be a rebadged version of many of the generic steel plate based two sized monocrystalline hones sold on ebay and through various retailers in the states (without the trend label on it) for $30-$50. There have been several reports of the large one being out of flat, and the flatness provided is per inch, which doesn't amount to much if the error is compounding - per inch. 

DMT duosharp (the ones with plastic core) and Atomas are the only two hones that I've seen that are consistently flat (perhaps the ezelaps are very close, too, I haven't checked my two with a straightedge - but those were $35 each here, also, made in the US at that price). The chinese hones that are $30-$50 are not, but at least you know what you're getting for the price.


----------



## D_W

(I have done scads of cap irons - from old damaged ones to stock stanleys that look untouched, with an atoma 400 followed by a finer regimen to finish the surface (but without changing geometry). 

A freshly surfaced india stone does the job well, too.


----------



## G S Haydon

AndyT":2im1x2s7 said:


> Another tack on the question of getting no gap between the front edge of the cap iron and the back of the blade...
> I've seen this suggested in an old book, though I can't find which one at the moment. The suggestion was to fit the cap iron, then run a bit of hard steel such as the tip of a screwdriver across its edge, deforming the relatively soft steel so that it makes perfect contact.
> This would perhaps be most useful to those who don't have perfectly flat backs to their cutting irons.
> 
> Edit: I'm not recommending or condemning this - I've never done it - but as we seem to be writing a collection of all that we know about cap irons, I thought I'd add another little pebble to the tottering cairn.



Andy I do recommend this! What would one fancy? Abrading the back of an iron for a long old time, abrading the cap iron to match? Or accepting the iron as it is, and shaping the cap iron to suit. The cap iron is so soft it can easily be drawn out and shaped and abraded where required.

Perhaps someone with more book knowledge than me could let me know if anywhere it is written that both iron and cap iron must be made "flat ". Rather, the ones I've read it says "tight fit" or the like. I can just imagine in day of yore a young apprentice setting up a first plane. Discovered an hour later trying to make plane iron and cap iron "flat". After some good spirited ridicule the old hand shown how to get a "tight fit" in a couple of minutes using a "tip of a screwdriver across its edge, deforming the relatively soft steel so that it makes perfect contact"

I was going to mention "Modern _Practical_ Joinery" but was beaten to it . 

Although the flattening of both iron and cap iron is a great way to do things it is rather funny that it has become the default position. If something has been lost it's been the advise of those many practical and professional hand tool woodworkers. :ho2


----------



## AndyT

Thanks Graham.
I can see the logic too. 

A quick rub with a screwdriver versus lots of time fiddling and searching for a stone which stays flat for ever?
For a busy professional, no contest!

But demonstrably, both approaches do work.


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## David C

Yes but, 

If the back of the blade is not flat, near the edge, the wire edge will not be nicely honed away. (Assuming a flat stone)

David


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)

More recently, Chris Schwarz posted this tip on his blog ..

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... ipbreakers

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## David C

That's a modern version of an old technique which used the tip of an Awl.

David


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## G S Haydon

I agree Andy, more than one way to skin a cat!


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## DennisCA

This thread has been long, but a lot of useful tips in it!


----------

