# Dimensioning by hand



## nosuchhounds (16 Aug 2022)

Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it


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## profchris (16 Aug 2022)

I do, for making musical instruments.

95% hard graft, hogging off the excess.

The last 5%, creeping up on the line, isn't exactly romantic, but it does give me a feel for how the wood will behave when it's made up into the instrument.


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## Ttrees (16 Aug 2022)

It's not a romantic view for me, but out of practicality's sake.
I wouldn't want a plastic throwaway machine, so would have to be something
I could afford, likely old and broken, fine by me if I happen to come across one too cheap to refuse, much like the 500squid bandsaw or tablesaw.(which I needed)
Not as common on the ground either, so to get one even at that price ain't common)
Takes a lot of juice to run a P/T if you consider everything, so another reason
as well as space and noise.


I consider the other machines a lot more necessary as in, try doing some of the other stuff by hand like cutting veneers and so on.

A lot more time consuming than a few swipes of a plane IMO.
That's why I regard my flat workbench (without chisel or saw cuts anywhere) polishedy, fairly rigid, stable, adjustable, long enough to do the work, and very well lit with an angle poise lamp, as so important.

A cleat on the end is all that's needed for me for dimensioning,
no trapping the work in vices, dogs, wedges, winding sticks, that all looks like faff to me.
I see @profchris has replied regarding thinner stock, which i would clamp down
Thankfully using the cap iron correctly honed @50 degrees, regarding either planing into a stop, or veneer like thickness doesn't require one to flip the work or do anything difficult or fafflike, like having to scrape where the clamp was, or require moving it constantly, as that would be annoying otherwise.


Most folk think otherwise than this!
Even with this thin lab counter top, which flexes on the ends, it still looks a lot quicker and easier to use it as such, anything else I've ever seen looks like harder work for a lesser result to me.


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## Adam W. (16 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it


I do it always because I want high quality riven wood to work with for joinery and carving and I'm picky about the framing timber that I use too, so I convert everything myself.

But then my stuf has a certain...how can I say it....wonkyness to it. I like to call it "The sculptural qualities of the workshop."

Then I can get away with it when speaking to the posh folk.


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## nosuchhounds (16 Aug 2022)

I had the Titan Thicknesser but sold it as it was so noisy and a pain to swap between modes.

Would people recommend a scrub plane or have a jack plane set to a deep cut with a wide mouth?


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## Adam W. (16 Aug 2022)

Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.

No doubt someone will pipe up soon and say that you don't need one, but I guess they prefer to push around a heavier plane than necessary.


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## thetyreman (16 Aug 2022)

I like to use my no7 for dimensioning, but still use a bandsaw for a lot of the bulk waste removal, the key is marking out properly and having a good face/edge before making it four square.


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## deema (16 Aug 2022)

For me, the most useful piece of kit I own is the P/T. It would be one of the last pieces I will dispose of. Why? Well planning up stock takes a lot of time and energy. I have unfortunately a problem with my back, so heavy work it doesn’t like. The PT takes for me all the hum drum work out of woodwork. I have had sets of Record, Stanley (from my father and grandfather) LN and Veritas planes, most of which I have now got rid of for this reason. Planing up small bits, or refining work is still the domain for my a hand plane. But processing say a doors worth is not somethiNg I would willing take on.
The other bit of kit that will be the last to leave would be either a table saw or a bandsaw. In my case it’s the Table saw. It gets used 100% of the time for any project.


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## niall Y (16 Aug 2022)

I have to agree with deema, a planer/thicknesser is what makes everything else possible.

I remember reading a journal of a cabinet maker from the late Victorian period. The sheer drudgery of collecting his wood on a handcart,from the docks to converting it all by hand, was something he only did at the start of his working life. When he took on apprentices, it was they who took on this role. And when machines took over, this approach was no longer competitive.

I have done my fare share of planing up timber by hand at the bench and over the years it has taken its toll on my back. In my younger days I met a retired builder, who passed on this little nugget - "They say hard work doesn't kill you - but it doesn't half make a mess of your body"


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## nosuchhounds (16 Aug 2022)

I like the idea of dimensionsing by hand but i get limited time in my shop to do anything.

Ill definitely be dimensionsing by han on my next project, not sure how it will go though!


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## D_W (16 Aug 2022)

I generally dimension by hand -it's not a matter of just one or two things. It's a complete cycle of being able to set up and use everything from saws (good saws) to planes, etc.

For anything big, it'll probably take longer, but if you're bad with inaccurate power tools and have to clean up after them, that won't be better, either.

Two things come to mind:
1) if you're in a hurry, nothing good with happen woodworking (power tools or hand tools)
2) don't try to reinvent the wheel. Use tools generally that were made for dimensioning by hand and use them the way they were designed to be used

Sharpen accurately, and often. Very often.

You're viewing this from the short term, but it isn't really a short term thing. Neither is woodworking with any other method.

My preference for working flat work is simple for planes, though. One double iron jack plane around 16-17 inches long. One double iron try plane, about 22-24 inches long (24 is often referred to as a "long" plane), and a stanley 4. There is very little that those won't cover aside maybe from wet wood work or sculpture.


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## profchris (16 Aug 2022)

Adam W. said:


> Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.


I too find a wooden smoother converted to a scrub very useful.

But I'd recommend a European design, with a handle. I've tried with a converted coffin smoother, doesn't half leave my hands aching!


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## deema (16 Aug 2022)

One of the planes I’ve retained is a Veritas Scrub. Now, any No4 with a bit of fettling can become a good scrub, the Veritas was an ebay steal.…I was looking for an old unloved 4 to convert. For taking off material fast you can’t beat a scrub, the biggest danger is going too close to finished dimension before switching to No5 or 6 ( I use a 6 and don’t own a 5, only because I’m tall with large hands, and it feels right to me) to get down to within a whisker or size and then finishing with a 4.


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## D_W (16 Aug 2022)

For the folks using a scrub plane on flat work, I'd propose doing a comparison with rough sawn lumber - a comparison with a jack set to cut deep. 

I think most of the tutorials online show someone using a jack set just a bit steeper than a smoother, or they're set radically like a 3" radius. 

Reality is somewhere between those with about half of the plane's width in the cut, or maybe slightly less (the full iron width is never in the cut in a jack, but the cut width isn't a narrow drastic strip, either). 

where the scrub will lose on time (putting metal aside - metal planes for heavy work will rob you of some effort, even if waxing often - I have tried both of the premium scrubs in the past, but sold the one I kept at the time - a friend and I each bought one - I bought an LN, he bought LV's) or the bismarck is in flatness. 

The objective with the jack is to both remove wood without significant damage, and to get a surface flat enough for the try plane to follow quickly and hit the thickness mark or nail flatness. For small work and work that doesn't need to be flat, it doesn't matter as much. For most cabinet work, the jack plane will be faster and if you're concerned about having one for softwoods and one for hardwoods, just get two wooden jack planes at some point. 

The scrub type plane gives the illusion that it will be faster, but it will cost you in time other than just in how fast kilograms of shavings get through the mouth.


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## D_W (16 Aug 2022)

I forgot one other point - if you will be dimensioning by hand, you need straight wood. I don't mean wood that's devoid of figure or is easy to plane without tearout, but rather not junk wood hat has runout into the surface of boards or big knots with grain going in different directions around the knot running out into the surface. #1 common lumber here is often clear but graded down because of runout - it is a bear to saw and plane wood where you are not able to determine the dominant grain direction through the length because you cannot jack plane something reasonably if the grain is running out in the surface four different directions within half a square foot. 

lumber that bad forces you to do rough work with a jointer or a fore set far shallower than a jack, it saws poorly, and it will tie you in knots when you get to the ends of boards and want to cut joints.


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## bp122 (16 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> I like the idea of dimensionsing by hand but i get limited time in my shop to do anything.
> 
> Ill definitely be dimensionsing by han on my next project, not sure how it will go though!


I didn't have a planer thicknesser, did everything by hand. Sure, I am not gifted or talented in that but every time I tried to learn it, I spent an hour carefully planing something and then something comes up and I have to go away. Come back a few days later when I have an extra hour, I'm still planing the same piece of my timber on my vice.

When I saw @Fidget 's workshop and saw what a planer thicknesser actually does for someone like me, I looked for one immediately and found one a few weeks later.

On Saturday evening, I started on a chopping board for a friend. Started milling my first piece of walnut at 8.25, I had it all glued up by the time it was 8.50. 




Within half an hour, I had milled and glued the whole thing which would have taken me better part of a fortnight doing by hand.

Next evening, I spent another 15 mins and it was flat on both sides. I even cut the curved side on a mitre saw (yes, a mitre saw)

My point is, if you have the talent, experience and muscle memory to dimension by hand, all the power to you.

If you just want to learn and enjoy it, go for it.

But if you are like me who wants to learn but only has 2 hours in a week to spend in the workshop but have a list of "must make now" projects longer than your arm, get the right tool. You can find a decent induction motor planer thicknesser for less than most people's yearly Costa coffee budget!

And if it's something you really need, you can find a way to make space for it in most cases!


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## nosuchhounds (16 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> I generally dimension by hand -it's not a matter of just one or two things. It's a complete cycle of being able to set up and use everything from saws (good saws) to planes, etc.
> 
> For anything big, it'll probably take longer, but if you're bad with inaccurate power tools and have to clean up after them, that won't be better, either.
> 
> ...


I get this and really understand. Its part of understanding how things work, how wood reacts etc.

With regard to wooden planes, i have an old coffin smoother that i got for free when in bought a wooden Jack plane.

Ive also seen Lemongrass Pickers version off a Hareshi Kanna. An inexpensive kanna from ebay etc..


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## bp122 (16 Aug 2022)

And regarding a scrub plane, I fashioned one out of a wooden smoother someone had chucked out. Has a curved edge and it rapidly reduces most timbers to what you want!


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## D_W (16 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> I get this and really understand. Its part of understanding how things work, how wood reacts etc.
> 
> With regard to wooden planes, i have an old coffin smoother that i got for free when in bought a wooden Jack plane.
> 
> Ive also seen Lemongrass Pickers version off a Hareshi Kanna. An inexpensive kanna from ebay etc..



You can use the coffin smoother without issue as long as you set the cap iron up properly on it. In hardwoods, they can really beat you up (elbows, wrists and shoulders) and the lack of quick adjustments may seem, "suboptimal" let's say. 

I've delved into japanese planes. At one point when i first started and wanted to go full bore all the time, instead of developing a rhythm that can be done for hours, i would go back and forth between western and japanese planes for the jack work (a cheap one, like you say, sharpened with a pretty significant camber). 

I don't use it now, but have since learned to saw and plane at least to a reasonable extent with my off hand. On an english jack plane, you'll generally have two hands on the plane, anyway, and it's easier to switch hands to plane something than it is to do some other wild gyrations. 

I've never felt (noticed) any loss of time for not having an adjuster on anything but the smoother. The try plane is more or less set at a depth setting with the cap iron set properly to limit any tearout to tiny amounts that will be removed in smoothing with no additional effort. that may take reading twice, but it will make sense in use if you get there. It's set just to remove material and make flat before smoothing and do a good job of it (not perfect, but very close to perfect).


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## nosuchhounds (16 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> You can use the coffin smoother without issue as long as you set the cap iron up properly on it. In hardwoods, they can really beat you up (elbows, wrists and shoulders) and the lack of quick adjustments may seem, "suboptimal" let's say.
> 
> I've delved into japanese planes. At one point when i first started and wanted to go full bore all the time, instead of developing a rhythm that can be done for hours, i would go back and forth between western and japanese planes for the jack work (a cheap one, like you say, sharpened with a pretty significant camber).
> 
> ...



No I think that makes sense. Im might give the Kanna a go. Thanks for your advice though. I appreciate it


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## D_W (16 Aug 2022)

I'll give you a couple of more unsolicited thoughts as I think more people would like to dimension by hand. Sharpening saws yourself is a must mostly the rip saw, and a big rip saw is the easiest thing you'll have to sharpen - you just go over the teeth of a saw in decent shape in a matter of a couple of minutes and don't overthink it.

From a productivity standpoint, though - the cap iron is an absolutely essential part of the process for the second and finish planes. It would quarter the number of trips to the stones by wood volume, eliminate any residual tearout aside from runout fuzzies that you'll get when wood grain orients into the face, and it will keep surface quality pretty consistent whether an iron is dulling or freshly sharp.

Point 1 other than this - if you do dimensioning and stick with it, you will be surprised how "highbrow" it is instead of low brow. It demands accuracy, but the accuracy is pleasant and it will be very easy to see where it pays off. Just simple rip sawing at 75% speed but accurately instead of wailing away will save far more time in the follow up, and you'll get to a point quickly where you can rip as accurately as a cheap table saw with no ball-drop events like you can have fighting wood in a cheap table saw.

Point 2 - everything has to be done in a position that is you working wood and not working to hold yourself up or being rigid and fighting your own body. Power comes from pushing your shoulder and arms do nothing but extend and hands guide things. Leaning forward as part of the extension generates great constant continuous power as long as the leaning isn't so far over that it's like bending down and coming back up. I am fat, at least relatively, and would be fit only compared to a median care home resident, but I can get after it for hours. Most of the reason that I can is neural development over time, there's some residual stamina, but a lot of it has to do with what *not* to do. No hard squeezing things, no wristy forearm killers, no leaning over and getting red faced, no stooping. Most of it is like a brisk walk.

Point 3 - it matters not so much how fast you're going but what efficiency you're getting with each stroke. Plane 95% as fast as you can and then contrast that with planing 2/3rds as fast and ensuring the plane starts on a board evenly across length and down width. The latter feels like half the work and you can think while you do it - it's engaging. It'll turn out far greater volume of work if you weigh the shavings, despite feeling like you're not doing much.

Point 4 - everything you use in much volume has to pull itself into the cut but not stop you or be "sticky" feeling in the cut because it's too aggressive. As soon as something requires you to bear down on it to work smoothly, different tool or sharper tool. Even rushing the last quarter of an hour will lead to problems - it is really measured like taking a brisk walk and refusing to run or stop., 

Shooting for accuracy in the rough work vs. just exercise seems like a pain at first, but you will be shocked at how good you are at the fine work even without doing much of it - the neural development carries over.


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## MCTWoodwork (17 Aug 2022)

Adam W. said:


> Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.
> 
> No doubt someone will pipe up soon and say that you don't need one, but I guess they prefer to push around a heavier plane than necessary.


I have seen them on fine tools.com aka Dieter Schmid, they have a hornbeam sole, I think I might invest in one....Hand tool work is underrated even in a commercial setting.


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## Adam W. (17 Aug 2022)

They can also give a lovely tactile, textured, almost burnished surface if kept very sharp. Nice for work that is going to be touched, like doors.


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## Cooper (17 Aug 2022)

Adam W. said:


> They can also give a lovely tactile, textured, almost burnished surface if kept very sharp.


We have come back to that popular topic sharpening. Keeping the iron sharp makes life so much easier.
Martin


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## hlvd (17 Aug 2022)

Only when every other possible option has been exhausted.


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## John DeLapp (17 Aug 2022)

I have depended on a jointer thickness planer combo for the last forty odd years. There is however always a project that comes along that is too big for the machines. An example is a dining table I made from local walnut slabs. 
I have a large collection of hand planes and use them constantly but still, with all the talk of scrub planes I would like to suggest the power hand plane. 
They are surprisingly cheap, especially on the used market, and hugely effective. With a solid straight edge, I made one using the factory edge from a sheet of 3/4” plywood, and with a chunk of blue carpenter’s chalk you can quickly identify high spots. Used with a set of shop made wind sticks twist can be taken out. 
With the blades sharpened to a fine edge the planer can be set to a surprisingly fine cut.


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## Stevekane (17 Aug 2022)

John DeLapp said:


> I have depended on a jointer thickness planer combo for the last forty odd years. There is however always a project that comes along that is too big for the machines. An example is a dining table I made from local walnut slabs.
> I have a large collection of hand planes and use them constantly but still, with all the talk of scrub planes I would like to suggest the power hand plane.
> They are surprisingly cheap, especially on the used market, and hugely effective. With a solid straight edge, I made one using the factory edge from a sheet of 3/4” plywood, and with a chunk of blue carpenter’s chalk you can quickly identify high spots. Used with a set of shop made wind sticks twist can be taken out.
> With the blades sharpened to a fine edge the planer can be set to a surprisingly fine cut.


Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
Steve


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## Jacob (17 Aug 2022)

Stevekane said:


> Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
> Steve


Nearly all planes are better with at least a slightly cambered blade. 
Planing a surface wider than the plane is taking a series of scoops, then setting the plane finer and taking the tops of the ridges between the scoops. Much like levelling the top of a tub of ice-cream with a spoon, if you've ever tried such a thing! 
A dead straight plane blade edge is only good for board edges, not faces. A slight camber will do both.


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## Stevekane (17 Aug 2022)

Quite Jacob, point taken, but how to camber the edges of an electric planer blade,,and has that been done in Johns post above?,,,In fact Ive just thought about it,,power plane off the worst and finish by hand,,,inc any ridges the power plane creates?,,
Steve.


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## John DeLapp (17 Aug 2022)

You’re correct about the ridges of course but as you get closer and closer to a finished surface you keep lessening the depth of cut. My old Makita is capable of just dusting the surface, very light cuts indeed.
Of course you can switch to a hand plane at any time but any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.


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## Jacob (18 Aug 2022)

John DeLapp said:


> ......... any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.


Any sort of cutter which is *less* wide than the workpiece is going to cut a channel of some sort or other, whether powered or not.
The point about a cambered blade is that this is the best you can do, if you aren't going for further flattening - scraping, sanding etc


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## John DeLapp (18 Aug 2022)

John DeLapp said:


> You’re correct about the ridges of course but as you get closer and closer to a finished surface you keep lessening the depth of cut. My old Makita is capable of just dusting the surface, very light cuts indeed.
> Of course you can switch to a hand plane at any time but any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.


Sure, even scrapers dish somewhat. That’s how come the good lord gave us those lovely (festool) random orbit sanders. 
Or, lacking that some nice 80 grit sandpaper stuck to a flat board.


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## D_W (18 Aug 2022)

If 80 grit sandpaper on a board is even a tenth as fast as hand planing, something is really wrong. Same with dual mode sanders and 80 grit - they work, but they outwork planes only when someone is not very good with a plane. 

I just spent a large part of last week running a dual mode sander on edges and corners of floors, so not unfamiliar. The dual mode sander with coarse paper can't really even match a good floor scraper for speed, but it can be run by someone who doesn't know how to design or quickly sharpen a floor scraper.


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## Sgian Dubh (18 Aug 2022)

Stevekane said:


> Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
> Steve


Similar to John DeLapp, I've undertaken almost all my primary flattening of wide boards with a surface planer. However, like him, there have been occasional boards too wide for the surface planer I've had to deal with, e.g., even at times when I've had 500 mm of cut width planers available. The option then has been all hand planing or grab a hand held power plane. I generally preferred the latter to hog off the worst of the high spots followed up with hand planes, generally a mix of a no 5 and a no 7. I just use the power planer as is with the square cornered knives, but you can set it finer and finer to reduce the ridges left needing removed with hand planes.

Hand held power planers are really best suited to narrow edges, of course, but they can be put to service to take some of the grunt work out of the initial removal of high spots in wide faces. And those wide faces don't even need to be 500 mm or more wide because a hand held power planer can do a similar job on narrower stuff too e.g., 200 mm or less wide, if required, or perhaps preferred, although it's not my method of choice for smaller stuff: at narrower widths I generally head straight to the surface planer if I can. Slainte.


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## Jacob (18 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it


It's what we learned for the duration of my C&G course in 1982. Doors, windows, staircase (only a short one!) other stuff entirely by hand. No machine at any point, except the stuff would be from rough sawn boards, which means not really needing a scrub plane.
The key thing is not to plane anything at all until you have crosscut and/or rip sawn *ALL* components to size first, from your cutting list, from your design or for whatever other reason. Except small components can be left in one length to be cut afterwards, for ease of handling. Allow for planing and a bit over length. 
This is to avoid potential beginner basic mistake No 1, which is to plane up stock first, in imitation of timber-yard lengths of PAR (ready planed all round). This can be a disaster!
Is that what you are doing? What problems do you have thereafter? Do you know the sequence of work and the marking up process?
It's hard work but quite doable if you get the process right.
If doing a lot you'd really have to stick with trad sharpening for quick results (a little and often, no machines!) and not go through any of the modern time wasting routines.


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## D_W (18 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> It's what we learned for the duration of my C&G course in 1982. Doors, windows, staircase (only a short one!) other stuff entirely by hand. No machine at any point, except the stuff would be from rough sawn boards, which means not really needing a scrub plane.
> The key thing is not to plane anything at all until you have crosscut and/or rip sawn *ALL* components to size first, from your cutting list, from your design or for whatever other reason. Allow for planing and a bit over length.
> This is to avoid potential beginner basic mistake No 1, which is to plane up stock first, in imitation of timber-yard lengths of PAR (ready planed all round). This can be a disaster!
> Is that what you are doing? What problems do you have thereafter? Do you know the sequence of work and the marking up process?



why would a hand tool woodworker with a reasonable supply of lumber need to rip and crosscut all of their parts out of lumber before planing anything? 

That makes no sense. one of the benefits of hand tool work is that it isn't a big deal to work through some number of components, whether it's 1 or 10, without considering some far off idea of efficiency such as progressing through thicknesses on a thickness planer. 

It's better to have some variation in the work being done to be able to keep rhythm and avoid boredom or loss of focus.


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## D_W (18 Aug 2022)

Sgian Dubh said:


> Similar to John DeLapp, I've undertaken almost all my primary flattening of wide boards with a surface planer. However, like him, there have been occasional boards too wide for the surface planer I've had to deal with, e.g., even at times when I've had 500 mm of cut width planers available. The option then has been all hand planing or grab a hand held power plane. I generally preferred the latter to hog off the worst of the high spots followed up with hand planes, generally a mix of a no 5 and a no 7. I just use the power planer as is with the square cornered knives, but you can set it finer and finer to reduce the ridges left needing removed with hand planes.
> 
> Hand held power planers are really best suited to narrow edges, of course, but they can be put to service to take some of the grunt work out of the initial removal of high spots in wide faces. And those wide faces don't even need to be 500 mm or more wide because a hand held power planer can do a similar job on narrower stuff too e.g., 200 mm or less wide, if required, or perhaps preferred, although it's not my method of choice for smaller stuff: at narrower widths I generally head straight to the surface planer if I can. Slainte.



I don't often use a power planer, but the hand held power planers can be a blessing for quick correction if you have a way to deal with the shavings that come from them. 

Mine will generally clog most dust extractors if working at a fast rate, and the extractors don't hold much. I've used a power planer perhaps fewer than half a dozen times, but those cases were just knocking corners off of really large slabs or something wide where leaning far into a piece with a power planer is far less back stress than planing stock off by hand. 

Anyone who has learned to hand plane stock flat will probably have a far better feel for keeping a large surface relatively flat with a power planer, too. 

If someone new to hand tools is expecting to go from a power planer to a few shavings with a hand jointer, though, probably won't have much luck. More than a few, maybe, but if there is a lot of stock to remove on a wide surface like a large slab, probably better than back breaking planing over the middle of a wide slab. Hand planing is physically easy. Hand planing a lot on something 20 inches away from the torso and with lots of length, not so much.


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## clogs (18 Aug 2022)

plus,
if it all gets a bit much try out Jacob's ice cream.....n scoff the lot.....
learn how to do it by hand then buy a decent thicknesser...
early modern machine are really good.....Electra Beckum, Makita even DeWalt....
I still have my ELU from years ago...
luckily I have a monster prof jointer thicknesser but I wont sell the above...

If u get lucky a decent machine 240v will be around the £300 mark...
My planes like hand saws are little used now...
never enough time and my body is junk.....hahaha....


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## nosuchhounds (18 Aug 2022)

I have and know the steps. Its just practice. I do fear however, like you said, sizing parts to rough dimensions and then flattening etc by hand and then over shooting one part in thickness. Is it not easier to attempt to flatted the whole piece and then go by the cutting list and get that so correct dimensions as each component will be the same thickness?


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## Adam W. (18 Aug 2022)

You'll get used to it after a while, and it's easier to learn by doing than trying to learn by reading essays in the internet.


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## Jacob (18 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> ..... Is it not easier to attempt to flatted the whole piece and then go by the cutting list and get that so correct dimensions as each component will be the same thickness?


No it's much more difficult. If there is any bend in a board you have to take more off a long piece to flatten it, as compared to say 2 shorter pieces, except small pieces best kept as one, say up to 1 metre.


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## Ttrees (18 Aug 2022)

If you've got a flat bench and use it as such, then you won't overshoot, and save effort and material.
I like to leave the second face for a while before thicknessing, just incase the jointed face moves.


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## Jacob (18 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> If you've got a flat bench and use it as such, then you won't overshoot, and save effort and material.
> I like to leave the second face for a while before thicknessing, just incase the jointed face moves.
> View attachment 141952


Sometimes I'm not sure what Ttrees is on about at all! I guess it works for him.


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## Adam W. (18 Aug 2022)

You need a glossolalia glossary.


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## Jacob (18 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> why would a hand tool woodworker with a reasonable supply of lumber need to rip and crosscut all of their parts out of lumber before planing anything?
> ...


It's standard normal practice because it's a lot easier, more accurate and a lot less wasteful.
Planing _stock lengths_ by hand (or machine) is madness in a workshop and done only by over enthusiastic beginners. 
Planing stock by machine (PAR) is a timber yard practice only for DIY convenience - starts out straight but is often bent all over the place by the time it gets to the workbench. OK for skirting boards, floor boards, mouldings, which all will be pinned tight, but not for joinery or furniture.
There's more to it than that - stock for long pieces *needs to be selected first* for straightness and cut to length, as twisted or bent pieces may not allow for the desired thickness, but be OK as short lengths where less has to be taken off to flatten them.
and so on, there's a whole "correct" procedure well worth getting to know, whether by hand or machine!!


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## Ttrees (18 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> It's standard normal practice because it's a lot easier, more accurate and a lot less wasteful.
> Planing _stock lengths_ by hand (or machine) is madness in a workshop and done only by over enthusiastic beginners.
> Planing stock by machine (PAR) is a timber yard practice only for DIY convenience - starts out straight but is often bent all over the place by the time it gets to the workbench. OK for skirting boards, floor boards, mouldings, which all will be pinned tight, but not for joinery or furniture.
> There's more to it than that - stock for long pieces *needs to be selected first* for straightness and cut to length, as twisted or bent pieces may not allow for the desired thickness, but be OK as short lengths where less has to be taken off to flatten them.
> and so on, there's a whole "correct" procedure well worth getting to know, whether by hand or machine!!


So you crosscut the logs and go straight to the scrub plane?


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## D_W (18 Aug 2022)

OK, I read your original comment that we go get lumber, cut all of the parts out of it and don't touch a plane until we cut out all of the parts we'll need.

You're answering a different issue, whether or not we plane the boards first.

In a project with actual hand tool work, we would generally cut some lumber, and then plane it and make entire parts rather than making the same parts for an entire project. Then go back to the boards for the next part or segment of the work, select the wood and go through the whole set of steps.

whether we cut some parts after planing has more to do with what's convenient to plane. e.g, if you're going to make sticking for doors, it's probably not convenient to plane each piece of sticking separately from rough lumber, but rather panel sized boards cut to sticking later and if there is trouble on the backside of the saw cut, maybe a small amount of extra thickness of width is kept.

But as to not planing some long board to some arbitrary thickness like a machine thicknesser, of course not.

The thing to get power toolers out of the mind of is some idea like you're going to go through the steps on an entire project like you would with power tools.

"first we're going to cut out all of the pieces"
"then we're going to face all of the pieces"
"then we're going to square an edge"
"then we're going to thickness all of the pieces"

Far more likely to go cut a few items from the board available and then work through them from start to finish, and then do a few more. It's humorous when you tell me about correct procedure and it would be "worth it for me to get to know" as I've gone from rough to finish on more board feet as an amateur in the last ten years than you did during a schooling and career.


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## Ttrees (18 Aug 2022)

Adam W. said:


> You need a glossolalia glossary.



You guys have your religion, I have mine.
The iroko man tolerates no wastage!


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## Stevekane (18 Aug 2022)

Many thanks to you all for taking the trouble to write and its all been really informative stuff, the bit of info thats really intresting for me is that the two, power and traditional planes are not exclusive but can be used together, I know its a simple enough idea but for whatever reason it hadnt clicked for me and I will definatelty give it a go. 
Steve.


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## Cooper (19 Aug 2022)

What an interesting thread this has been. It reminds me of two conversations I had a very long time ago.The first was with an old boy who told me about his father who had been a ship wright. He said that his father could prepare his time with an adz as well as anyone could with a plane. 
The second was when I was renovating our Victorian house a friends father, who had been a long time retired, came to help me fit replacement architraves. We were talking about our panel doors. He told me that he used to be given a length of sawn timber on site and made the whole door from it, all by hand. The doors had to fit the fames and often there were no two the exact same size. Ripping, planing, making the mouldings and cutting all the joints. Apart from the skill I was amazed that anyone had the energy to do so much physical work! A house like ours has 17 doors, for me it would have been a lifetimes work!


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> So you crosscut the logs and go straight to the scrub plane?


er, no!


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

Stevekane said:


> ..... the bit of info thats really intresting for me is that the two, power and traditional planes are not exclusive but can be used together, .....


the longest I've had to plane was some 14ft 4x4" newel posts. Very difficult to handle and control over a planer top - easier to do two sides square by hand and eye, then through the thicknesser for the other two sides.








Flattening a worktop


@Jacob On the winding stick comment... maybe you are not making fun of my comment, and are agreeing with my point about making sure something else could be at fault. I guess you would likely agree in real life, and I'm just making things sound complicated. About how flat ones bench is though, I...




www.ukworkshop.co.uk


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## thikone (19 Aug 2022)

nosuchhounds said:


> Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it



I was dimensioning by hand because my workshop is in my apartment. Now I learn how to use P/T because I got a room in the basement to rent.

On one hand, it sometimes surprises me how fast I can get it flat and with square sides.
On the other hand, if I have to do it that 16 times it kind of stops to be fun for me...

Even though it feels like it goes fast by hand, in the end it takes several weekends to dimension all parts.
It does feel like a fitness though, which I actually like as my daily work is with computers.
And with that you need a good technique and rithm to do it for prolonged times, like with other sports.

I like video tutorials from The English Woodworker, he is very efficient at dimensioning, which is the key.
I can see with my eyes high spots, and can feel with my hand grain direction.
And I use my workbench to test for flatness (no winding sticks required).

I have Veritas scrub plane for coarse removal, then I switch to #5-1/2 with heavy camber to smooth a bit and finish with my beloved #7.
I also shoot long grain using my workbench, which is much easer than feeling 90 degree when planning edge (which I still cannot really do).

Here is dimensioning of 100x100 mm spruse, 1500 mm long, four of them:



And end result is just perfect, without any visible gap whatsoever:



These I then glued together and got 190x190 mm, this was part of cat's tree then.
And I had to repeat it 4 times, 16 parts... In the end I cheated and used small P/T to plane the oposite sides for other 3.
This took more than two month, as it was summer time and I wanted to devote at least half of each weekend to my two children...

So, there is simply too little time and too many projects that I wish I could finish.
One of them is a bed for my daughter and it has to be finished before she goes to school.
Then three foldable doors, a dinning table, a facet cabinet, a wardrobe for another daughter and a writing table for my son.
With that much pressure I need all help I can get, otherwise it would be better to sell all tools and for so much money just order them to be made.

I have now a big heavy 16" P/T, 10" and 20" bandsaws and a mortiser. A track saw and a bisquit joiner, and I'm getting domino soon.
Don't have circular miter saw anymore, I use Nobex miter saw instead, I just don't like the noise and dust it produces.
And a shooting plane with a shooting board to square the ends.

I like the fact that I first learned how to do it by hand before jumping to machines though.


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

thikone said:


> ....
> 
> I like the fact that I first learned how to do it by hand before jumping to machines though.


Looks good!
Hand planing is still essential every now and then, even if doing most by machine. And it gets quicker and easier.
n.b. winding sticks are really useful. Just two laths of same height, don't have to be special, make your own. Better than checking against a flat bench.


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## Sgian Dubh (19 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> OK, I read your original comment that we go get lumber, cut all of the parts out of it and don't touch a plane until we cut out all of the parts we'll need.


I don't think Jacob's saying that, David. I generally follow similar practices to those Jacob described. For instance, if I've got door stiles to finish at ~1930 X 100 X ~43 mm from a rough sawn piece that's ~3000 X 250 X 50 mm I'll usually (but not always if the piece is very straight and flat) cut out of it two pieces roughly ±2000 X 110 X 50 mm and true that up. Three or four rails might be needed at roughly 760 mm long X sizes diminishing from ~160 to ~100 mm wide, all by ~43 mm thick, and with these I might double or triple up the length, plus ~80 - 100 mm to allow for snipe, to get the parts flat, but machine to ~160 mm wide if I judge I can get the thickness required out of these overlength pieces. After that, assuming success (I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure of success), it's just a case of cutting to length and ripping off edges to create required widths for each rail.

This methodology, although probably slightly different to what Jacob's saying, does reduce the amount of planing required, and offers more likelihood that all the parts needed come out at the right dimensions, and not too small. Offcuts created during the basic ripping, crosscutting and planing to dimension can often be used for smaller parts, mouldings and the like, either in the door project, or in other unrelated projects. Odds and ends that can't be used go in the scrap bin, or in the log burner if the workshop has one. Slainte.


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

Sgian Dubh said:


> I don't think Jacob's saying that, David. I generally follow similar practices to those Jacob described. For instance, if I've got door stiles to finish at ~1930 X 100 X ~43 mm from a rough sawn piece that's ~3000 X 250 X 50 mm I'll usually (but not always if the piece is very straight and flat) cut out of it two pieces roughly ±2000 X 110 X 50 mm and true that up. Three or four rails might be needed at roughly 760 mm long X sizes diminishing from ~160 to ~100 mm wide, all by ~43 mm thick, and with these I might double or triple up the length, plus ~80 - 100 mm to allow for snipe, to get the parts flat, but machine to ~160 mm wide if I judge I can get the thickness required out of these overlength pieces. After that, assuming success (I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure of success), it's just a case of cutting to length and ripping off edges to create required widths for each rail.
> 
> This methodology, although probably slightly different to what Jacob's saying, does reduce the amount of planing required, and offers more likelihood that all the parts needed come out at the right dimensions, and not too small. Offcuts created during the basic ripping, crosscutting and planing to dimension can often be used for smaller parts, mouldings and the like, either in the door project, or in other unrelated projects. Odds and ends that can't be used go in the scrap bin, or in the log burner if the workshop has one. Slainte.


It is what I am saying, nearly! No planing until all cut to size from the cutting list, though shorter pieces can be left together as one for handling convenience
Cut the long pieces first and process down the lengths or you may find you haven't any left if you've done short pieces first.
Also cut the longest first out of the shortest available, _which are straight enough for the thickness desired_. This accounts for the rule "leave as long as possible for as long as possible" though this gets misunderstood too. You get better "yield" this way and less wastage, as twisted and bowed pieces may be fine for short lengths at the desired thickness, but impossible for long lengths.


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

Sgian Dubh said:


> I don't think Jacob's saying that, David. I generally follow similar practices to those Jacob described. For instance, if I've got door stiles to finish at ~1930 X 100 X ~43 mm from a rough sawn piece that's ~3000 X 250 X 50 mm I'll usually (but not always if the piece is very straight and flat) cut out of it two pieces roughly ±2000 X 110 X 50 mm and true that up. Three or four rails might be needed at roughly 760 mm long X sizes diminishing from ~160 to ~100 mm wide, all by ~43 mm thick, and with these I might double or triple up the length, plus ~80 - 100 mm to allow for snipe, to get the parts flat, but machine to ~160 mm wide if I judge I can get the thickness required out of these overlength pieces. After that, assuming success (I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure of success), it's just a case of cutting to length and ripping off edges to create required widths for each rail.
> 
> This methodology, although probably slightly different to what Jacob's saying, does reduce the amount of planing required, and offers more likelihood that all the parts needed come out at the right dimensions, and not too small. Offcuts created during the basic ripping, crosscutting and planing to dimension can often be used for smaller parts, mouldings and the like, either in the door project, or in other unrelated projects. Odds and ends that can't be used go in the scrap bin, or in the log burner if the workshop has one. Slainte.



This is such a hand-tool kind of interpretation that I took that maybe nobody else did. 

What jacob is conveying is that with hand tools, you don't thickness all of the boards and then cut parts. You cut parts from rough lumber and then dimension. I generally agree. 

The way he stated it "you cut all of the parts before you plane anything" led me to believe that he thought everything should be sawn before any planing is done at all, which if that means sawing every single rough part out before taking any to the bench, wouldn't make any sense as the variation in physical activity by sawing a few pieces from rough at a time and then working through them is far more productive than trying to cut everything out from boards at once, perhaps cutting a couple of hundred linear feet in a row instead of cutting 20 in 6 or so minute and then going to hand planing those parts. 

Not sure if that makes sense. 

I commented about sticking because a power tooler may cut a whole bunch of longer sticking and then plane and then cut to length later to minimize snipe loss. I generally would rather dimension a board 8" wide than three just over 2.5" for cabinet door sticking ,and then cut the sticking out of a board that's wider than needed for sticking rather than cutting sticks out of longer boards like one would do with machines. 

I've cut sticking and then thicknessed the sticking itself, which is OK, but something 8" wide is nicer to plane than something 2.25 or 2.5". 

Still would never use a "scrub plane" in any of this over a jack as it's no faster and it's far less intuitive for follow-on flatness, and far more likely to blow edges out, which should never happen hand planing good wood in the first place. The only thing that comes to mind is that sawing can be hard on the back side of a cut if it's fast hand sawing but that can be mitigated, too, and sometimes the back side of the cut won't show, anyway. 

I won't go into methods to deal with lessening break out on the back side of a cut because nobody here is going to do to them, anyway.


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> This is such a hand-tool kind of interpretation that I took that maybe nobody else did.
> 
> What jacob is conveying is that with hand tools, you don't thickness all of the boards and then cut parts. You cut parts from rough lumber and then dimension. I generally agree.
> 
> The way he stated it "you cut all of the parts before you plane anything" led me to believe that he thought everything should be sawn before any planing is done at all, which if that means sawing every single rough part out before taking any to the bench,


Yes that's what I'm saying. You've got it! You take boards already sawn to the nearest usable size and then saw to the component size. It's normal practice, by hand or by machine!


D_W said:


> wouldn't make any sense as the variation in physical activity by sawing a few pieces from rough at a time and then working through them is far more productive than trying to cut everything out from boards at once,


If you are making any quantity of items or anything really, machine or by hand, you *have* to do each stage complete before moving on:
e.g. saw *all* stuff to length and width according to cutting list, plane best *all* faces and edges square and marked, marking gauge for planing to thickness and width, stack components on the rod for marking, mark 100% - the whole lot. Cut *all* mortices, cut *all* tenon cheeks, plane rebates/mouldings, cut tenon shoulders, etc etc.
If making say 5 sash windows, or tables with drawers, you end up with perhaps hundreds of finished components. Has to be systematic and always verifiable against the rod at every stage.


D_W said:


> perhaps cutting a couple of hundred linear feet in a row instead of cutting 20 in 6 or so minute and then going to hand planing those parts.
> 
> Not sure if that makes sense.


No it doesn't.


D_W said:


> ....
> 
> Still would never use a "scrub plane" ....


Nor me as a rule. The scrub finish is likely to be rougher than the sawn finish. Scrub plane is for "scrubbing" i.e. cleaning up old and /or painted timber.

PS I seem to have explained all this several hundred times since I started on message boards years ago!!


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

Cooper said:


> What an interesting thread this has been. It reminds me of two conversations I had a very long time ago.The first was with an old boy who told me about his father who had been a ship wright. He said that his father could prepare his time with an adz as well as anyone could with a plane.
> The second was when I was renovating our Victorian house a friends father, who had been a long time retired, came to help me fit replacement architraves. We were talking about our panel doors. He told me that he used to be given a length of sawn timber on site and made the whole door from it, all by hand. The doors had to fit the fames and often there were no two the exact same size. Ripping, planing, making the mouldings and cutting all the joints. Apart from the skill I was amazed that anyone had the energy to do so much physical work! A house like ours has 17 doors, for me it would have been a lifetimes work!



I wonder if and when most of this stuff was done by hand on site and how. In the states, cost dominated even from early on, so a site guy would've showed up with some reasonably close-sized stock and then modified by hand as needed, stick building bits in. 

My parents have cabinets like this - their house was wealthy person's summer home, but it's a summer home, not a mansion. The wealth allowed the owner to build a kitchen full of cabinets lower and upper, a room about 15 feet square. There are other unusual things, so it's not all cabinets (like three doors, an area that would've been for a cook stove near the middle, etc, and a pass through area so that food could be given through a sliding door into an informal eating area - a breakfast or lunch nook that's south facing). 

At any rate, the cabinetry is relatively cheaply made, but all solid wood (flat panel doors, but no ply), and built in situ. you'd be surprised how fast you could build that, along with how low site wages for private work were at the time. You could do the cabinet build in on a site like that by hand in maybe a week or two at most. even with about 25 linear feet of base cabinets, a tall supply cabinet and about 10 linear feet of uppers. 

As you say, I doubt any of the doors could be taken out of one cabinet and put in another, but it doesn't matter - 98 years later, the cabinets are still there and the off-side (away from the sink) is still the original wooden countertop. the food prep side of the kitchen has had the countertops replaced at least three times now and is modern "junk" (granite) with a modern sink and dishwasher, etc.

My cabinets in my own home were site built, probably replacing the originals in the late 70s. How little there is to them compared to standalone cabinets is somewhat shocking. The faces and doors look like spec/supply cabinets, but what was built in behind them came out showing far less stock than you'd expect. 

Pre-war here in the states, a kitchen would've had only a few upper cabinets, a few lowers at most, and often a work top with shelves built under it with a good part of the supply area covered by curtains instead of full blown cabinets. The amount of material in current cabinets and the desire to have them factory made (and the kitchen installed in a day with no residual dirt) would've probably priced out the site guy.


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Yes that's what I'm saying. You've got it! You take boards already sawn to the nearest usable size and then saw to the component size. It's normal practice, by hand or by machine!
> 
> If you are making any quantity of items or anything really, machine or by hand, you *have* to do each stage complete before moving on:
> e.g. saw *all* stuff to length and width according to cutting list, plane best *all* faces and edges square and marked, marking gauge for planing to thickness and width, stack components on the rod for marking, mark 100% - the whole lot. Cut *all* mortices, cut *all* tenon cheeks, plane rebates/mouldings, cut tenon shoulders, etc etc.
> ...



Jacob, I don't believe you've done much of it. If you're doing neat work, you wouldn't cut 250 or 300 linear feet in a row and assume it's more efficient. It leads to fatigue and inaccuracy. If the work is crude, it won't matter. If it's not, neatness of the hand sawing and attention to quality of it rather than just blasting through saves a great deal of time and improves results. 

You may have been taught to do this by someone who learned woodworking on power tools where constantly staging machines for a little bit at a time does make a difference for productivity, or maybe for site work where you have to stage an area for each task. 

in a shop and at a bench, there is no area staging or anything of the sort that would necessitate cutting all of the mortices in a row, or sawing all in a row and it actually takes less space to do bits of the work at a time. this isn't site work, it's bench work, there is no argument that there's efficiency in trying to do every step all at once for all of the timbers. It shows a lack of concept or actual doing of any of this for an entire work day. Nobody here is pushing a plane for 8 hours, but plenty could do a combination of sawing, joining and planing in rotation for segments of a project at a time, only stopping when too tired to do all of them. 

I'm not sure who would be scrubbing paint from old wood - again, very little of the woodworking forum discussions have to do with site work vs. bench work in a shop with new wood. 



I posted pictures of this cabinet long ago, in progress and then finished. I have no idea how may linear feet of sawing was involved, but it may have been on the order of 300 or 400 feet. There isn't a person on here who would do it neatly all in a row and that would create a huge problem. There's probably a bunch here who think they couldn't handsaw that much in linear stock footage, but that's also not true - it's not a matter of fitness, it's a matter of being in the loop of using the tools and recognizing a working pattern that you can sustain. sawing and crosscutting 400 or 600 feet in a row isn't it.


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## G S Haydon (19 Aug 2022)

Ah Jacob, as blunt as ever!

Sadly the nuance of the discussion is quickly lost. There is a balance to be had.

If I were making a chest of drawers I would pick out my best material for the carcass, cut to size, plane and make. I would then move to the drawers. I wouldn't get all of the material out in one go.

So too with a door. I would get rails and stiles out but might choose to leave the panels if there was a chance they were to be left over the weekend and not installed into a door.

On making volumes of parts, or inventory, most modern settings shy away from it. You regulate your production by a bottleneck. No point making finished parts in volume if they can't be installed or sold. It's about a steady flow across everything. That's not to say you only mortice one door stile at a time, that would be stupid. Rather if you had 8 external doors you might make them in batches of 2. This allows others to be involved in the flow of work.

There should be no delay in processing, if a business can't set a machine or use hand tools to work small batches it's likely because it's not very good.

I was told a story of guy who bought a CNC, he was told at the time that he had an inventory problem, too many finished parts everywhere. But he was convinced that if he could make more parts in less time he would be able to reduce costs. He went bankrupt as he made even more inventory with no extra money coming in.

To your average weekend woodworker I would recommend breaking a job down. Making a table? Get out the legs and aprons, plane and join, glue up as appropriate. Same if it requires a drawer, then the top. I hope I've made some sense.


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> To your average weekend woodworker I would recommend breaking a job down. Making a table? Get out the legs and aprons, plane and join, glue up as appropriate. Same if it requires a drawer, then the top. I hope I've made some sense.



that makes sense for several reasons, though I can't comment on how it would work with power tools. 

one of the reasons that it's nice to work through stock bits at a time when working by hand, well, two, is that the finished bits don't need to be adjusted for warping, etc. Whatever occurs after making something like a case side, it'll come out in the wash with assembly, but it may not be quite so convenient if processing all boards to thickness and then trying to make case sides. 

Aside from actual physical fatigue if working on a hundred board feet of timber (as in, doing fractions of a project rather than trying to stage each part all at once), the other nice thing is staging area. To stage everything and assembly everything at once takes more space than completing parts and putting them off to the side and then assembling the parts. 

Just the matter of dealing with a couple of hundred feet of linear wood at once and not missing a piece here or there dimensioning is a pain. That kind of workflow is the result of sort of the "sketch up and workstation" society in hobby shops. As if you get a cut list and then need to stage the entire volume at once as if you're in a factory. It's also detrimental to wood selection and discernment which is fatiguing itself - also done better on quality work a little at a time. 

I can't speak to a paying shop aside from having worked in a large cabinet factory - nobody was idle anywhere in the plant waiting for workflow. Ever.


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## G S Haydon (19 Aug 2022)

I would work just the same if I was a weekend guy in the garage with machines. I'd want to focus on defined stages. Why worry about drawer sides when the carcass isn't built? Leave it until you're going to use it. A Weekender might only manage a drawer a weekend. 

Get out all of it and in six weeks time when you're on the last one, find out the wood's all to cock or the bottoms have cupped?


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

Hi Graham hope you are well.


G S Haydon said:


> ...... There is a balance to be had.


Well yes variations are allowed!


G S Haydon said:


> If I were making a chest of drawers I would pick out my best material for the carcass, cut to size, plane and make. I would then move to the drawers. I wouldn't get all of the material out in one go.


I'd do it all in one go, but selecting as you say. The planing would be one long op.....etc.


G S Haydon said:


> So too with a door. I would get rails and stiles out but might choose to leave the panels if there was a chance they were to be left over the weekend and not installed into a door.


ditto as above


G S Haydon said:


> ...... No point making finished parts in volume if they can't be installed or sold.


Agree. Though maybe you could have some stuff sawn to size in anticipation of future orders


G S Haydon said:


> It's about a steady flow across everything. That's not to say you only mortice one door stile at a time, that would be stupid. Rather if you had 8 external doors you might make them in batches of 2. This allows others to be involved in the flow of work.


8 at a time, every time. So much faster!


G S Haydon said:


> There should be no delay in processing, if a business can't set a machine or use hand tools to work small batches it's likely because it's not very good.


Batch size according to the order book, or anticipated order book.


G S Haydon said:


> ........
> To your average weekend woodworker I would recommend breaking a job down. Making a table? Get out the legs and aprons, plane and join, glue up as appropriate. Same if it requires a drawer, then the top. I hope I've made some sense.


Yes makes sense. But just two ops for me - Table tops I'd do as one batch as they are likely to be very different from the underneath. Rest of table including drawers as another.
100% markup is the key. Miss a mark and make a mistake. All pairs marked up making sure edge marks are pointing opposite ways etc. Once marked up you are on auto pilot. Rod to hand for any checks. Can't go wrong! 

PS One essential is a black/white board so you can see your whole cutting list from the workbench. e.g. that your 8 doors would have 16 stiles in opposing pairs. Easy to check the stack you are working on. 
I usually mark it up with nominal sizes in inches, to be sawn to, and precise finished sizes in mm. e.g. "Glazing bars 10no 27" ex 2x1", finished 44x15mm" (that'd be a period copy typical size)


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> I would work just the same if I was a weekend guy in the garage with machines. I'd want to focus on defined stages. Why worry about drawer sides when the carcass isn't built? Leave it until you're going to use it. A Weekender might only manage a drawer a weekend.
> 
> Get out all of it and in six weeks time when you're on the last one, find out the wood's all to cock or the bottoms have cupped?



precisely. Along with the issue of design/plan or measuring mistakes. they don't occur building incrementally by hand and preparing the parts to fit what's already there.

I found something like a two part case with doors and a back extremely aggravating when working with machines earlier on. You cut out all of this stock and try to organize it and then there's a mistake somewhere in the plans, or something is cut a tenth short and what to do with the rest? It's too much like working at a day job keeping track of lists, and looking at dozens or 100 separate parts when what you really want to do is build.

It's also a lot easier to get the general idea and proportions and then figure out the details mid process when you can actually see all of the things you're doing. The less accurate one is with trivial details, and organized (and I am clinically bad at it - my talent for doing things other people wouldn't do comes from having a clinical omission of basic function in some cases that others would find routine), the easier it is to work as you're describing.

this doesn't maybe work well with clients who might want to see a CAD or drawing of what you're doing without much flexibility, but who needs to worry about it.

This skill then transfers outside of woodworking - that you'll often want to make something and only have a general idea of the specs but work to finish after critical details seem more intuitive in hand. 

Even just aside from that, what's more satisfying, building a pair of drawers from scratch in a weekend and seeing all aspects to discern and maybe improve future drawers, or dimensioning 40 drawer sides to do other steps later? I sure would prefer the former by miles.


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## G S Haydon (19 Aug 2022)

8 at a time seems faster but when processes are linked and you're working in a team it's much, much slower. Everybody is waiting and errors are hidden. It's a 19th century way of making things. 

Process these days are designed to flow with small batches. I'll sign off now


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> 8 at a time seems faster but when processes are linked and you're working in a team it's much, much slower. Everybody is waiting and errors are hidden. It's a 19th century way of making things.
> 
> Process these days are designed to flow with small batches. I'll sign off now


I tend to work on my own. Not at all sure how I'd organise a team over your 8 door example.
One interesting teamwork (?) detail I've sometimes noticed on old work is knife marks only on one face of a component and the other sides in pencil. My theory is that the knife marks were done by the gaffer from the rod and hence correct and indelible, to be picked up with pencil marks added by the bench joiner. Could be wrong!


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## thetyreman (19 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> I tend to work on my own. Not at all sure how I'd organise a team over your 8 door example.
> One interesting teamwork (?) detail I've sometimes noticed on old work is knife marks only on one face of a component and the other sides in pencil. My theory is that the knife marks were done by the gaffer from the rod and hence correct and indelible, to be picked up with pencil marks added by the bench joiner. Could be wrong!


maybe the pencil lines were temporary and the knife lines were the final lines used, interestingly paul sellers uses the same system of marking out, the pencil lines are mostly a visual guide so you know where the joints are going.


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> Even just aside from that, what's more satisfying, building a pair of drawers from scratch in a weekend and seeing all aspects to discern and maybe improve future drawers, or dimensioning 40 drawer sides to do other steps later? I sure would prefer the former by miles.


I wouldn't be doing 40 drawer sides unless I had orders including 20 drawers. In which case I'd be very happy to do them all in one batch including "the other steps" - it'd be very profitable!
I like doing multiples in any case. It seems so obvious to me that if you are going to design and get set up to make one of anything you might as well make a few more whilst you are at it and have everything sorted out.
In fact it's how most things are made. One off's are rarities - usually prototypes.


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## Jacob (19 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> maybe the pencil lines were temporary and the knife lines were the final lines used, interestingly paul sellers uses the same system of marking out, the pencil lines are mostly a visual guide so you know where the joints are going.


Marking knives aren't intended for marking, in spite of the name. But they are for _cutting_ a line e.g. for a clean tenon shoulder, or in this case for making an indelible and precise line - with the rod as the visual guide.


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## Ttrees (19 Aug 2022)

Makes the edges a bit more delicate than leaving a pencil line on my timbers.


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## thetyreman (19 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Marking knives aren't intended for marking, in spite of the name. But they are for _cutting_ a line e.g. for a clean tenon shoulder, or in this case for making an indelible and precise line - with the rod as the visual guide.


they are good though for cross grain cuts, definitely helps a lot, rods are incredibly useful too, I've used a rod a lot since you mentioning it, saves so much time.


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## Sgian Dubh (19 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> On making volumes of parts, or inventory, most modern settings shy away from it. You regulate your production by a bottleneck. No point making finished parts in volume if they can't be installed or sold. It's about a steady flow across everything. That's not to say you only mortice one door stile at a time, that would be stupid. Rather if you had 8 external doors you might make them in batches of 2. This allows others to be involved in the flow of work.


Interesting point of view, and whilst I largely share it for cabinet type products, and others, I'm not sure breaking jobs down like that works every time. I recall several large jobs where we worked differently. One in particular, amongst others, sticks in my mind. Myself and a friend had a commission for an Edinburgh golf club to build twenty five mahogany dining chairs in a pattern based on a Georgian 18th century style including cabriole front legs and curved rear legs. A huge pile of mahogany half filled the workshop which was all cut up and machined as fast as possible into the basic constituent parts of rear and front legs, side, front and rear rails, X pattern stretchers and centre bosses, back splats and crown rails. We dimensioned enough parts for twenty seven chairs and processed and jointed each part. So, for example, we set out and morticed the square blank, marked the cabriole profile, bandsawed the shape, turned the foot, spindle moulded the cabriole off a template, and refined with hand tools fifty four cabriole legs in two batches, 27 left and 27 right. After completion they were all stacked up ready for the next stage.

The same happened with all the other parts so that we basically had neatly separated piles of components ready for putting together as sub-assembles which was done in batches of, for example, twenty seven sets of front legs to front rail, back legs to back rail, and so on until all twenty seven chairs were assembled. In truth, 25 chairs were first rate, one chair was a bit iffy and the twenty seventh was pretty ropey, but all the chairs were solid. I wanted to get them out of the workshop fast to prevent overfilling the available space and we did so through putting together the sub-assemblies of four to six chairs one after another, chucked them into the back of the van and shipped that batch a few miles down the road to the polishing shop.

I never did find out what happened to the two extra chairs over the twenty five ordered. I think the guy I worked with to get the job done took them home, but I could be wrong, ha, ha. I was certainly pleased to see the back of them but the job I recall was a pretty good earner. Slainte.


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## D_W (19 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> I wouldn't be doing 40 drawer sides unless I had orders including 20 drawers. In which case I'd be very happy to do them all in one batch including "the other steps" - it'd be very profitable!
> I like doing multiples in any case. It seems so obvious to me that if you are going to design and get set up to make one of anything you might as well make a few more whilst you are at it and have everything sorted out.
> In fact it's how most things are made. One off's are rarities - usually prototypes.



"get set up" is a power tool philosophy. 

If you're going to get out a marking gauge, a pencil and a chisel, those are things you more or less do in about 10 seconds, it's not "getting set up". 

if you're going to use a mortising machine, a table saw, and whatever else where you set a fence and do a test cut or whatever, then suddenly that makes sense. 

What's not addressed here from actual experience is my comment about cutting 200 to 600 linear feet with a handsaw accurately without doing anything else. I would estimate that's something like 200 minutes of continuous cutting. A solid half hour of cutting and doing nothing other than moving pieces, I have done. I would have to see someone else do it and have good results before I believed it - even a half hour, because there are so few people working by hand to understand setting up a tempo that can be kept.

You could cut tenons for half a day without any issue but a wandering mind would lead to problems. To cut something like 8 or 15 tenons, no big deal. to cut 50 or something, it would become a problem. 

Nothing suggests to me that anyone on this thread is doing any of this. Not that nobody is doing hand work, but that most of the advice being given (aside from richard and graham) is just extrapolation "I think I would do it like this if". 

Anyone doing work for a specific project will have a gaggle of mortise and marking gauges, they'll be set to a common setting for parts, so there is no setting anything up - it's picking something up, and perhaps if doing something that will use most of the bench, putting the stuff in a drawer and getting it back out. 

Giving bad advice doesn't really help anyone. What will newbies conclude. They can't cut several hundred linear feet in a row so hand tool working is bad. doing things that don't make physical sense is one of the biggest barriers to people actually working by hand - outside of just trying to take power tool ideas over to hand work and thinking "this is too slow this way!".


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## G S Haydon (19 Aug 2022)

Apologies, Jacob! I forgot my manners! I'm very well thank you , hope you're doing well. You've lost none of your energy. Perhaps we could hook you up to the national grid to solve the energy crisis


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## G S Haydon (19 Aug 2022)

Richard, that sounds like a great project! I've only ever made a couple of very simple chairs for a client and done a few repairs. Cabriole, I'd need a lesson or two.

I think it depends on how many are in the team. There is a dreadful way that I can explain the benefits of one piece flow, but I understand that in a one or two person craft setting the benefit is harder to see and it's not always appropriate. It's an interesting process though and has made us more efficient and removed some of the stress.


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## baldkev (19 Aug 2022)

I dont have a scrub plane, just a couple of number 4s, a couple of 5s and a few block planes etc

As a site carpenter, most of my planing is with a makita powered planer or the block planes. In the workshop ive got a 12" p/t.
Ive never even tried to dimension a project by hand, probably wouldnt do a good job at it either 
Thats not to say it isnt viable, because no doubt someone with that skill and 'feeling' would be able to do it fairly quickly, but as a paid job, i think youd need a thicknesser to be competitive.
In the old days building houses must have taken years?!? I can't imagine how long jobs would take using just hand tools


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## Jacob (20 Aug 2022)

baldkev said:


> I dont have a scrub plane, just a couple of number 4s, a couple of 5s and a few block planes etc
> 
> As a site carpenter, most of my planing is with a makita powered planer or the block planes. In the workshop ive got a 12" p/t.
> Ive never even tried to dimension a project by hand, probably wouldnt do a good job at it either
> ...


One thing that made hand tool use easier in the past was that timber from the mill would be available in a wider variety of sawn sizes. That immediately could cut out (literally!) a lot of physical work.
It's not that difficult doing stuff entirely by hand but not likely to be competitive, as you say. The main thing is to use your cutting list and reduce sawn stuff to handleable sizes before planing. In fact you'd usually do the same if machining, so it's not exactly a radical departure!
In any case hand tool skills are essential and many small shops will do a mixture of both, depending on what they are making.
There are stories of amateurs planing up long lengths of stock in imitation of timber yard PAR. But whether by machine or hand plane; DON'T DO IT! That way madness lies!


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## D_W (20 Aug 2022)

baldkev said:


> I dont have a scrub plane, just a couple of number 4s, a couple of 5s and a few block planes etc
> 
> As a site carpenter, most of my planing is with a makita powered planer or the block planes. In the workshop ive got a 12" p/t.
> Ive never even tried to dimension a project by hand, probably wouldnt do a good job at it either
> ...



there's definitely not much of a case to make here about people paying for hand work vs. people doing it as a hobby. As the former, I know of exactly one person who only works by hand and he has a niche more or less among a huge area of woodwork - custom and production - in picking up jobs or parts of jobs that are cheaper for him to do by hand. For example, if you have a production run of CNC decorative work, but one part of the work isn't doable by CNC, then the run will land in his shop and he'll do the work. or if there's a run of CNC or jigged work in a power tool shop that ends up with a consistent error, he'll end up fixing that work, and from time to time, small runs of one off (especially curved or carved) elements where his quote will be lower than another shop. 

As to folks doing a lot of it as a matter of daily regular work - I couldn't make a case for it either. I can make a case that it's not that hard to learn, it's pleasant and you could certainly build yourself out of space to put things in a matter of a few years working entirely by hand. 

The context for the hand worker here was more in tune with getting the right stock from the local mill, close to size and the quality you want. That option really isn't there at this point. The nearest local *good* saw miller to me is over an hour. 

to put it differently, relatively accurate starting lumber went from being the territory of the miller to the shop owner, and I'm sure the reason was economic as shops got powered. It's always economic.


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## whereistheceilidh (21 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> One thing that made hand tool use easier in the past was that timber from the mill would be available in a wider variety of sawn sizes. That immediately could cut out (literally!) a lot of physical work.
> It's not that difficult doing stuff entirely by hand but not likely to be competitive, as you say. The main thing is to use your cutting list and reduce sawn stuff to handleable sizes before planing. In fact you'd usually do the same if machining, so it's not exactly a radical departure!
> In any case hand tool skills are essential and many small shops will do a mixture of both, depending on what they are making.
> There are stories of amateurs planing up long lengths of stock in imitation of timber yard PAR. But whether by machine or hand plane; DON'T DO IT! That way madness lies!


...is 'in the past'a key phrase here? Timber used to be cut/dimensioned by hand frequntly as often little else was available in small operations. Folk had the skills to do it. But could I suggest that the wood was better, & more carefully seasoned, & this made converting large lumps of wood into what was needed rather easier than it is now.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

whereistheceilidh said:


> ...is 'in the past'a key phrase here? Timber used to be cut/dimensioned by hand frequntly as often little else was available in small operations. Folk had the skills to do it. But could I suggest that the wood was better, & more carefully seasoned, & this made converting large lumps of wood into what was needed rather easier than it is now.



I think there are two answers to this question:
1) if you want to source lumber in a size that you need and a quality that's very good, and more stable than air dried wood would've been, you can do that pretty easily
2) It is true that if you just find job lots of lumber, or cubic meters of a pair of sizes and what you need is between the two, you'll have the experience of additional exercise. 

The effort saved by leaving the sawing to the miller as much as possible would've been an economic thing, but it's not really an issue as a hobbyist as the rough work to some extent will improve the fine work without actually doing the fine work as much. 

And if you do source common lumber instead of the better of what's listed as FAS in the states (are the terms the same in the UK?), especially if in a type of wood that works well by machine but is kind of a nuisance from rough (hard maple comes to mind, whereas something like beech is almost as hard and favors hand tools a lot more), then that could be pretty hobby-limiting. I learned that the hard way being wooed by a load of relatively wide cherry boards #1 common for $2 a board foot. It was OK to learn a lesson on 500 board feet of it, but I wouldn't want to work with it indefinitely when the equivalent FAS lumber here with straighter grain and fewer defects is generally $5 locally. 

My impression is that the real reason nobody is doing much dimensioning by hand is:
1) you don't have to, and that provides a disincentive to get past the first couple of hundred board feet where you're kind of training neurons, both in your head and peripheral
2) that a lot of people who say they just don't have time waste 20 hours a week or more on a bunch of stuff they may not enjoy, but they can't get over the hump. E.g, it's not a priority to get in the shop. 

#2 is a dead end with power tools, too, but somehow it seems like there's more potential for the power tools to spring to life and make you good at things in a hurry. 

There's a tool dealer in the US who firmly believes that the cap iron came about to cope with declining lumber quality in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I have no clue if that's true - it greatly reduces labor on the best of ribboned mahogany or quartersawn or figured anything. The tools that dominated from 1800-1900 are perfectly capable of dealing with our lumber, though, even the junk. The junk comes down to whether or not you will tolerate planing wood that has runout in several directions on a face and that is twice as slow and twice as physically brutal to dimension.


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## G S Haydon (30 Aug 2022)

"FAS" is used for imported hardwoods.

"Unsorted" for redwood which is anything from 1 to 4. You then get 5ths redwood, you normally find that as pre moulded or planed all round at builders merchants.

Euro oak is normally Prime, with a whole sub genres of marketing names for the stuff that falls below this. Buying the cheaper grades will often yield more quarter sawn.

That's my experience anyways.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> "FAS" is used for imported hardwoods.
> 
> "Unsorted" for redwood which is anything from 1 to 4. You then get 5ths redwood, you normally find that as pre moulded or planed all round at builders merchants.
> 
> ...



cheaper mixed lots often also yield more quartered here, too - I'm guessing they are mill run through and through and that has given way to either specific dimensions to sell at yards that cater to trim carpenters, or the simple marketability of a rotating cant and all flatsawn boards eliminates anything but flatsawn and pith. 

There are english oak "esacapees" here and there - trees that have been planted or perhaps the result of birds dropping seeds from others, but I've only had one piece of smooth english oak here that a friend dropped off. It came out of a big industrial pallet from England and was 10/4 or so in size and planed like butter. 

I've never encountered anything like it at retail, but the sloppiness of the red vs. white oak offerings here (several different types of trees can be marketed especially at white oak), there's always a chance. 

English oak sold at retail here at higher end retailers is marked up strongly, like in the neighborhood of good walnut or honduran mahogany. 

FAS cherry from a local miller where you can get good color match and wider boards without being had in terms of price is more like $5-6 a board foot. Air dried ungraded can be really cheap, but comment above applies. You can end up with boards that are half this:


From a #1 common lot that was $2 a board foot. That was in the worst 20% of it, but the guy retailing it was a professional miller who I also buy my "stash" from (core pile of cherry to pick out of). I should've known looking at the pictures that he wasn't going to just throw 400 bf of FAS lumber in with 10-20% defects. 

A piece made of wood like that would be interesting, but dimensioning starts with the jointer instead of the jack, cap iron set, and with something like that particular piece, the runout is cup shaped around the knot covering several board feet. It is just physically difficult to dimension because it's like planing end grain cutting boards. It's not technically difficult, the cap iron takes care of that. 

point of all of this is that starting with power tools and then making a quick transition without a pretty drastic mindset change with hand tools leads to a false impression of hand tool work. Lining up the details, suddenly it can literally be two or three times as enjoyable. Face jointing and thicknessing boards with a metal jointer and seemingly no long grain is not enjoyable.


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## Jacob (30 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> .......
> 
> the real reason nobody is doing much dimensioning by hand .......


....is that it's easier by machine, though many will roughly "dimension" sawn stuff with a hand saw, to the cutting list, _before planing_, whether by hand or machine.
What crops up regularly is beginners who imagine that sawn stock should be planed like timber yard PAR, _before_ cutting to size. This is a very big mistake!


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## Jacob (30 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> /
> 
> There's a tool dealer in the US who firmly believes that the cap iron came about to cope with declining lumber quality in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I have no clue if that's true ......


It's not true.
The main function of the cap iron is to transfer the wedge pressure as close as possible to the cutting edge to make it more solid. Not sure if it helps "break chips" as per its other name. Seems unlikely.
Then with the thin bladed Staley/Bailey design it becomes essential as part of the blade unit, which is as effective as the older heavy blades but much easier to sharpen, set, etc.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> ....is that it's easier by machine, though many will "dimension" sawn stuff by hand, to the cutting list, before planing, whether by hand or machine.
> What crops up regularly is beginners who imagine that sawn stock should be planed like timber yard PAR, _before_ cutting to size. This is a very big mistake!



I phrased that poorly. I am just going by feel, because I started with almost all power tools and gradually "went backwards". I would anticipate that some large portion of the woodworking community will spend almost all of their time turning, and most of the rest will do a bunch of flat work with machines and at best, maybe a few percent would enjoy working entirely by hand, or trying to where it's practical (e.g., it's not that practical to try to make every single part of an electric guitar by hand unless you take some design liberty). 

If my guess of 2 or 3 percent of woodworkers is correct -the same types who walk in golf, the odds of them finding someone who could clue them in on what's entirely different working by hand is pretty low. And much of it is feel and personal problem solving, sort of how a lot of carvers describe carving after a very short initial exposure ("can only really be learned at the bench"). 

Hopefully people who think they'll make something nice learn the first time when they buy bowed plywood thinking it'll be straightened by assembly, and thinking that pre-thicknessed wood means flat, so all that's needed is putting it together and sanding. 

I found trying to make nice things with mid level consumer/semi pro tools pretty challenging and it felt like nothing but endless arranging and correcting. I'm sure I could build case sides and shelves a lot faster with what I ditched, but I was in the shop a lot less using it. 

If someone finds they really don't like dimensioning by hand and they really gave it a whirl (which means getting away from the sellers and other folks who have never really done it - he seems to have a strong tractor beam keeping beginners at beginner level), then it's simple - use the machines. It's not a religion. If someone really thinks they have no interest in using hand tools and wants to use machines....that seems a simple case, too.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

I just realized I lied. I thought I used what you call par one time early on, but I used it two. I just remembered. 



when I made my bench, the cheapest wood I could find was what you call PAR 8/4 ash. It wasn't actually usable as delivered, but I had zero interest in making a bench, only in having one. And I skimmed both sides of it with a portable thickness planer and slapped it all together like a big crude garden fixture. 

That was nice because I didn't need flat boards, and it would've been a chore to dimension long not-straight par wood by hand. 

So that's my * for what's sold as s3s or s4s here. It's OK for laminating.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> It's not true.
> The main function of the cap iron is to transfer the wedge pressure as close as possible to the cutting edge to make it more solid. Not sure if it helps "break chips" as per its other name. Seems unlikely.
> Then with the thin bladed Staley/Bailey design it becomes essential as part of the blade unit, which is as effective as the older heavy blades but much easier to sharpen, set, etc.



that's false. It doesn't break chips, it holds them down so that they don't break and it influences them due to pressure, shortening the shaving that comes out because it's been worked. It doesn't break. 

Here's why it's false - it replaced single iron planes that were laminated and if the irons needed more stability, it would've been cheaper by far to just make a thicker single iron with soft wrought and a thin laminated section. 

That and every old text referencing how it works mentions its ability to improve a surface, from nicholson to holtzappfel. 

It's meaningful for dimensioning x 2 and it dominated single irons due to the economic value of it, not the woo value. People were willing to pay much more for a plane with a double iron than one with a thick single iron. 

to actually dimension from rough to finished wood with single iron planes after long straight boards became less the rule (pith on center and everything else) is dippy. It's one of the reasons people think that it's hard or unpredictable.

Someone in the states who talks as if they're some kind of force in furniture making constantly brings up how risky it is to plane a surface and potentially ruin a nearly completed piece of furniture. Texts like holtzappfel's never opine on something so dippy. 

In something like FAS cherry in the states, all of the steps after jack work happen about twice as fast with a cap iron. wood like the thing I pictured above becomes routine (there is a fair bit of physical resistance, but you cannot get a single iron plane through it with anything other than the thinnest smoother shavings). It's uncanny how well it works, and it fits in among things like sharpening rip saws *very* often - it seems to particular until you experience it in actual work.


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## Jacob (30 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> ......
> 
> Here's why it's false - it replaced single iron planes that were laminated and if the irons needed more stability, it would've been cheaper by far to just make a thicker single iron with soft wrought and a thin laminated section.


It wasn't about "stability" it was about pressure in the right place i.e. near the edge.


> People were willing to pay much more for a plane with a double iron than one with a thick single iron.


Because a double iron is more cost effective. Also a thicker iron takes longer to sharpen.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> It wasn't about "stability" it was about pressure in the right place i.e. near the edge.
> 
> Because a double iron is more cost effective. Also a thicker iron takes longer to sharpen.



the double iron showed up and the cost of the plane went up with it. The idea that in the days of blacksmithing, creating a second iron that had to be fitted to the first, slotting the first, creating a screw and threading it (in the 1700s) was less expensive than putting more wrought iron in a single iron is false. 

There are plenty of texts that arrived before "old chippies" were folks working mostly with power tools that described the use of the cap iron. 

economic value obsoletes whatever came before it. The cap iron prevents tearout or limits it, depending on what you want to do, and extends the volume of wood that can be planed by several multiples. It eliminated single iron planes for anything but crude work or very fine finish work because everything in between is where the economic value is. 

Anything from jack work, if needed to all but the finest smoother shavings (like below 2 thousandths of an inch). 

one would sort of expect this kind of reasoning from a new hobbyist, but to advocate as a heavy user of hand tools from start to finish and not understand the function of the cap iron is way out there.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

page 480 - holtzapffel comments about the plane working smoother but harder. it does. There is a smooth feel of resistance from bending the shaving, but the volume of work done with one stroke due to not having a shaving break up makes up for it several times over ...

....unless you have near perfect down grain wood. 









Turning and Mechanical Manipulation: The principles of construction, action, and the application, of cutting tools used by hand : and also of machines derived from the hand tools






www.google.com





It was actually a blacksmith that made an argument that I couldn't really get past when I thought the cap iron was just some kid of archaic fixture and outdated. The argument was the cost of making one and how difficult they are to blacksmith in combination with slotting the iron vs. a single iron plane. 

And too on that in the early 1800s when thicker irons were found in single iron lower cost planes, why someone at that time would pay more for a plane that wasn't better. The cost of a double iron plane was significantly higher due to the labor involved in what would later be done by industrial process. Exposure to really old double irons will show much more manual labor involved in making them, even in factory versions. 

Even with FAS wood now, the effect is so stark that if someone claims they spent some fair amount of a hobby or lifetime working entirely by hand and never got flummoxed and went after solving the problem of risk and poor results - I don't believe that they ever did much hand work. 

The problem now is that people who have spent 10% of their time cleaning up after machines with hand tools, or striking a couple of mouldings or scraping a bunch of stuff think they have the context to make a decision about this. And they're emboldened by people like paul sellers, who was a craft fair maker, not a cabinetmaker, and trained as a joiner in the era of power tools 

It's senseless to try to guess at the function of planes based on advice from people who never had to squeeze economy out of them to do cabinet type work.


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## G S Haydon (30 Aug 2022)

I couldn't be bothered to try and plane this from rough boards. I used the machines at work. It's the most difficult thing I've had to smooth. Hard olive ash, ripples, interlocking and the defect that I wanted to retain had a bloody nasty ledge that wanted to snap.
Not saying it couldn't be done, I just didn't want to but I desperately wanted to use the wood!
Picking clean boards is a huge step to having an easier time at the bench.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> View attachment 142680
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> 
> ...



I find wood for guitars, or whatever else, highly entertaining to plane. to make something bigger like cabinets or whatever, or doors that need to stay flat, nice clear straight wood that saws without surprises and that stays straight and planes smoothly (even if still needing the cap iron) is nice. 

I love freehand grinding chisels, thicknessing bits for guitar parts by hand, etc, but have to admit if it was tuesday and I did it for 3300 workdays before and I had 14 more things on the commission list where there was already a deposit, I'd prefer to have a machine that did things predictably. 

I've relayed this story several times - when I first started, a friend and I got highly figured hard maple that I found difficult to plane and got all manners of nonsense - large scraper plane, small scraper plane, 63 degree mujingfang smoother and in the end, we took the 10 panels for just the same as those shown in an old FWW article "a blanket chest with legs" to a guy an hour away, that guy having hoarded old equipment. One of the machines was a 52 inch beach three spindle oscillating drum (spindle?) sander with progressive grits on it. The panels are something like 16" wide, and the guy accidentally set the machine heavy on the first pass- it sanded of 1/8th inch of thickness in one pass. I would bet the machine was from the 1940s or 1950s. It's probably not cheap to use in terms of sandpaper, but I doubt we spent more than 20 minutes thicknessing those ten panels. 

the last not so happy part about it was that they at in my shop and cupped. I'm looking at them as I set in my basement office - they're still propped against a wall - 14 years later because I never finished making the chest. I eventually scraped them and applied a heavy dose of shellac and they really need to just be scraped and to be honest, I'd rather harvest the wood out of the long panels to laminate into guitar necks. 

What I'm getting at is I totally get it. It's possible to plane what you're showing without any risk. The width of it (and what that implies for taking finish shavings through the length) would make your back ache, though. Holtzapffel's text refers to some very unruly wood being stylish and needing a maker to resort to using a "special glass scraper". 

I'm fairly sure I scraped the board I showed above after planing but it was still a bit hairy feeling - it's end grain. It's also just a junk shelf, and it's only about 2 feet x 14 inches, so the fact that it was unpleasant sticks in my head. 

I can't deny watching dana bourgeois or someone else thicknessing guitar tops on a drum sander or specialty belt sander to get them to a certain stiffness. ...boy, if it's a business, it's different than this is to me as a hobby. 

I did plane my ash bench top with a type 20 stanley 4 in just over one sharpening (after roughing it close to flat with a jointer) at the time that I made the bench just to prove a point about what the cap iron does for productivity. Those round top irons aren't so great in hardwoods, the boards were glued together without any regard to orientation and using one of those halfway-to-saw-temper irons without a cap iron would be tough. 

Difference between your wood and mine - yours is a nice piece of timber! Mine's junk with a big squishy knot.


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## D_W (30 Aug 2022)

I wonder how many people on here think a cap iron doesn't do anything and then go and set a tersa head on a machine as per the instructions. 

I think even my hobbyist friend's DC580 planer has back knives, but he's already replaced the knives with a spiral head as I doubt he ever read anything about setting the back knives. 

And one last thought - more than once, I've heard a pro remark about how much better a portable (almost said disposable) planer does at finish surfacing wood with figure vs. a crudely set large planer. I always thought that was interesting, too, given how there's little to adjust on them....

...the retaining bar on the portable planers- if they're any good - is set close enough to work as a chipbreaker in a heavy cut and prevent lift.


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## Ttrees (30 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> I can't deny watching dana bourgeois or someone else thicknessing guitar tops on a drum sander or specialty belt sander to get them to a certain stiffness. ...boy, if it's a business, it's different than this is to me as a hobby.


Sacrilege


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## thetyreman (30 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> View attachment 142680
> View attachment 142681
> View attachment 142682
> 
> ...



I actually love the defect, without it, the piece would almost look too clinical like a museum piece, that is a really stunning piece of furniture! out of interest what finish did you use?


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## thetyreman (30 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> The problem now is that people who have spent 10% of their time cleaning up after machines with hand tools, or striking a couple of mouldings or scraping a bunch of stuff think they have the context to make a decision about this. And they're emboldened by people like paul sellers, who was a craft fair maker, not a cabinetmaker, and trained as a joiner in the era of power tools


that's not entirely true about sellers, he was a full-time furniture and cabinet maker, and also designs furniture, according to his blogs he still sells pieces for exclusive clients, it's unfair to label him as a simpleton joiner, also the simple things are the most important and most of it comes from joinery, chippendale started off as a joiner and became a master craftsman and furniture maker for the elite.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> that's not entirely true about sellers, he was a full-time furniture and cabinet maker, and also designs furniture, according to his blogs he still sells pieces for exclusive clients, it's unfair to label him as a simpleton joiner, also the simple things are the most important and most of it comes from joinery, chippendale started off as a joiner and became a master craftsman and furniture maker for the elite.



Some time ago, I read an account from him that he moved to the states and did the craft circuit when he was talking about making it. 

He was the one who gave that account. It didn't involve calling himself a full time furniture maker and cabinetmaker - i wonder if his story has been embellished a little. I also wonder if frank strazza was the one who did most of the work on the white house piece he likes to show. 

If you watch the guys at colonial williamsburg work with hand tools and then you watch paul, the difference is enormous. The work quality gap is also really large, but they are fine makers, so one would expect that. 

His true talent is letting out bits and pieces and keeping customers, but I've never run into anyone who pops up like james krenov did (coming out of a model making shop or something in sweden?) and say "I learned from paul". or Rob cosman for that matter. 

They are experts at curating their real clients - not furniture buyers, but people willing to pay for online access.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

not dogging joiners or the craft scene or work that people like to do that's not fine work but they enjoy, by the way. My mother made a great side income off of the craft scene for 40 years. Some of the folks in it felt like they were fine workers, but the vibe is way different. 

I'm just a little skeptical about the story being changed from "do whatever you need to make it, I had to earn my stripes making craft items and selling them each week and living on a shoestring" to the cabinetmaker story for paul. I don't know which is which. 

I see some of the work G. S. does, including the built in - and I personally prefer good built in work over furniture for practical purposes as you can get a lot of use out of $15k of custom work built into a house, but who really gets much utility out of a mediocre $15k highboy that's not much or any better than one that's $2k used. 

it's a matter of calling the balls and strikes right, not whether or not only the home runs count as runs.


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## G S Haydon (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> I actually love the defect, without it, the piece would almost look too clinical like a museum piece, that is a really stunning piece of furniture! out of interest what finish did you use?


Same here! I'd had the wood for many a year. I wanted the defect offset to the side to bring some interest. It allowed just enough to allow the grain to wrap. It needed dramatic timber, to lift the restrained design.
The photo makes it look more yellow than it is. I used a water based hardware oil as I didn't want the ash to turn urine yellow and to retain the contrast with the brown oak doors


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## G S Haydon (31 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> who really gets much utility out of a mediocre $15k highboy that's not much or any better than one that's $2k used.
> 
> it's a matter of calling the balls and strikes right, not whether or not only the home runs count as runs.


There's little or no demand for them for the most part (or any fine furniture) . You can pick up excellent Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture of varying quality to suit your needs for relatively little. You'd struggle to buy the hardware and some of the timber, let alone turn the lights on. There are studio quality furniture makers like Marc Fish. I have a deep respect for his work and those like him but I can't imagine there are many.

Something like a Windsor style chair maker might make a go of it I suppose. Most cabinet makers near us make their money from custom kitchens and built-ins. The last one I spoke to couldn't remember the last time they made a free standing piece, another stopped as he was, for the most part making general joinery. He was previously and engineering guy and now looks after niche motorcycles.


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## Jacob (31 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> the double iron showed up and the cost of the plane went up with it. The idea that in the days of blacksmithing, creating a second iron that had to be fitted to the first, slotting the first, creating a screw and threading it (in the 1700s) was less expensive than putting more wrought iron in a single iron is false.


More "cost effective" means getting a better plane for your money, not necessarily cheaper. The double iron makes a better plane because the blade is more solidly held at the edge. That's what they are for. 
It also means a thinner blade is possible which is easier to sharpen - which is nearly the whole point of the Stanley/Bailey design.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> More "cost effective" means getting a better plane for your money, not necessarily cheaper. The double iron makes a better plane because the blade is more solidly held at the edge. That's what they are for.
> It also means a thinner blade is possible which is easier to sharpen - which is nearly the whole point of the Stanley/Bailey design.


Nothing to do with rigidity Jacob, it was just a marketing gimmick


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## Jacob (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Nothing to do with rigidity Jacob, it was just a marketing gimmick


Bevel up without a cap iron is more of a marketing gimmick. They have lever cap pressing closer to the edge, in place of the cap iron.
The chip "breaking" thing works with "difficult" wood if the cap iron is very close - making the plane perform a bit more like a scraper. But a scraper does it better!


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

Have you ever tried honing the cap iron's edge steeply to compare, i.e @50 or steeper,
or is this mere speculation?
You'll never be able to make a decision about it unless the plane is set up as such,
(easily notable, the shaving straightening will even tell you that)


Before learning how to use a cap iron as intended, I did buy a no.3 for
reversing ribbon striping, lol!
and an no.80 scraper plane, which led me to put my best stock aside, and find more agreeable stuff to work on, as dimensioning with those tools, (mainly the latter) is nuts for many reasons.

Night and day compared to actually doing the opposite now, and selecting the densest material for the job, as the same with selecting for figure goes.

Tom


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Bevel up without a cap iron is more of a marketing gimmick. They have lever cap pressing closer to the edge, in place of the cap iron.
> The chip "breaking" thing works with "difficult" wood if the cap iron is very close - making the plane perform a bit more like a scraper. But a scraper does it better!



The hump was the point, allowing for an inexpensive stamped cap iron instead of a thicker steel cap iron like the type ward makes. 

Nobody can have a serious discussion about anything if someone claims to be very knowledgable about the cap iron and then claim that its purpose was other than improving the action of planing. 

Texts talking about it started to go sideways around the early 1900s. I don't know what changed in shop woodworking by then - maybe that's about when machine thicknessers became common enough for a typical shop to afford. 

I've run into a lot of people in the last ten years who talk about how much hand work they do and then claim that the cap iron is on a plane to hold the iron in and nothing else. It's really bizarre - it's not possible to _not notice how much faster_ you can work with the cap iron set in bench work or planing a finished case without the risk of digging in and ruining something. 

I know exactly two people who tried to do production work with hand tools only - not teach classes, not do site work, not anything else like that - and they took up the cap iron immediately. 

When someone asks about how to dimension by hand, telling them that the cap iron doesn't have a function is just about the worst advice you could possibly give. Few topics on here are actually about dimensioning by hand, and it's easy to write it off if you finish things with machines most of the way. This is the rare case where someone is asking about it.


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## thetyreman (31 Aug 2022)

putting in a 5 degree difference from 45 to 50 on the cap iron edge isn't going to change your life, I tried it and it did nothing at all, no improvement, also tried 55 degrees, again no improvement compared to 45, I don't get it.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Bevel up without a cap iron is more of a marketing gimmick. They have lever cap pressing closer to the edge, in place of the cap iron.
> The chip "breaking" thing works with "difficult" wood if the cap iron is very close - making the plane perform a bit more like a scraper. But a scraper does it better!



A scraper is like racing with a sloth compared to using a plane with the cap iron set. Very occasionally, you'll run across wood that can't be finished by something like french polish without scraping or sanding, but it's still better to plane as well as possible (much faster) to the point before scraping and sanding, and the shape looks much more crisp if the sanding and scraping is minimized. 

Back to the stanley patent, because that's brought up all the time. Stanley can't patent the function of the cap iron - it predated the stanley plane by at least 100 years. the function of creating a mini hump was novel and new, but the function of the cap isn't. 

Relying on a patent and drawing a false conclusion is an example of the systemic problem on a forum that is how pleasant it is for a lot of people to argue about things they don't have much experience with - by choice. It takes less than a week to learn to use a cap iron properly as long as you have decent eyesight. If you don't, then maybe it becomes a little bit more difficult. You end up retracing history if you actually learn to use it properly.


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## Jacob (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> putting in a 5 degree difference from 45 to 50 on the cap iron edge isn't going to change your life, I tried it and it did nothing at all, no improvement, also tried 55 degrees, again no improvement compared to 45, I don't get it.


Never occurred to me to even bother!
I think the tool fiddlers try so many variables that they can't be sure which one is having an effect.
If cap iron geometry is so important then presumably all those capless bevel-up planes don't cut too well? If not why not? 
I always set my cap iron at about 1/16" and yes setting it closer does make it more like a scraper but harder work.
Some fastest cutting planes seem to be without cap irons e.g. scrub.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> putting in a 5 degree difference from 45 to 50 on the cap iron edge isn't going to change your life, I tried it and it did nothing at all, no improvement, also tried 55 degrees, again no improvement compared to 45, I don't get it.



The ideal shape for a cap iron is rounded and not a flat facet. Stanley's cap iron is pretty close. If you condition the cap iron and hone/polish the leading edge, you end up with a tiny area that's very steep and then a varying angle after that. 

I also would not be able to tell much between 50 vs. 55 flat, etc. The difference between a big flat facet at 50 vs. 80 though is drastic, and 80 in a large facet is very undesirable. It's better suited to a machine where the cut depth never changes and there's a jig to set a knife - like the supersurfacer. 

We apparently like to make things difficult. To get an ideal setup with a cap iron, you round, hone the edge to clean it up and get it crisp and that's it. Some level of polish where the shaving meets the cap iron is also beneficial. I think I typically spend less than 2 minutes preparing the cap iron on an older wooden plane or double iron set. Same with stanley planes. hone and rotate the bevel of the cap iron a little bit terminating the stroke with relative steepness (subjectively 60 degrees or so, it'll always end up a little more) and then buff off the wire edge that results after thinning it a little bit. A deburring wheel followed by a buffer is also nice because very few cap irons (except some japanese) are fully hardened, and the deburr/buff deals with the wire edge pretty easily. Just don't buff a leading edge enough to round it over and under so that it will trap a shaving. 

I tested all of these things A/B (comparing them) on a stanley style plane (a millers falls 9) and on a japanese plane. I found, without reading anything, that the rounded profile worked the best. 

A poster on another forum mentioned when I stated that that nicholson says the same thing, which was the first I heard of nicholson. Nicholson's guidance for dimensioning and planing is superb, but it's a little sparse for beginners, I guess. Nicholson is also intention on matching the cap iron to the iron profile (camber) which I haven't seen the benefit to unless the sole follows the camber (like a gutter plane), but there's no harm to it. 

when I tested the 80 degree flat wall, the cap iron becomes very difficult to set - going from being ineffective to too much resistance in a short span. The original supersurfacer video showed some preference for that, but the supersurfacer machines come with a precise setting jig so it doesn't matter if it's hard to set. The jig nails it. The university who did the study also stated flatly that the video was for a planing machine and not for hand tools - they released a separate paper for setting hand tools and it's kind of wishy washy and short. In that, they just more or less said that a shaving that shortens shows when the cap iron is set properly. I think they wanted to be able to provide something paint by number in setting the cap looking at it rather than observing the influence. a "shorter" shaving is their term for one that's become straight or is not curled because the action of the cap iron that straightens the shaving is compression and when someone sent me that paper, I was surprised (and confused) to see what they meant by the shaving being shorter. To say that the shaving straightens or parts of it will straighten once the cap iron is compressing the shavings would've been easier to understand, but the shavings are actually shorter if you measure them. 





They do not actually need to be straight for tearout mitigation to occur and as time goes on, the more wood you dimension, the more you'll favor as little as possible - some observation of that the shaving is straightening if the shaving stays continuous. 

Accurate and efficient dimensioning can't be had if there's significant tearout discontinuous shavings - once you get past jack work if you have a surface like that, you just create a huge series of intermittent cuts. Intermittent cuts dull an iron faster and require a series of starting and stopping. It's easier to stay in a cut than it is to initiate one. Not to mention, if you have some % of tearout even starting on a flat surface, you're already removing that % less from the start. 

So, what's better about the very initial part of the cap being rounded instead of flat? you get better performance in terms of planing effort as you increase shaving thickness. As in, the same amount of tearout control can be had with less resistance. 

If I just absolutely wasn't comfortable with rounding the tip, 50 to 60 degrees or so would be my choice for a flat facet and don't make the flat facet any bigger than it needs to be to control tearout. Making it taller just increases resistance on thicker shavings.


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## Jacob (31 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> .....
> 
> Nobody can have a serious discussion about anything if someone claims to be very knowledgable about the cap iron and then claim that its purpose was other than improving the action of planing.
> .......


Nobody said that.
It improves planing by pinning the blade edge tight against the mouth/frog, making it more rigid and less likely to chatter. 
It also makes it easier to sharpen as thinner blades are possible. Much like the Gillette safety razor. Which came first?


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> There's little or no demand for them for the most part (or any fine furniture) . You can pick up excellent Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture of varying quality to suit your needs for relatively little. You'd struggle to buy the hardware and some of the timber, let alone turn the lights on. There are studio quality furniture makers like Marc Fish. I have a deep respect for his work and those like him but I can't imagine there are many.
> 
> Something like a Windsor style chair maker might make a go of it I suppose. Most cabinet makers near us make their money from custom kitchens and built-ins. The last one I spoke to couldn't remember the last time they made a free standing piece, another stopped as he was, for the most part making general joinery. He was previously and engineering guy and now looks after niche motorcycles.



The same is true here. I've admired some of your built in work - it's clean and crisp and has just the right amount of fancy in context. 

I marvel at folks like george, but not everything needs to be 18th century furniture to be desirable. My house is full. When I started reading forums, it seemed like the only thing the trolls wanted to regard as "real work" was furniture. Anything else supposedly wasn't real making, but you hit the nail on the head - the average person who hasn't smoothed over the few clients willing to pay for furniture could make very fine furniture and never recover the cost of materials in it. 

bottom and top pieces that are nicely made here in the states often show up on facebook market place for a few hundred to barely four figures. which is probably why the folks who think of themselves as fine furniture makers here are often so frustrated and nasty. 

As far as cabinets go - when the economy was booming here, I knew two people who were making custom cabinetry in a small shop. One of the guys died, and the other is an installer now and doesn't make any cabinets. He told me that his minimum daily rate as an installer is $500 and the work is easy to get. 

I met a guy here through raffo on these forums - sort of, at least - who was a professional furniture builder, but when I talked to him, he said almost all of his work was veneer on substrate - and his use of hand tools was generally limited to cleaning things up. Including dovetails - I mentioned to him that I thought that even if everyone is mostly power tools, people do at least want to use chisels to cut dovetails and he said "well, or to clean up machine cut dovetails". 

I get so belligerent about hand dimensioning because it's not that hard to do, it's not that physically difficult if done right, but there are a bunch of little things where the difference between easy and nitpicky or tedious is very small. the productivity rate in doing those things right could be double or triple and most of the advice is bad. Paul Sellers, Rob Cosman and the late DC gave bad advice about dimensioning, but it's not because they have sinister intentions. it's lack of experience, and realistically, there's no market for it. 

Warren Mickley is the lone person I know who is working in a shop without power tools, but he is a specialist and as far as I know, not making complete furniture from start to finish. I think he has so may specialized complementary skills that allow him to do work to help powered shops that he'll always find work, but what he's doing is beyond the scope of a hobby woodworker.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Never occurred to me to even bother!
> I think the tool fiddlers try so many variables that they can't be sure which one is having an effect.
> If cap iron geometry is so important then presumably all those capless bevel-up planes don't cut too well? If not why not?
> I always set my cap iron at about 1/16" and yes setting it closer does make it more like a scraper but harder work.
> Some fastest cutting planes seem to be without cap irons e.g. scrub.



Imagine if you were actually going to do a bunch of work by hand, and not just talk about it..... 

If you suddenly figured out how a cap worked and you realized the effort it saves between the coarse work and fine smoothing, you'd probably be willing to spend half an hour to try a couple of different profiles because figuring out what works better would return the effort 100 fold. 

if you're feeding most things through machine thicknessers and moulding profilers, then maybe it won't. I experimented with several profiles to see which one worked best. Out of courtesy, I wrote at the time what I found, but I'd encourage other people to try if they are serious because the feel and results will leave a much bigger impression than just pondering or reading. 

I later started making planes and suddenly it seemed to be just as important for the dozen and a half or so planes that I gave to others (or sold for the cost of materials) to make sure that whatever I made wouldn't be outdone by anything else. So, I observed further what the different shapes of older caps felt like in actual work when I bought a few planes to examine and look at how the internals were shaped and where the clearance is. 

I also wrote about that out of courtesy. 

The amount of actual paying attention that most of the gurus do before they make a flat comment and insist on it (like modern flat cap irons being better than any vintage types) is pretty minimal. In a lot of cases, that's driven by not figuring out why things were the way they were, concluding something with one or two examples of experience, and ultimately preferring if teaching students, to recommend something new because it prevents students from bogging you down asking how to fix something that's damaged and they don't know it's damaged.

To make a case that you couldn't spend a half hour or an hour finding out what cap iron profile works easier for the same benefit and then spend the next however many years planing several thousand board feet makes no sense at all.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Nothing to do with rigidity Jacob, it was just a marketing gimmick



Stanley had to find something to patent - the cap iron action was well documented in print in various places, so he couldn't patent the function of it breaking chips. But he could patent the function of the hump so that nobody could immediately copy the design. It's pretty novel from the aspect that it halves the amount of steel needed for the cap iron and the spring exists only in a short part of the cap. 

It probably allowed for a thinner iron as a ward cap or something of the sort would really bend a thin iron into a garish looking setup. 

Ward and Mathieson and anyone carefully copying their design pretty much had the ideal cap iron to go with wooden planes, though - the primary bevel of the cap is fairly long and the rounded part at the end is short - it makes a big difference in planing effort and plane clearance vs. some of the earlier fatter caps, and especially vs. some of the cheaply made cap irons now. Some of the early butcher cap irons look really nice, but the rounding is tall and it's pretty easy to see why later fine makers lowered the cap. It would've mattered when it affected shop productivity. 

A good example of a later cap is the ECE design. The chinese maker woodwell (mujingfang) copied these. 






Replacement Blades for Wooden Planes | FINE TOOLS


Whether you are seeking for replacement blades for your wooden plane or trying to start your own planemaking project, here you are in the right place.



www.fine-tools.com





They are incompatible with older planes, have too much spring under the cap (adjustment with a wedge is really poor - the irons don't adjust for depth well, which I guess pushes people toward the bizarre primus device), and the blunt face is solved in those planes by cutting the mortise bigger and removing the plane wear. It must be easier to make the cap design like that since the leading edge can just be milled. 

But I'm fairly sure that bailey patented the hump on the cap iron to protect it from being copied, possibly for function purposes but also for differentiation.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> putting in a 5 degree difference from 45 to 50 on the cap iron edge isn't going to change your life, I tried it and it did nothing at all, no improvement, also tried 55 degrees, again no improvement compared to 45, I don't get it.


It did nothing for me the first time I tried either, as I had my frog adjusted forward
which s_tops_ the effect from working.

However one who "paints by numbers" and uses a flat bevel on their cap iron, (more than likely) will indeed agree that 50 degrees is about the lowest you can go when you still want some camber, as on a smoother for instance, will need the cap iron to be very close, possibly too close on some extremely dense species,
and this is where folks are getting the impression that it works like a scraper,
although we can see it is certainly not the case when we can see thick and straight shavings.

The notable change between 45 and 50 or a hair above (in this "paint by numbers", i.e flat bevel case) will make the difference regarding the mouth setting, as it cannot be set close enough if the mouth is tight
(without other work on the wear, which is of no benefit here, and dare I say seemingly an impediment for panel plane work, should one want thick shavings and not wispy ones.)

So dependent on whether you regard material selection or whatever as a life changing occurrence, is debatable,
Many arguments could be made, take Graham's table for example
A piece like that could be a stepping stone into a livelyhood of commissions

My personal case was that I was getting reactions from tearing out chunks whilst not planing tropical timbers very well, really sweating trying to scrape down to the bottom of the pocks, compared to working cleanly now, with less effort planing, not to even mention scraping as that's for doors and curves, and it ain't fun !

And nearly forgot longevity of the edge which is huge matter also,
I could only plane a stick of some of my densest iroko before the edge failed.
Not the case anymore, as I'm not slamming into knots or reversing grain now.

And another point about that is the cap iron will still work on an edge which needs refreshing.
If one needs an uber sharp iron to eliminate tearout on hardwoods anyway, then that's suggesting not enough influence of the cap is happening.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Your description is what drove me to figure it out. all of the videos that followed and the text references since then back to older texts weren't generally discussed on forums, but I hated working with mediocre machines and resolved to work by hand. 

I made a 55 degree infill smoother, a panel plane and bought a very good quality early 1800s single iron jointer. 

It was terrible. They were all single iron. planes. The worst part was the middle work trying to get from rough work to being ready for smoothing without blowing past a mark, and it felt like walking on ice. Along with gluing a panel together that looked good but varied in grain direction. 

The thing that weighed on me the most in figuring that it must work was Todd Hughes talking about how much more effort it was for a blacksmith to make a double iron than a single iron and he was heckling larry williams about it a little bit (todd did professional blacksmithing work and bought and sold tools and all kinds of other things). The economic argument was the one I couldn't deny. Nothing economically senseless lasts over time. 

I couldn't tell at the time if Warren Mickley was a troll - I thought he might be, but what he said seemed to be credible enough and he torched people at the woodworking shows here in skills challenges like cutting tenons for speed and accuracy, because he actually does it. He also beat everyone in a contest to smooth a given piece of stock the fastest using a bevel up plane, something he doesn't even use. 

At any rate, it took a week to make a cap iron millers falls smoother more capable than the infill that I have (still have it) because I had the luxury of actually working on a relatively large bookcase from rough to finish and could get some hours put in planing with the various planes. It only took a week to get setting the cap iron down to about 15 seconds and that was the end of using single iron bench planes. 

I still have a 17th century jack and that jointer mentioned above to go back to time to time, and I still have the infill. They're fun to play with if you're not actually working on typical lumber and trying to get anything done. Steve Voigt reminded me at one point when I mentioned how stark the difference is that I guess finding really straight lumber (the miller took it upon themselves to cater to the buyer and the quality of sawing was better) was easier, and finding large clear softwood lumber was a lot more common. 

I met Warren earlier this year - he came to my house and we worked through the bears of the day in my shop - he's honest and he does what he says he does. I also let him use my norris 13 panel plane - it's a real boat anchor weight wise, but I will make a copy of it dovetailed with less weight at some point. 

This is such a draw - this subject - to me, because you can buy expensive wood that's not dead straight and just plane it like it's exercise and the worst you'll have to do is very minimal scraping and/or sanding. And you can plane a case that's assembled without any fear. 

I miscalculated how many people would actually like to dimension well, how many have and how many do. I no longer believe anyone does much bench work entirely by hand if they don't go screaming to solve the issue of tearout in regular middle work - it's too aggravating to avoid. 

(my infill smoother is 55 degrees and the mouth is 3-4 thousandths. I thought I was really set up for the long haul after making it. you can't really create any significant damage with it. The infill panel plane I made was 48 degree bed with a 1 hundredth mouth. The ability to have good control over tearout goes away somewhere between 3-4 thousandths and 1 hundredth of an inch. The infill plane on glued panels was intolerable. It had a cap iron but I didn't know to file the mouth on it the way norris and others do with their planes to allow the cap to be advanced all the way to the edge - I did that later, and it was 10x the plane that it had been originally but I sold it for other reasons that have to do with kit components that came with it and bought an older panel plane).


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

I have to make one more plug for Bill Tindall and Steve Elliot. 

when I posted all of this stuff on wood central originally, I got some derision, warren was, I think, celebratory. 

...and maybe a week later, bill sent me an email. in it was a link to a japanese server, and he said "I have something I think you will be interested in seeing". 

it was the K&K video that everyone is used to seeing now, but before it was ever publicly posted. Bill and Steve went to the trouble of actually finding the university who did the study, getting connected to the professor, using I don't know who to communicate (Mia Iwasaki?) and eventually worked out the rights to sharing the video and getting help (I think from Mia, to translate the papers to English). 

if they had not done that, nobody would have ever seen it, and nobody would have the documentation. 

I watched the video and told Bill I didn't like 80 degrees in a hand plane even though the video recommended it, and the difference of a big 80 degree bevel vs. something more like 50 was too stark for me to be wrong about it, and he got back to me and said that the paper itself was clear that the study was for the supersurfacer function and not for hand tools - it took a long time before the hand tool version was translated, and it's really short.

Before releasing the article on wood central, I looked for anyone talking about a cap iron in use - ever, and the only accurate discussion was two people on here that I can recall around 2005 -someone from Finland, and I can't remember them. Maybe they said it twice. And warren. Bob Strawn was also experimenting with one on another forum around 2012 - not sure where that ended up. Well, and Warren. Warren is good at describing generalities and leaving you with something to figure out yourself, but the forum users aren't very good at actually going and figuring out much. 

Anyone else since then who has pointed out old texts and claimed they already knew the stuff, I don't believe it. I think most of the big run-up in talk about hand tools that occurred from the early 2000s until about 6 or 8 years ago was mostly fueled by magazines and LV and LN introducing new tools.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

@D_W Nice to read that Warren had visited you, sounded like fun time all round was had.

Regarding dimensioning by hand for hobbyists, say taking this forum for example,
I'm guessing logistics might be one of the biggest reasoning regarding things here.

Perhaps most in the USA can afford the space of some large iron, you've likely got a huge supply installed already, so some reasoning for skipping the basics there,
compared to here even a decent bench might seem outlandish around these waters and not a workmate and lunchbox P/T tucked into a floating shed 
which seems the way most approach things in UK or Eire.
Seems most folk who work in their back garden with such a setup with aims to make furniture aspire to selling everything and making a huge investment at some stage
and make do with what they have.
I've seen the same when buying machines, and half the old workshop clutter which they've had for 30 years, like bits of undersized ducting or whatever is still there.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

@D_W Funny you mention adjusting the cap for not quite straight shavings, until the consistency comes into play.
I suppose that is the effect I choose, even though I'd say I've gotten used to a bit less camber.
Having once honed my 5 1/2's cap to 70 degrees, I can say it wasn't off the bat apparent that I'd have a choice other than straight shavings straight away, with a really abrupt depth adjustment of the plane.
(whether the plane was having more downforce and this is what I noticed I cannot remember, only that I didn't like for the little play I had for a half hour, should'a spent another half hour and thought about it, i.e backed the cap to as far as I could.
Nearly sounds like that setting the depth of the plane is also more forgiving with a rounded, or smaller "2paint by numbers" bevel?

Cheers
Tom


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

There are probably more working on workmates and small mail order benches than would admit it here. 

I haven't got a great suggestion for that as a bench that moves is really an annoying problem if working entirely by hand. If I still had a smaller bench (started with a sjoberg's entry level bench until I broke the vises a while ago. I boxed the bottom with plywood to make it more rigid and then filled the lower area with ballast). 

At any rate, I would try to affix a very light bench somewhere with a solid connection to a wall. Like two boards attached under to a side wall and one attached out of the end of the bench to a wall 90 degrees from there. 

I have an old machinists bench (wood, bulky, heavy, not very useful other than its weight) that the prior homeowner left here. I pushed the sjoberg's bench up against it so that it couldn't move. 

I'm not sure how much space it takes to work by and, but you do have to be able to have the bench and then move easily. It's not difficult to learn to plane with both hands pretty well, but a lack of open space can be a real problem if you're making furniture.

The typical power tool shop here is mostly neatly laid out (typical meaning someone willing to lay out serious cash) and assembly and storage is elsewhere or there's a large assembly table. I have too many things going in my work area now (metalwork, a whole bunch of space occupied by guitar templates and supplies and guitar wood, and of course woodworking) and would like more open space, but still have a car's worth of open space. More is better. If space is really small, it's not so much the bench work that seems a problem, but staging and assembly and having enough lumber on hand would be a real problem. 

The magazine style huge workspace thing, as far as I can tell, is mostly a post mid 1990s thing. I knew several woodworkers as a kid. they had portable planers, a contractor saw and a small work space. there were people of greater means, I'm sure, but now it's a middle class thing. I think the marketing must've been really effective. 

Last comment - large benches are common here, too, but almost to a T, every one I've seen in person is pretty much spotless at least for my standards. It's really hard to do heavy work on a bench if it can't get dirty or dented.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> @D_W
> Nearly sounds like that setting the depth of the plane is also more forgiving with a rounded, or smaller "2paint by numbers" bevel?
> 
> Cheers
> Tom



Absolutely. I didn't put that plainly enough - the rounded cap will work with a much greater range of shavings. It's really uncommon to have a plane with a cap set for smoothing and have to do anything between sharpening's, but it might not be so easy to say that. I think the cap use is somewhat misunderstood. More typical use for smoothing is a relatively coarse set of shavings (think 3-4 thousandths in cherry) where the cap is engaged, and then back off of the depth for a very thin set of shavings and make a couple of overlapping passes. If the shaving is 1 1/2 thousandths and the cap is set at 8 (I only know a figure like that 8 thousandths because someone pushed me to look at where the cap actually is under a microscope), then the final shavings aren't using the cap and don't need to. It's shavings thicker than those not strong enough to lift that benefit.

if a cap is set with a rounded shape about twice as far away as the thickest shaving anticipated (no measuring is needed, this is just a comment since I later looked at it), then it will go from nothing to more than half of that and work fine. If it's set at 8 thousandths with an 80 degree flat front, then it seems to go from nothing to bulldozer right away.

I guess if following the video's principles, if I'd use a rounded cap at 8 thousndths (or a hundredth or whatever) on a smoother, the video suggests you could blunt a big wall and set the cap further back. There'd be a whole range of shavings above fine smoother shavings that would tear out before the shaving was thick enough to be compressed by the cap iron and fibers prevented from lifting.

(50 or 60 by the way, also does allow for a wider range of shavings, as does keeping the facet on the smaller side. If using a single facet, if it's tiny, it won't work. if it's too big, it'll limit cheating shaving thickness a little higher in a pinch. It's got to be in the middle somewhere, so I'd creep up on it being effective rather than just making it big and trying to correct it later). 

Stanley's design is so wonderful because you can pretty much just take the stock cap iron if it's well made and "trace" the front rounding and it'll get steepened a little at the terminus. It'd be a shame to try to hone a flat facet on it.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> the video suggests you could blunt a big wall and set the cap further back. There'd be a whole range of shavings above fine smoother shavings that would tear out before the shaving was thick enough to be compressed by the cap iron and fibers prevented from lifting.
> 
> (50 or 60 by the way, also does allow for a wider range of shavings, as does keeping the facet on the smaller side. If using a single facet, if it's tiny, it won't work. if it's too big, it'll limit cheating shaving thickness a little higher in a pinch. It's got to be in the middle somewhere, so I'd creep up on it being effective rather than just making it big and trying to correct it later).
> 
> Stanley's design is so wonderful because you can pretty much just take the stock cap iron if it's well made and "trace" the front rounding and it'll get steepened a little at the terminus. It'd be a shame to try to hone a flat facet on it.


Did you discuss this with Warren, AFAIK he was still suggesting @80 w/rounded profile.

Food for thought about having a wall, I must look a bit more closely at mine,
I'd doubt it would be that noticeable for me @50, but might just be worth taking a look.
Be nice to have two identical cap irons to find out, but as is what you say makes me 
not want to find out on a timber which I don't need to work on yet.

Nice to know of some reasoning behind why honing steeper might not work well
i.e for thinnish shavings because of the distance, so quite interesting to delve into the origins of the first thin double irons with that specific profile.


All the best
Tom


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## thetyreman (31 Aug 2022)

also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it, it's much easier to control the bevel on the cap iron of the modern LN/hock type of cap iron, the most important thing is how the cap iron mates to the blade imo, which I learnt from david charlesworth (not cosman) as for high angle planes, I like them, it's how I plane really difficult figured woods or woods with reversing grain with no tear out at all, usually for final surfacing, I can't say I agree that high angle planes have no use, they have their place but it's a specialist tool, if I was working in australia using their exotic woods they'd be essential, flamed jarrah for example.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Did you discuss this with Warren, AFAIK he was still suggesting @80 w/rounded profile.
> 
> Food for thought about having a wall, I must look a bit more closely at mine,
> I'd doubt it would be that noticeable for me @50, but might just be worth taking a look.
> ...



We were in my shop, so I didn't see anything of warren's. I think he says something about the last little bit being stepped up to a very steep angle, but that part probably isn't very tall and the rest may follow the contour of the stock cap iron more closely. He didn't protest about anything that I did while he was in house, though, and I think he saw enough to know that I wasn't full of it, both on the wood and toolmaking sides. 

I think he may stop by again - I'll ask him when he does. It's a whole lot easier to discuss this kind of stuff in person. 

the progression I mentioned is important for quick work. The cap is set to take the next to last shaving thickness, and then the surface is refined with a couple of passes of shavings too thin for a cap iron to be needed. Wood that doesn't plane nicely with this method is either usually junk or is very ribboned with opposing directions and very soft wood in some of the ribboning that won't plane the same as the wood around it. 

At some point, if wood is so bad that there's a constant fight to set the cap iron close enough but not have accordion shavings, then scraping and sanding after planing to a tolerable point is better. It's still far better (faster) to plane as close as possible to the point where you jump off to a scraper or sandpaper.


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## raffo (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it



You're forgetting the whole class of double iron wooden planes. Those and the Bailey type cap irons have, cumulatively, near 300 years of continuous use.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

I've got a load of this stuff at me folks, whatever it is beside the iroko and meranti, it's the toughest stuff I've encountered
and the cap needs to be so close that the smallest change i.e a bit too much off a corner will require fixing.
I can still comb the fibres with this stuff, but reckon a better finish can be achieved
with just a little more influence, as the cap cannot be set closer.









Same deal with some blackwood, be nice to have a little room for error, without any tradeoff.
I'd still be inclined to read the grain on those examples,




So it would be nice to never have to question if some piece of these densest of tropicals may ever bite you.
As this is nice to have, if even for on the sites like 50 degrees on a Bailey cap would!
i.e no suck it and see for iroko, and no grain direction needed to be noted.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

thetyreman said:


> also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it, it's much easier to control the bevel on the cap iron of the modern LN/hock type of cap iron, the most important thing is how the cap iron mates to the blade imo, which I learnt from david charlesworth (not cosman) as for high angle planes, I like them, it's how I plane really difficult figured woods or woods with reversing grain with no tear out at all, usually for final surfacing, I can't say I agree that high angle planes have no use, they have their place but it's a specialist tool, if I was working in australia using their exotic woods they'd be essential, flamed jarrah for example.



they have their use for people who won't use a cap iron long enough to get better with a cap iron than they can be with a high angle plane. 

The reason I've gone on at length on this thread is because it's actually about dimensioning. I was so taken by how much better a stanley plane could be than my 55 degree infill with an office paper mouth gap - think brese plane, because that's what the iron and cap iron are and I pretty much used ron's adaptation of the norris no 13) that I thought this was the thing for everyone. 

But I've realized since that there's no great effort economy gained by using the cap iron instead of high angle planes if someone has a good machine planer and really isn't interested in sizing things by hand. I'm not a huge fan of bevel up planes, but I did get one testing the whole edge buffing thing, and tested it on a block plane. Short 5 degrees of the intended angle and heavy buffing on the bevel side and they will do great. if one is set 60 effective and buffed, it should plane anything smoother shaving thickness that could reasonably be planed. The edge life is a bit short compared to a plane with a cap iron, but that can be combatted with speeding up sharpening. 

A cap iron will handle anything that can be planed in australia as well as anything up to mid 60s in bevel angle, and how hard the wood is won't matter much. It can, especially if silica is present, create some problems to deal with in terms of edge damage, but that can be handled better with adjusting edge geometry (better handling it that way than trying to go up the ladder in costly specialty steels). 

There are woods that won't plane well, though - thinking of stuff like macassar ebony with characteristic "wrinkles" across their length. No clue what those are, but they don't plane well with much of anything, and that also appears in other hard woods like cocobolo, etc. Eventually if planing just OK and then scraping and sanding makes more sense. 

Or for the well kitted, finishing the thicknessing with a drum sander. 

This part doesn't seem believable at first - that a common stanley plane will match a plane with a 65 degree iron, but they will. I solved getting stock irons to hold up in really really hard wood about two years ago. The problem isn't abrasion resistance, it's just initial edge damage due to lack of strength - the geometry is so important compared to the steel that getting harder irons only solves or improves the situation a tiny bit and maybe not at all.


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> I've got a load of this stuff at me folks, whatever it is beside the iroko and meranti, it's the toughest stuff I've encountered
> and the cap needs to be so close that the smallest change i.e a bit too much off a corner will require fixing.
> I can still comb the fibres with this stuff, but reckon a better finish can be achieved
> with just a little more influence, as the cap cannot be set closer.
> ...



I see the ribboning. the trouble with ribboning when it's really obnoxious is that it's more or less like runout into the face and some of it will be facing straight into the cap iron or right up the bed angle. It's difficult to plane fibers no matter what if they are oriented really close to the bed angle of the plane, You can turn the plane around and plane the ones causing trouble, but others will be facing the bed angle then. 

there are two follow-up cases. If fuzz and damage is really minor, it literally will disappear in a french polish - but almost nobody does that. 

otherwise, scrape and finish with a dull scraper so that the finish uptake will be the same as planed areas if that's important. In the world of guitars, that stuff gets buzzed through a drum sander. Occasionally, anything quartered will have some early wood that is extremely soft living among grain lines that are not, and the soft stuff will be fragile and trouble to plane if parts of it are "pointing" back into the iron.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> A cap iron will handle anything that can be planed in australia as well as anything up to mid 60s in bevel angle, and how hard the wood is won't matter much. It can, especially if silica is present, create some problems to deal with in terms of edge damage, but that can be handled better with adjusting edge geometry (better handling it that way than trying to go up the ladder in costly specialty steels).
> 
> There are woods that won't plane well, though - thinking of stuff like macassar ebony with characteristic "wrinkles" across their length. No clue what those are, but they don't plane well with much of anything, and that also appears in other hard woods like cocobolo, etc. Eventually if planing just OK and then scraping and sanding makes more sense.
> 
> *Or for the well kitted, finishing the thicknessing with a drum sander.*


Or persevering with the non buffed edge geometry and planing where the bench says instead!


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

Nothing soft about the stuff I posted, that's at least a hundred years old huge window frames which had rusty nails everywhere, and there's not much density lost like there would be if it were iroko or something else. (no rot penetration)
It's pure silica and is twice to three times the weight as some heavy iroko , so seemingly another level of influence neseccairy compared to the ribboning from say iroko or sapelle which ain't the worst of those examples.

Interesting to note it sounds like you reckon the cap iron may not totally be the answer for this kinda timber!
i.e I'm not going to improve much on what I have now, @ a conservative 50 or 51 degrees

Tom


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

can you define "comb the fibers" (americanized that) and "plane where the bench says"?

Does comb mean that the fibers in the ribboning are fuzzy?


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Nothing soft about the stuff I posted, that's at least a hundred years old huge window frames which had rusty nails everywhere, and there's not much density lost like there would be if it were iroko or something else. (no rot penetration)
> It's pure silica and as heavy so another level of influence neseccairy compared to the ribboning from say iroko or sapelle which ain't the worst of those examples.
> 
> Interesting to note it sounds like you reckon the cap iron may not totally be the answer for this kinda timber!
> ...



I have always said, but I guess it's probably difficult to find in the volume, that a cap iron will plane anything reasonable to plane, but sometimes there are aspects about wood that are not good for planing no matter what. And sometimes they won't even scrape well even if they are hard. 

Older wood is definitely more brittle and I'd bet the contrast between hard wood and soft fibers making up the ribboning gets worse after those soft fibers release all of their volatiles over the years and become low density and brittle. 

Anything like that is sort of a chore because it won't take coarse scraping well, either. I cannot do much of anything with a #80 with wood that's not good to plane, but a well prepared scraper with a fine edge can occasionally go a step beyond. 

I make the comment about drum sander often, but I don't have one. I think it opens up a whole world of working with thin wood that has terrible characteristics, and on something like this, you could get close with one and zip the wood through. 

If you let me french polish a piece of wood, then there's not much I can't plane because the hair that's left and the difference in density will disappear in a french polish. French polish is semi magical for ribboned wood that's been planed but still is fuzzy. if the standard is applying oil and wax only, then that's a tough go for some stuff.


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## Ttrees (31 Aug 2022)

Aye, fuzzy in both directions when planed, like my auntie's old car seats.
Not tearout as such, but fuzz depending on which end you look at the timber.








And I find planing where the bench says, visual feelers if you will,




requiring a long angle poise lamp like so, makes one see where the plane will be hungrier, and was quickly half used, regarding that blackwood with a dull iron.
An easier way to work with a plane which maybe in need of a sharpen with such timbers, or indeed for planing a really thick finish off.
Not saying that it may be comparable to suggest the trips to the sharpening setup would be similar, but most of the time it's just a bit of finish I have to remove,
and may well visit the buffer when I get working that stuff.
If the edge lasts twice as good, then it's a no brainer!


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## D_W (31 Aug 2022)

if the wood has silica in it, the buffer will get you seemingly absurd planing distances. For example, a smoother that will plane 75 linear feet before it stops in cocobolo may plane 400-500 feet before clearance becomes a concern. 

the trouble with it is just simply that the buffer imitates the profile of abrasive wear, so off the bat, the plane feels like it's halfway out of clearance if it's modified enough to tolerate silica. And then it plane several hundred feet, anyway. It's definitely better than splitting shavings for a tiny amount of footage and getting very little done. 

I also planed corian, which is no damage and pure abrasion - just have to sharpen often with it. I didn't plane it to thickness, obviously. I planed to a mark and planed the built up edges with it (that may sound odd if you haven't used corian - you have to build the edges yourself by laminating it with special glue and then sanding, routing or planing off the excess. it handsaws and planes well, but needs to be sanded to finish...we'll avoid going down that road too far. I found it easier in some cases to plane parts of it than to engineer getting the router in place. Only had to use it once. 

It was murder on tracksaw blades, though, and once they wear and there's a lot of rubbing it smells like death, and so does the special super epoxy that cures quickly. 

At any rate, if you're getting dings in the edge of the iron in just regular planing, modifying the edge geometry is worthwhile. It will give up some abrasion/clearance, but literally eliminate edge damage due to small dirt or silica. It's stark - and the volume that you're planing remains a full shaving compared to pitiful little 1/4 weight broken apart junk.


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## G S Haydon (31 Aug 2022)

Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.

The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.

Single iron planes are cheaper and easier to make yet they were wiped out. Dodo.

I'd urge any readers to give it a try, it's worth it!


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## Tony Zaffuto (31 Aug 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.
> 
> The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.
> 
> ...


This thread should not go under! Lots of good info and things to try!

i forgot the most important word!


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## Jacob (1 Sep 2022)

G S Haydon said:


> Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.
> 
> The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.
> 
> ...


I agree.
Except that in my experience it's more theoretical than practical. Many happy hours tool fiddling with small pieces of "difficult" timber shows that it is possible as you say, but when it comes to a whole table top it's no go. The "difficult" bits are all over the place, to different degrees and in different directions.
So it's out with the belt sander!
I've done a lot of table tops mostly in sycamore.


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## Jacob (1 Sep 2022)

raffo said:


> You're forgetting the whole class of double iron wooden planes. Those and the Bailey type cap irons have, cumulatively, near 300 years of continuous use.


.....and the Stayset two piece. I've got several of these, not essential but are handy.
What about the low angle bevel up planes? No cap irons, is this possible? 

"Dimensioning" seems to mean different things:
1 sawing fresh cut wood to useful size before seasoning,
2 sawing sawn stuff to size to a project cutting list,
3 planing these pieces to finished size
4 in the case of timber yards, planing long lengths all 4 sides "planed all round" (PAR or mouldings) for retail trade. Sometimes sold as PSE (planed square edge) 
If you google it seems to be very confusing with lots of bad advice for beginners!
The classic common novice mistake is to attempt to plane stock _before_ it has been reduced to cutting list sizes.


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## D_W (1 Sep 2022)

Jacob said:


> I agree.
> Except that in my experience it's more theoretical than practical. Many happy hours tool fiddling with small pieces of "difficult" timber shows that it is possible as you say, but when it comes to a whole table top it's no go. The "difficult" bits are all over the place, to different degrees and in different directions.
> So it's out with the belt sander!
> I've done a lot of table tops mostly in sycamore.



I'm not unfamiliar with belt sanders - i have three now, including a 27 pound dead flat hulk that's nice and is a treat to use, but I have little to use it on. If a belt sander is faster than planing, then there is more for you to learn. It is the case that if something is 3 feet in on a table, it's a lot easier to hold on to a belt sander and just let it run than it is to get in that far from both sides with a plane (backache). 

The part of this that's useful is what you're describing, not test pieces. 

It's too bad custard is no longer here. He mastered it almost right away and flatly said there are other ways to do the same thing, but the plane was faster. 

the fact is almost nobody knows how to use it well and the lack of discussion until I started beating the drum is proof of it. 

Being told about it in a school class isn't the same as learning to use it. 

powered hand planer and wide belt sander are faster than a plane, but no belt sander is.


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## Jacob (1 Sep 2022)

D_W said:


> ........
> 
> the fact is almost nobody knows how to use it well and the lack of discussion until I started beating the drum is proof of it.


Have you ever planed a large table top say 8'x3', in a moderately difficult wood like sycamore, perfectly and entirely by hand?


D_W said:


> Being told about it in a school class isn't the same as learning to use it.
> 
> powered hand planer and wide belt sander are faster than a plane, but no belt sander is.


Oh yes it is, especially on a large surface! Start with 40 grit if necessary and work through the grits to say 100 grit, then take it from there with an ROS.


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## D_W (1 Sep 2022)

Jacob said:


> .....and the Stayset two piece. I've got several of these, not essential but are handy.
> What about the low angle bevel up planes? No cap irons, is this possible?
> 
> "Dimensioning" seems to mean different things:
> ...



Almost nobody who tries to teach dimensioning actually does it. Why they teach it, I don't know.

A stayset isn't very useful for someone using a cap iron like a cap iron, but if you're setting it off, I guess it's Ok. i've had two records with staysets but didn't care for either one. They're not as good when the cap is set close and it's not immediately apparent why. they will allow shavings under more easily than a well fitted stanley cap iron. 

You'll have to excuse me for dismissing any statement about bevel up planes ever being a serious tool outside of a miter plane set with a 60 degree bevel to strike edges. Bevel up planes exist for one reason - because a beginner has little to learn to use them, but they will punish a serious user with slowness and awkwardness in setup and use (like how much camber they need and how much more often you have to go to the stones). 

Block planes have nothing to do with dimensioning, and the oft-taught end grain cutting with them is a big detriment - hard on the hands and much slower than just using a bench plane, and you have the conundrum of figuring out whether you want to deal with tearout or resistance when you set the bevel. 

I'm not sure why you keep repeating the comment about PAR and cutting things to size. Anyone who is dimensioning by hand will figure those things out quickly, along with joining most things before planing and not worrying about grain direction over aesthetics when joining panels. There are cases where you do want to size the wood first and then cut it - especially if you're going to strike a moulding. 



This sticking isn't "test pieces", it's being dimensioned for use as trim. 

Squareness is by feel, too - anyone who dimensions by hand will start to talk less about using straight edges and do little checking for squareness as you can feel it. The only thing that can be offputting is if grain direction creates an illusion and you question yourself. 

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/MKvMRJE.jpg)

This is squareness right off of planing. 

this is exactly the kind of work where the double iron excels, keeping the planing neat, steady, efficient and keeping the cut constant so that you can feel what's going on with the wood, feel square and not have uneven cut thickness. 

it's a shame that this art is lost, because it's physically pleasing and freeing to be able to do it without being concerned about ruining wood or tedious arrangements of grain to try to make everything downgrain.


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## D_W (1 Sep 2022)

you can see one of the few power tools that I use in the second picture - not sure why the link isn't live. An OSS for the inside corners of guitars. Dandy thing. Not very fast, but perfection and squareness on inside curves of a guitar is one thing that is really difficult by hand. 

So is cutting a perfect binding channel compared to using a bearing bit in a die grinder (uneven tops make a router a no go).


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## D_W (1 Sep 2022)

There are other things that dimensioning by hand will impart quickly - feel and setup. This is a test rebate, not for my work, but I have a lot of moving fillisters and once in a while, someone will ask if I'd let one go. I don't have great faith that people know how to set these up properly - it's not hard, but you have to do it and understand the aspects of it and then the tool is efficient and in most work does not leave anything to clean up. 

I fitted / cleaned up the plane in the background (an ECE jack) for someone, and then set up this rebate plane and when they're set up properly, they can cut so heavily that the shaving chatters because the finger of the wedge can only go down so far. 

But one can zoom in on this picture and look at the quality of the side wall and the corner and get the idea quickly that rough fast work doesn't need to be sloppy. 



if there's always a machine to turn to, this kind of stuff is never really learned that well. it's awfully practical, though, and part of the art.


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## D_W (1 Sep 2022)

Tony Zaffuto said:


> This thread should not go under! Lots of good info and things to try!
> 
> i forgot the most important word!



Tony, if you're ever *really* bored, i'm 7 miles north of the city. My shop is messy, but if you can get past that, you're welcome to stop in and play with the tools.


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## Tony Zaffuto (1 Sep 2022)

D_W said:


> Tony, if you're ever *really* bored, i'm 7 miles north of the city. My shop is messy, but if you can get past that, you're welcome to stop in and play with the tools.


I will take you up on that one of these days! My powder metal plant (Metaltech, Inc.) is 85 miles from you, and your welcome anytime.


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