# A planing question.



## Andy Kev. (13 Jul 2017)

Good Afternoon All,

I've noticed a phenomenon which crops up fairly often when planing a board. If there is e.g. a bit of a hump in the middle as you plane along, it is possible by concentrating on that bit to get rid of it and indeed reduce it to a very slight concavity. How can it be then that when you subsequently make full length passes the hump reappears? The same can happen where there's a bit of a drop off at one end.

I initially put this down to my planing technique but I'm not sure that that is the problem as there are some boards which plane nicely square and flat and stay that way, although my technique could be faulty because if I'm doing something wrong then by definition I don't know what it is. I've found that as I become more experienced, I can deal with this sort of thing more quickly but I still don't get it as it seems to defy all logic. Could stresses in the wood itself be the cause?


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## D_W (13 Jul 2017)

If the sole of the plane isn't concave, it's likely technique. Try to take even full passes after you've got the mild concave dip that you mentioned that you put into the board to relieve the initial hump.

I think what you're describing is fairly common.


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## essexalan (13 Jul 2017)

What I do is check both sides of the board and plane the side that is concave first you can shim the ends to prevent rocking but I don't bother, plane one edge square and then go after the convex side. No idea if this is the correct procedure but it works for me. Otherwise the convex side will push down in the middle and you will never get it flat. As DW says trying this with a concave sole on your plane is a bad idea and technique is important. Of course if the other side of the board is already flat then it is either your plane or technique, checking for wind will of course be part of this process.


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## Andy Kev. (13 Jul 2017)

That's my method too and my planes are definitely flat soled and I always check for wind. The fact that some boards plane like a dream lead me to believe that I'm essentially getting the technique right and as I say I do eventually sort out the awkward ones. It's the repeated reappearance of the same "fault" that flummoxes me. Maybe I'm no applying enough downward pressure in the middle of the pass.


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## D_W (13 Jul 2017)

Andy Kev.":2pucskbz said:


> That's my method too and my planes are definitely flat soled and I always check for wind. The fact that some boards plane like a dream lead me to believe that I'm essentially getting the technique right and as I say I do eventually sort out the awkward ones. It's the repeated reappearance of the same "fault" that flummoxes me. Maybe I'm no applying enough downward pressure in the middle of the pass.



It's not so much the middle of the board, it's getting good even passes so that you're not planing off the ends. When you're doing the final work dimensioning something, and the middle work (try planing, jointing, etc), the skill to develop is definitely taking off an even layer across the board after you've gotten it relatively flat. I'd bet that there are a lot of people who can get a board flat at some point, but who can make it "unflat" as they're working toward final dimension or final finish. 

Thicker shavings help (until the final cuts), because you don't lose patience or get tempted to spot remove areas - or lose track of what you're doing because you have to take 100 shavings to remove a relatively small amount of wood. Then final smoothing or jointing is just enough to get continuous overlapping shavings. 

I'd suggest finding a problem board, and use a long plane and do the following after you've gotten the board concave:
* start a series of passes holding the plane down at the front knob, pushing only on the handle forward at that point and not down
* finish the cut with your hand off of the front knob so that only the back of the plane has pressure on it

While some wood can relieve itself unpredictably, I would suspect that the issue is down pressure on the rear handle/tote at the start of the cut and down pressure on the knob at the end of the cut.


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## Andy Kev. (13 Jul 2017)

D_W":1uyejkk3 said:


> Andy Kev.":1uyejkk3 said:
> 
> 
> > That's my method too and my planes are definitely flat soled and I always check for wind. The fact that some boards plane like a dream lead me to believe that I'm essentially getting the technique right and as I say I do eventually sort out the awkward ones. It's the repeated reappearance of the same "fault" that flummoxes me. Maybe I'm no applying enough downward pressure in the middle of the pass.
> ...


That's very useful, thanks. I actually follow the technique you describe in the last few sentences but there is one thing you have highlighted that I probably don't do enough and that is taking thick shavings with the jointer. Most authors are quite clear on e.g. rough old shavings with the jack and/or scrub plane and superfine shavings with the smoother but the shavings from the jointer don't seem to get too much of a mention. So I'll thicken up on the jointer tomorrow evening.


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## G S Haydon (13 Jul 2017)

"I'd suggest finding a problem board, and use a long plane and do the following after you've gotten the board concave:
* start a series of passes holding the plane down at the front knob, pushing only on the handle forward at that point and not down
* finish the cut with your hand off of the front knob so that only the back of the plane has pressure on it"

Good description, David. Just stick with it Andy, it's very easy to make a piece of wood convex. I'm sure the more you practice and review the better it'll get.


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## Corneel (13 Jul 2017)

A trick to learn how to pressure the plane during a full length stroke is "tryingto dig a hole in the middle of the board". When you do full length strokes with a long plane, then digging that hole really isn't going to happen, but trying to do that helps you to put pressure on the front of the plane on the start and on the back of the plane at the end.


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## Ttrees (13 Jul 2017)

I use a 5 1/2 and never focus any pressure on the plane.
I have a long dead flat composite bench that I can trust like a surface plate.
To make sure its flat, you need two lengths the same length as the bench, plane them to fine tolerance,matching the benchtop, and you match these two pieces together and see no gap...ok

So, say the bottom of the board is dead flat....and were planing the top side.
I have found with the no.8, it has a tendency to want to dive off the end 
making the board not sit on the ends when you flip it over to check.
and the no 4 has a tendency to do the opposite, scooping the timber.
I do take stop shavings, and one full length thin shaving to finish it off.
I use the bench for checking this afterwards to see if it turns like a propeller or is pivoting on the ends .
I would like to try a no5 or a 6 and see what happens. 

I test for wind by attempting to rock the corners.
On a plank with a bend, I go back and fourth depending on how much deflection the board has.
always having the board sitting on each end, or dead flat by the time I am close

I found it strange you didn't mention the size of plane you are using.
Maybe I did not read correctly
Tom


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## woodbrains (13 Jul 2017)

Hello,

Corneel has it, try to plane a slight hollow. You won't, but the action of trying to, by trying to take a thicker shaving in the middle of the board, will counteract the convexity you are getting. If you think about how a plane works, it will always produce a convex edge on a board, and the more strokes taken will make the phenomenon more prevalent. It becomes second nature to increase pressure towards the centre of the board; I don't think about it any more, it is just automatic.

Mike.


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## matthewwh (14 Jul 2017)

Yep, Corneel and DW are on the right track with the remedy.

The thing to bear in mind is that a plane doesn't make things flat automatically, it provides the ability to make the board more convex - with full length shavings, or more concave with less than full length ones. It's a bit like steering a bike, you need to be able to turn the handlebars in order to steer a straight path and you need to be conscious of the direction you are going and make regular small corrections and counter corrections.

Applying pressure in the correct places as described above, minimises the convexifying effect of your full length passes and maximises the concaving effect of the short ones. 

Another solution would be to take mostly short passes interspersed with the occasional full one - you can't hollow beyond the thickness of a shaving without the plane indicating by stopping cutting that it's time for a couple of sets of full length ones. You pass through flat with your first full length full width shaving on the way back from concave, stop there and your board should be within a thou or two. 

Admittedly this is a slower technique than the one DW describes above, but I find it is more forgiving of lapses in concentration. Both will provide good results so I suppose the answer is to try both and see which you prefer. If you really want to improve your technique David Charlesworth's recently re-shot DVD 'Precision Planing' covers it all in much greater depth. 

I would put the reason for it happening intermittently down to lapses in concentration, I know I have them when planing and realise I need a few minutes break. If 'applying pressure correctly' is a remedy then it stands to reason that occasionally forgetting to do so might be the cause. 

The other thing that might help when doing faces three and four is chamfering the waste around the edges down to your gauge line before you start and colouring in the chamfers in with a pencil, a flatter chamfer gives you an enhanced measurement of how much depth you have left to remove, so you can see if one corner is getting low, or if you've got a high spot to address.


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## Ttrees (14 Jul 2017)

I know I keep banging on about the same thing, and probably tires some folks, as you guys have way,way more experience 
than I, and I understand it might not be feasible to refer to your bench every time,
But I have failed to get as flat of a surface, as I can with using the bench.

I have tried the all these theoretical methods mentioned, and keep them in the bank.
Maybe they will would work for me with a no.6, so I won't dismiss them.
I like the no.51/2 for whatever length of piece 

Going back to the bench again :roll: 
I find it very strange that there is no bench design that is designed to accommodate the sag in a benchtop.
I have very carefully shimmed my benchtop to have the slightest crown along the length, say a thou, or two
Maybe it's not crowned, but it certainly is not the opposite.
I have some salvaged door panels across acting as a shelf, some stacked door rails on that, and two boards
bridging between.
One of these boards has a banana shape, which I kept shaving down to get to the tolerance I wanted.
So in essence it is a sprung shim, or whatever you might call it.

I have a aluminum beam like a long spirit level, that I'll probably use for the time I can't use the benchtop as reference.
That's if I don't get a no.6 first, and it does that theoretical job mentioned, without needing reference.

Tom


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## Andy Kev. (14 Jul 2017)

matthewwh":jpxa6zdk said:


> Yep, Corneel and DW are on the right track with the remedy.
> 
> The thing to bear in mind is that a plane doesn't make things flat automatically, it provides the ability to make the board more convex - with full length shavings, or more concave with less than full length ones. It's a bit like steering a bike, you need to be able to turn the handlebars in order to steer a straight path and you need to be conscious of the direction you are going and make regular small corrections and counter corrections.
> 
> ...


I'm grateful for your idea of a combination of mostly short and a few long passes. It certainly makes sense in an intuitive way. As I pointed out above, I do use all the prescribed techniques but perhaps don't apply them competently enough. 

However, none of this explains the fact that I can get about 20% of boards bang on and in a relatively short time e.g. last Saturday a friend who is very keen on his festool powertools came round because he found it hard to believe that you can get a better surface with hand tools (and he'd never had a plane in his hand). I was able to demonstrate getting an 18" length of Zirbel Pine dead flat on the face side and face edge in well under 10 minutes. Admittedly Zirbel is the easiest to plane wood I have encountered (and obviously that is why I chose it) but by rights I should have had the above difficulties with it too. The key thing being the reinstatement of unevenness having eliminated it. That said, the replies have given me a lot of food for thought and I will be practising this weekend.


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## bugbear (14 Jul 2017)

Corneel":34bbv0pb said:


> A trick to learn how to pressure the plane during a full length stroke is "tryingto dig a hole in the middle of the board". When you do full length strokes with a long plane, then digging that hole really isn't going to happen, but trying to do that helps you to put pressure on the front of the plane on the start and on the back of the plane at the end.



Yeah - shortest version is - "try to plane hollow; you _can't_ but you'll end up planing flat"

Much easier to visualise and do than pushing on the knob at the start of the stroke, and changing to the handle at the end of the stroke, equal pressure in the middle of the stroke, although it's actually the same thing!

BugBear


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (14 Jul 2017)

Andy Kev.":3ushf0bc said:


> I've noticed a phenomenon which crops up fairly often when planing a board. If there is e.g. a bit of a hump in the middle as you plane along, it is possible by concentrating on that bit to get rid of it and indeed reduce it to a very slight concavity. How can it be then that when you subsequently make full length passes the hump reappears? The same can happen where there's a bit of a drop off at one end....



There are two different issues here: the first is getting rid of the hump, and the second is creating it again.

All planes want to follow the surface _unless one makes a deliberate effort to either plane into it or over it_. Short planes are more susceptible to this than long planes - short planes follow the undulations of a board more closely. 

In your example, you deliberately planed into the hump to remove it. Then you planed over it and created it again. That is down to technique. It is possible to use a short plane to plane flat - Paul Sellers bases all his projects on this. The key is even pressure across the plane - neither more pressure at the toe nor more pressure at the heel. To do this, push the plane from low down on the handle. Avoid pushing near the top - that will force the vector of effort towards the toe. Low down, the vector goes forward only = even pressure across the sole.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## D_W (14 Jul 2017)

It's no wonder that many people give up on stuff like this!! We answer a question 8 times, and I am guilty of it, too, so I'm not pointing fingers.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (14 Jul 2017)

Some answer it better, Dave! 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Andy Kev. (14 Jul 2017)

D_W":1eycnpcy said:


> It's no wonder that many people give up on stuff like this!! We answer a question 8 times, and I am guilty of it, too, so I'm not pointing fingers.


Not to worry. Every slightly different take has added value in its own way. A synthesis of them with the experience I already have should, I hope, set me on the right road.


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## CStanford (14 Jul 2017)

I've never quite solved this "problem" so I just make a few extra passes in the middle when wrapping up, test with straightedge looking for an ever so slight concavity from these last few passes. Occasionally a workpiece should be dead flat and not a touch concave. I just make fewer passes through the middle. A board with a slight and gradual concavity looks dead flat to the eye.

Simple enough for this Simpleton.

As long as you don't go beneath gauged thickness during the process then it doesn't matter all that much how you get there, unless you're fond of hair shirts and/or an uber-perfectionist. In that case, being a machinist could be the greater calling.


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## matthewwh (14 Jul 2017)

I think it's wonderful that we get so many different perspectives; possibly confusing for a beginner reading threads like this, but nonetheless it demonstrates that there are many techniques to achieve the same end.

In answer to Ttrees', I'm currently going through a 'hermit woodworking' phase, so I'm operating at the opposite end of the spectrum from you. Having just moved house all of my tools are packed away, so rather than unpacking them I have set about building a new bench with very simple tools, a wooden try plane, marking gauge, couple of saws, two chisels etc. 

The temporary bench I'm working on is a rough sawn 3" slab of waney edged walnut, crudely balanced on a cupboard, with a pinch dog hammered into one end for a planing stop. It's fair to say that I wouldn't recommend a wobbly plank as a long term solution, and the thing that I'm building is a flat square stable bench, but nonetheless the components are still coming out square and true.


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## David C (18 Jul 2017)

Well, I don't agree with much of the above.

In my workshop we make all edges or surfaces, minutely hollow, by taking stop shavings with a 5 1/2.
(A stop shaving starts and stops within about 1/2 an inch of the end).

After this hollowing, one or two, fine through shavings, make it virtually flat. (I prefer a 1 or 2 thou hollow).

5 or ten subsequent shavings will cause a slight bump to return. The more shavings the bigger the bump. (Do try this please).

I believe this has nothing to do with planing technique, but with the geometry of a bench plane. i.e. a flatish metal surface with a blade peeking through.

A well set machine planer will produce a flat surface. Here the "in" table is dropped by the thickness of cut. Our bench planes do not have this facility! 

The technique I describe has been tested by hundreds of individuals here.

best wishes,
David Charlesworth


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## custard (18 Jul 2017)

Corneel":31y5q64a said:


> A trick to learn how to pressure the plane during a full length stroke is "tryingto dig a hole in the middle of the board". When you do full length strokes with a long plane, then digging that hole really isn't going to happen, but trying to do that helps you to put pressure on the front of the plane on the start and on the back of the plane at the end.



+1

Cornell's nailed it, that's exactly the image I hold in my mind when planing.

If you look at the results of most newcomers when edge planing it's usually a right old mess. They jump out of the cut at the start so there's often a little ledge, and then they panic towards the end of the cut and speed up, consequently the plane often skews off to one side and, because they're almost "throwing" the plane through the final foot, the back end of the plane gets lifted up.

Following Corneel's technique helps you to slow down and get the action right.


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## custard (18 Jul 2017)

David C":1mvdnntl said:


> In my workshop we make all edges or surfaces, minutely hollow, by taking stop shavings with a 5 1/2.
> (A stop shaving starts and stops within about 1/2 an inch of the end).
> 
> After this hollowing, one or two, fine through shavings, make it virtually flat. (I prefer a 1 or 2 thou hollow).



+1

That's how I was taught, and how I always see full time woodworkers edge plane. 

Is there a different method, one that's endorsed by a genuinely proficient and experienced furniture maker?


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## Ttrees (18 Jul 2017)

custard":3s13qxuz said:


> David C":3s13qxuz said:
> 
> 
> > In my workshop we make all edges or surfaces, minutely hollow, by taking stop shavings with a 5 1/2.
> ...



+1 here too.
That's why I mentioned having a slight crown on the bench.
At first I thought it would be a good idea to have a slight hollow along the length, so timber would sit on the ends and not propeller, but if your wanting to plane lengths of timber the full length of the bench, that hollow means the timber will 
have to be crowned in the middle to match the benchtop.

If this is the case... two lengths matched to the benchtop will have a gap at each end.
Bad practice for gluing.
Tom


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## D_W (18 Jul 2017)

David C":33g62u33 said:


> Well, I don't agree with much of the above.
> 
> In my workshop we make all edges or surfaces, minutely hollow, by taking stop shavings with a 5 1/2.
> (A stop shaving starts and stops within about 1/2 an inch of the end).



The posts above have stated just what you said you advocate. Planing a mild hollow and then finishing with a few through shavings. Unless a whole bunch of posts have disappeared, most have advocated some variation of that (whether it is by direction of pressure or actual stop shavings). 

How experienced are the individuals you're referring to, by the way? I can't remember re-establishing a hump when taking extra passes (certainly not within 5 or 6), but I'm sure a bunch of beginners would, and I'm sure I did when I was a beginner. I am no pro, either.

There's another dimension (poor choice of words) to this discussion, and that is what condition the board is in when it arrives at the bench. If is dead flat straight off of quality machinery, it's possible to take several passes off of the board with no stop shavings and not threaten flat. I'm not advocating that for edges when you want to at least confirm that the favorable bias is in the edge, and not just count on flat being flat to start with without confirming it, or one will just end up taking pieces out of the vise and putting them back in again to correct errors. 

None of this has to be slow and deliberate once someone builds skill, though. It should be an in-the-flow habit.


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## D_W (18 Jul 2017)

Ttrees":2zg02cuh said:


> custard":2zg02cuh said:
> 
> 
> > David C":2zg02cuh said:
> ...



There will come a time that you'll wish you had made your bench flat if you put a mild crown on it. It is extremely useful to have a bench top flat enough to check the flatness of boards that you are face jointing, and at some point, you will joint the edges of narrow sticking on the bench top, and you won't want them to be influenced by a crown.


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## David C (18 Jul 2017)

D-W,

Some posters may have seen the light, but many talk about faulty technique, variable downward force etc.

As as I am concerned, planes like the 5 1/2 do not possess the correct geometry to create flatness, (just bumps).

Technique produces flatness. (As described above).

Anyone doubting this, please try an edge joint with a pair of boards, and see what happens.

David


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## CStanford (18 Jul 2017)

custard":35dmanpj said:


> David C":35dmanpj said:
> 
> 
> > In my workshop we make all edges or surfaces, minutely hollow, by taking stop shavings with a 5 1/2.
> ...



Robt. Wearing covers this at some length in The Essential Woodworker, a copy of which the OP could certainly use I think.


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## D_W (18 Jul 2017)

David C":3d6vkdb0 said:


> D-W,
> 
> Some posters may have seen the light, but many talk about faulty technique, variable downward force etc.
> 
> ...



David, if you're not aware that beginners tend to clip the edges of boards off beyond a level that is just explained by "plane geometry", then I'm not sure where to go with that. 

Others have suggested techniques to correct flatness in a board. You have suggested techniques to correct flatness in a board. Your technique is essentially the same as intentionally planing with more pressure in the middle of a board, it just takes some experience to do that (I don't use that technique, but it was mentioned). 

I suggested that someone experienced at planing can continue to work the surface after that (after creating mild concavity) without threatening it. It may end up being closer to dead flat without the concavity, but it should remain flat for a reasonably long time. I'll check tonight. I may not have time, but if I do, perhaps I'll make a video of it (just plain vanilla, and unlisted just to be linked to here). A two foot edge planed hollow and then two through shavings. Then 10 through shavings and we'll see how flat it is. You've suggested that in 5, it will be out of flat again. 

I gather that you're sort of leaning toward implying that someone suggested that the plane itself can create a flat board without technique, but I don't see that anywhere. In some cases (concave soles) the plane can certainly prevent flatness.


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## Ttrees (18 Jul 2017)

D_W":xwztjajl said:


> How experienced are the individuals you're referring to, by the way? I can't remember re-establishing a hump when taking extra passes (certainly not within 5 or 6), but I'm sure a bunch of beginners would, and I'm sure I did when I was a beginner. I am no pro, either.


I defiantly find even two or three full length passes to introduce the hump again






D_W":xwztjajl said:


> There will come a time that you'll wish you had made your bench flat if you put a mild crown on it. It is extremely useful to have a bench top flat enough to check the flatness of boards that you are face jointing, and at some point, you will joint the edges of narrow sticking on the bench top, and you won't want them to be influenced by a crown.



Not yet and I have been planing plenty of different pieces.
My bench is about 11 or 12 foot and there would be only a thou or two of a crown if there is one atall.
If it is a problem, its just a matter of a swipe or two from the board thats shimming the benchtop.
I'm working on long stuff a lot so this is the best circumstance for the next while.

Tom

It might be just


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## D_W (18 Jul 2017)

Ttrees":1r12dp05 said:


> D_W":1r12dp05 said:
> 
> 
> > How experienced are the individuals you're referring to, by the way? I can't remember re-establishing a hump when taking extra passes (certainly not within 5 or 6), but I'm sure a bunch of beginners would, and I'm sure I did when I was a beginner. I am no pro, either.
> ...



I couldn't plane a 12 foot bench top into that flatness. I'd imagine it moves that much if you lean on it, or if the humidity changes 5 points. It'll be interesting to see what I can come up with tonight. I have a 4-foot board that's going to become a matched door panel. I'd try for a longer board than that board halved, but I wouldn't be able to get it on video and I think starrett will find a problem in 2 feet if there is one.

What is the preferred plane length to duplicate this experiment. A 7 OK - or is that too long? If a 7 isn't OK, I don't have a mildly set 6 or 5 1/2, but I'm sure I can find an equivalent length panel plane.


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## Andy Kev. (18 Jul 2017)

David C":z7qabv8x said:


> D-W,
> 
> Some posters may have seen the light, but many talk about faulty technique, variable downward force etc.
> 
> ...


To what extent do you think the physical characteristics of the wood play a role?

The easiest-to-plane-wood I have yet encountered - Zirbel Pine - almost never suffers the Curse Of The Returning Hump but give me a bit of walnut and I'm more or less expecting it. I wonder if some woods are more forgiving of a less than optimal technique.

As a result of the wealth of good advice posted on this thread, I'm going to slow down a bit and really watch my technique.


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## D_W (18 Jul 2017)

Andy Kev.":3ka1uty4 said:


> To what extent do you think the physical characteristics of the wood play a role?
> 
> The easiest-to-plane-wood I have yet encountered - Zirbel Pine - almost never suffers the Curse Of The Returning Hump but give me a bit of walnut and I'm more or less expecting it. I wonder if some woods are more forgiving of a less than optimal technique.
> 
> As a result of the wealth of good advice posted on this thread, I'm going to slow down a bit and really watch my technique.



I'm sure luck with (keeping) flatness is much better with woods that start easy and keep their shaving together.


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## Ttrees (19 Jul 2017)

D_W":1fv7z4hh said:


> What is the preferred plane length to duplicate this experiment. A 7 OK - or is that too long? If a 7 isn't OK, I don't have a mildly set 6 or 5 1/2, but I'm sure I can find an equivalent length panel plane.



I have a nice no.8, 51/2, 4, 3 I prefer the 51/2 out of all them.
I have never used a 5,6,or a .
I must measure my bench length.
I am edge jointing old door styles and they don't flex much.
I have to go through the first round of them again as I had them matched to the benchtop when it was slightly concave.
Incidentally I must prove my own theory by jointing some short 4 or 5 foot pieces.

I see what your saying ....
For the best results the 4 or 5 foot long piece would need to be checked/planed in the middle of the bench 
and that's not always possible I guess.
I have my stops at the ends of my bench.and not felt there was an issue with it since.
I must report back on this shortly with some confirmation 

Tom


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cu3xTD6Uv0

I could plane a flat board into hollow with this method (actually, that's how i got the hollow on this board in the first place on a trip through before this shot - the board is curly cherry and I actually had to set the cap to get a finished edge on it with this plane). I had never thought about it before, but instead of stop shavings, I take the front hand off of the plane to make sure that the plane isn't rounding the edge over. I do know that I consciously do that when an edge is already rounded over and I want to get the middle of the board down to it. 

I do know that when I joint a long board and it ends up too hollow like this one did, I always clip the ends with a smoother (just because it's easier than flinging around a jointer or panel plane). 

Anyway, the "one true way" kind of nonsense is, well, just nonsense. It's better to experiment and figure out something that feels natural and productive to you. The knowledge will stick with you a lot longer, and in some cases, without much thought about it.


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## David C (19 Jul 2017)

The experiment I described works with endless repeatability, on timber edges from 6 to 22 inches long, when done with a number 5 1/2.

I think that a longish straightedge is helpful for long work such as bench tops.

Best Wishes,
David


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## CStanford (19 Jul 2017)

D_W":2eo6c9ai said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cu3xTD6Uv0
> 
> I could plane a flat board into hollow with this method (actually, that's how i got the hollow on this board in the first place on a trip through before this shot - the board is curly cherry and I actually had to set the cap to get a finished edge on it with this plane). I had never thought about it before, but instead of stop shavings, I take the front hand off of the plane to make sure that the plane isn't rounding the edge over. I do know that I consciously do that when an edge is already rounded over and I want to get the middle of the board down to it.
> 
> ...



Well, the plane is working beautifully which is no surprise given its apparent pedigree. I've gotten a little lost in all the replies to the thread and am curious about what woodworking process your experiment is supposed to be replicating. Under normal circumstances one would work up a little hollow and then make enough passes to take a full shaving or two from end to end and then stop, or if jointing long boards for a panel glue-up create a *slight* hollow and then stop and let the gap be closed up with clamps. I see that you've proved one can maintain a hollow even after many passes but I'm confused about under what circumstances one would ever need, or want, to do this -- keep planing that is.

It would also seem that given a short enough plane, in relation to the length of the edge being planed, the plane would just ride down in the hollow thus very likely preserving it were the goal to continue making passes well after the hollow had been created and the edge was in otherwise great shape, making the exercise less about skill and more about choice of tool.

What's the takeaway?


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

David C":2l923pr2 said:


> The experiment I described works with endless repeatability, on timber edges from 6 to 22 inches long, when done with a number 5 1/2.
> 
> I think that a longish straightedge is helpful for long work such as bench tops.
> 
> ...



Your method is no more repeatable than mine. This is useful for anything that you can plane, also. I don't think I'm getting it across here that this is a thing of craftsman's subtlety, and I'm no craftsman at all. There is an 8x8 indian rosewood blank in the background that I flattened. I didn't stop shave it and then through shave it. I flattened it all at once with only through shavings. It's flat end to end and corner to corner and side to side, however you want to describe it. It would be agonizing with stop shavings. It takes less than ten minutes to do with some sense and experience, and that includes the rough work and sharpening.

As far as that straight edge goes - it's not something I use on a daily basis (i had to clean some rust off of it to use it here). It's too heavy, and it's too expensive. On a three foot board, I could find out what I need to know with a 2 foot straight edge, no problem, but for a video like this, I want proof, so I dug out the straight edge, and pulled the feelers out of my planemaker's box. They have never touched wood before. 

Let me reiterate - your method works. It doesn't mean that other methods don't. It doesn't mean yours is the best or that you need to continue to imply that other people have some sort of shortcoming with what they're doing when they're getting the same results (my method is actually faster, I started with yours - it's good to understand the minute hollow concept and that allows someone to achieve it pretty quickly, supposing they don't make their edges out of square). 

I could make a ten minute video tonight doing the face of a short board and a long one, and the edges, too, and you could tell me if you want them to be flat or concave and I could do it either way. What would you do? I made a video with 10 strokes through where you said 5 would cause a problem, and what is your response - to imply that what I did won't work on small pieces and it's inconsistent? Put yourself on the other side of this - let's say you've never used stop shavings but planed for a decade without having a flatness issue - would you then turn around and say that someone using stop shavings is doing it the wrong way? I wouldn't, but that is what you're doing. The concavity is the important point, how you get there isn't important. thus I have no need to tell people that they should do it my way instead of using stop shavings. They can do it however they want, the only real threat to the OP in the beginning of this post is if his plane is actually concave. 

I get such pleasure talking to people like George Wilson because he wouldn't get fixated on technique - he'd tell you something like, "you need to develop the skill to be able to make the board flat or concave or however you want....i don't know...who cares how you do it?". He's fixated on results, and because he spent his life at work and then on the side at night making, he's wonderfully quick making anything to a level that I will never achieve. If I tried to talk about something like this on the phone with him, he'd make a joke to change the subject. 

I like to knock the ends off of my board with a smoother when match planing a long joint, it's easy - do I care if someone else does it that way? Why would I? If I figure out something faster and as reliable, then I'll do that. 

This doesn't just have to do with me, it has to do with your desire to pop onto the thread and throw shade on everything everyone said (even though most of the comments here pretty much said the same thing as you did, 99% the same, or however you'd like to put it). You may not be able to do something others said they do (despite the fact that their method could be perfectly relevant), so you assert the methods are no good and no good for anyone, and you base your conclusion on a captive audience of beginners (I think your beginners would learn a whole lot about planing if they hand-dimensioned their first half dozen pieces, but I doubt you could get them to pay you to tell them that). You quote a lot directly from Robert Wearing (in fact you have made entire quarter hour video segments of single items from his books), but Robert's ways are not the only good ways, and quite a lot of them are arduous in terms of time if you don't have to revert to them. If they work, and you're satisfied, then keep on with them. If they are too slow, it's time to move on from some of them. 

Please be a little bit more considerate to other posters. In this case, you're advocating a paint by number method that works, and I am showing you another method that works. I don't care what people do, but I do know one thing - if you and I had a pile of boards to face, you'd be a quarter of the way through them when I was finished, and the results would be the same. I learned from your videos when I was a beginner, but it has taken me some time to unwind some of the things that are asserted in them that just aren't as certain as you suggest they are.


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

CStanford":2c09hpj8 said:


> D_W":2c09hpj8 said:
> 
> 
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cu3xTD6Uv0
> ...



David stated that 5 through shavings would threaten the board's flatness (I believe the implication was that the ends would be low), so I took 10 to show that wasn't the case. The point of it is the fact that stop shavings aren't the only reliable way to keep the ends of a board from being low, and not even the way to create the hollow (I didn't use stop shavings to create the hollow in this board). I agree with your comment about what one would do (I would never have taken these shavings if joining this to the other half of the panel in the background, it's a waste of time - just proving a point here - it was asserted that the original poster was putting a hump in a board by making through shavings). 

Anyway, the results are the same no matter the technique, the issue is that this discussion has gotten into the strange area of implying that because one result is desirable, only one technique gets it and the others mentioned don't. 

As for the planes, the first one is a casting kit and ironmonger's parts that someone with some level of knowledge put together (I didn't make it, but it was inexpensive and whoever did understood the important aspects of handle geometry and location - fairly rare for amateurs). The second one is a partial dovetailed kit that I put together. It has some interesting aspects that I figured out in the build (such as quickly hand flattening to within what LN gives as a flatness spec, which means you can also make the plane square to that degree if needed, but that's not a discussion for this thread).


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## CStanford (19 Jul 2017)

OK, so five+++ through shavings didn't threaten the edge's flatness. The problem is that nobody takes but a couple of through shavings. Whether or not the board could have been planed down to an inch in width and the hollow maintained all the while is moot. It's meaningless. It doesn't matter.

Stopped shavings are sound cabinetmaking technique. After all, we're talking about four-squaring lumber, the purview of prepubescent little boys less than 200 years ago. What's needed at this stage of the work IS mindless repeatability. It's four-squaring. It's low-level work, probably would have gotten your ears boxed if you didn't have it down in a matter of days.

Great job on the plane, though. It's a keeper.


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

CStanford":2dcyzqvd said:


> Oh dear.



Yes, you can hear me mumble "pitiful" at the end of the video (which meant "what a waste of time"). I shouldn't have visited the forums this week, because I have a migraine and get set off by dogma!


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## CStanford (19 Jul 2017)

D_W":3n56zy4k said:


> CStanford":3n56zy4k said:
> 
> 
> > Oh dear.
> ...



Take it easy on yourself. It's not dogma, just a way to get a boring but necessary task done and out of the way. Plenty of time to show off real skills down the road.

It's easy to confuse dogmatism with expediency. In a course of woodworking instruction, whether it be self-teaching from books, in live classes, or in a formal apprenticeship (if these still existed) you're most likely going to be taught one or at most two ways of doing something. Most folks just stick to what they learned which is perfectly rational because the procedures have *been proven to work* and most have been proven in the demanding environment of working wood for money in a competitive marketplace under a deadline. If you have nothing but time on your hands by all means question every scintilla of it if you wish, but anybody who asserts this might not be in everyone's best interest is far from 'throwing shade.'

To borrow and now butcher a famous phrase: I fear that this is the workmanship of the cap iron gone mad --- everything is in need of rediscovery and reinterpretation. I wouldn't. If I were you.

It's not the most difficult thing in the world to priss around a shop with an endless supply of stock, tools, and time and come up with something pretty nice. But in the end this isn't the way of the craftsman, professional or not. The scrap bin (somehow always off-camera) tells the tale.


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## David C (19 Jul 2017)

I cannot understand why D-W feels the need to go on and on with his criticism.

It is actually quite entertaining to see him dredging deeper and deeper, to try and find more cold water, to pour on this ancient technique.

It is simple and works perfectly. I and Bob Wearing have taught it for many many years with great success.

Seems to me there is nothing more to be said! (But I'm afraid this won't stop him......)

David Charlesworth


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

Unlucky that I have a migraine. It makes me easier to set off:

>>Well, I don't agree with much of the above.<<

(throw shade on everything everyone said. If you don't agree with it, what you follow with should at least prove to be true)

>>5 or ten subsequent shavings will cause a slight bump to return. The more shavings the bigger the bump. (Do try this please).<<

No, they won't. We covered that early in the post. You threw shade on that, though. 10 or 20 or 30 or 100 shavings won't cause it to return, either, unless the user is unable to control the plane. 

>>Some posters may have seen the light, but many talk about faulty technique, variable downward force etc.<<

As above, adjusting where the force is on a plane is basic hand planing. Not faulty technique.

>>It is simple and works perfectly. I and Bob Wearing have taught it for many many years with great success.<<

Other ways are simple and work perfectly, let the person doing the planing decide which one they want to use. 

Let's say you have to quickly remove a hump from the face of a board and then remove 1/8th to a mark. How do you want to do it? that could be planing a panel to width, too.
* plane out the bump
* plane close to the mark, hump returns
* take stop shavings, check often, hope you don't blow the mark
* through shavings only at the mark

Or:
* Plane off the hump, flatten board in same step
* Take through shavings to the mark, board stays flat, hump doesn't return. Done in half the time.

>> A well set machine planer will produce a flat surface. Here the "in" table is dropped by the thickness of cut. Our bench planes do not have this facility! <<

The planes don't, but the users do - without stop shavings. This gets to be important if you do more than plane chatter marks off of a board, or if you have an inexpensive thickness planer that is less than perfect. 

>>The experiment I described works with endless repeatability, on timber edges from 6 to 22 inches long, when done with a number 5 1/2.<<

Same as mine, except I don't need to imply that your method doesn't work (or Corneel's plane with the sensation that you're digging a hole method). I have done them all. I don't need to specify which plane, either, and the length of the board doesn't need to be bounded. The ending geometry is important. Our OP would read your comment to understand, though, that he couldn't take through shavings to work a board without getting it out of kilter - that's false. 

>>I cannot understand why D-W feels the need to go on and on with his criticism.<<

I never would've said a thing if you would've just stated your method without feeling the need to make negative statements about things the other folks said. And then you followed up a simple video where I showed you that your statement isn't necessarily correct (the one that casted shade on a lot of peoples advice earlier) and your response completely bypassed it, but suggested that maybe it's not reliable. It's probably not reliable with beginners - and I think you have a distorted view of what users can do because you're trying to make sure beginners have instant success. 

The same goes for other things like assertive statements about body position when planing. Woe be to the beginner who wants to do a lot of planing walking around like they're shooting a pistol from the hip, hunching over and sticking their elbow in their sides. Let's not even go there.


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## CStanford (19 Jul 2017)

David, you clearly had control of the plane and your medium in the video though I don't know if it conveyed anything beyond your own skill. There wasn't much there to help someone having trouble planing a straight or slightly concave edge other than to demonstrate that there 'was another way the work could be done,' unfortunately though with a level of deftness that might be a bit long in coming for some. The superbly built and tuned, very solid plane, couldn't have hurt either.

The stopped shaving method is undoubtedly prescriptive, and the steps are easy to convey to somebody starting out, and should work if one's kit leaves something to be desired. It is paint by numbers, just when you need paint by numbers. Paint by numbers isn't a bad thing if all one is doing is straightening an edge or flattening a face. Paint by numbers might be bad if you're carving the cartouche on a Federal highboy. I think we've lost context, no?

In a larger sense, the act of hand planing lumber needs to be put back into its place -- a RELATIVELY low order skill compared to the rest of woodworking. Sometimes it seems you want it to be more than it really is. It is work that children used to be trusted to do, save a nuance here or there that I'm sure everyone will stipulate you've mastered.


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## D_W (19 Jul 2017)

I agree with all of that, Charlie. Certainly, the video by itself isn't that instructive (or at all). It goes with the first post where I mentioned planing through shavings on a board and making sure the pressure on the plane was in the right places on a stroke. A little slow practice doing that and then you don't have to go slow (although there's never a great reason to go *fast* on an edge like this one, since squareness matters, too). I know you've done a lot of hand dimensioning and know what I'm talking about - getting into a rhythm and less mind is involved with what you're doing and more repetition of what you've learned that works. I think that is almost by definition what skill is, or at least one type of it. 

While that plane is a wonderful plane, it's very similar to a 5 1/2 or 6.

I've mumbled on in other places about using the cap iron to make sure the shaving stays together and is uniformly taken across a board (regardless of grain), side to side and end to end so that you can trust it's not threatening flatness. Those two things go together. That's not for this thread, but it's all part of the same thing - controlling what the plane is doing without it being difficult. Then you can work intuitively, quickly and with little or no risk. (Point about the cap iron is that it's what makes the 5 1/2 or 6 work the same at this as the infill plane does. My bailey style plane of that size is set up with rank camber, though, so I couldn't use it, or I would've - nobody needs infills, they're an indulgence). 

Certainly don't disagree that a rank beginner needs paint by number. I am still a rank beginner at most things, but likely as you do (since you're far more productive than me), really enjoy getting to the point where parts of the work just flow. Be it sharpening quickly in rhythm with the work, filing a saw, dimensioning a board, cutting dovetails - it's just nicer. 

Like I said, never would've posted after the second post ("woe is the OP, he's gotten a million answers") if it wouldn't have been suggested that my original advice was bad. 

(by the way, I still can't figure out if the OP is working the face of a board or the edge. If it's a face, then the speed does become a differentiating thing. On the edge, not so much.)


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## CStanford (19 Jul 2017)

We all need paint by number when it's available. It's like making a claim on an insurance policy for which we've been paying premiums. Let easy be easy. There's plenty that's hard.


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## David C (21 Jul 2017)

D_W's video does not seem to show much relevant technique. (Nice planes and planing though).

How hollow was that edge to start with? Seemed a lot. How long was the edge and the plane?

It seems to me that the hollow got a little smaller after about 10 shavings.

On a separate topic.

Stop shavings must surely be the most efficient way of removing bumps in the length.

Variable downward force still allows for material to be removed from the start and finish. This undermines the desired correction.

David C


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## D_W (21 Jul 2017)

David C":26wxkpnj said:


> D_W's video does not seem to show much relevant technique. (Nice planes and planing though).
> 
> How hollow was that edge to start with? Seemed a lot. How long was the edge and the plane?
> 
> ...



The most efficient way to remove a hump is to plane only the hump. If the hump is only a fraction of the board's length, then you plane only that spot and then work through shavings of the type I showed. It's faster than progressive stop shavings, but maybe not appropriate for beginners.

On a lighter follow up to this, the video was only based on the comment that 5 to 10 through shavings would spoil the flatness. Instead of keeping flat, I kept hollow, which should be harder to do with through shavings. It wasn't intended to show anything else. The original commenter made the point that he was ending up with a hump when planing. i suggested one thing, that he avoid doing something while planing that makes a hump (which is to accidentally allow the pressures work the ends off of a board). It's not hard to learn, but it sounds like few learn to do it. It's essential if you're going to dimension by hand, because it saves time (i realize few do that, too, but it sure teaches you a lot about controlling a plane and how it's working out of nothing more than laziness - dimensioning by hand is so much work that if your mind is turned on at all, you will quickly learn what is consistent). 

Never intended to suggest stop shavings don't work - certainly they do. If you get past just smoothing and truing edges, though, you'll end up wanting more out of the planes - and that is that they'll work intuitively (as I mentioned, the idea of taking stop shavings on all faces of a board is a deal stopper if you can instead do the flattening or hollowing as a matter of touch with all shavings). I guess it's not a beginner's concept. I still consider myself a beginner in many ways. 

In terms of the hollow, it's the same depth until I clipped the ends off (I clipped them off because it's too much depth - if you match planed a board like that and put two of them together, the gap would be a hundredth or so - gigantic. I like it to be minute). 

I took the video twice because I dropped something the first time. The hollow stayed the same or got a little deeper with through shavings, but as I said earlier here, I size beech blanks by hand relatively often because I like to make wooden planes. I use a try plane, through strokes only unless I have to plane a starting hump off of a board, and then I do that as a separate step. The last step is almost always to clip the ends off of my blanks then because they are hollow like this - without stop shavings. 

After this, once i clipped the ends off, I took about 20 smoother shavings quickly (because I'm going appropriately slow in this video, as you would edge jointing a critical joint, but I don't often work this slow), full length over the same piece of wood. It's flat as it was at the end of this video, and it remained flat. I think this is technique worthy of learning and is exactly what I was suggesting to the OP originally (not dictating that they shouldn't learn about stop shavings, but that they can correct their through stroke issues). I get that most of your students plane the ends off of boards and end up with a hump in the middle if they are relatively new to work. Maybe some do if they're not. I actually made a video of that smoother shavings quickness to show that you can do the same thing fast or slow, but figured we're far enough down the rabbet hole that I didn't need to join it to the end of this video. 

I have been beating the drum about the cap iron now for more than five years, because all of these things work together. Taking off uniform layers without harming flatness occurs only with appropriate technique and only with control of the shaving being taken (it has to hold together, tearout of any significance ruins the system by varying the thickness of the shaving and flatness is lost, and then you will need stop shavings, or planing from the center of a panel to the outsides or any other of the various methods to avoid planing a hump on a board. that all takes more time and more effort. Perhaps I am almost alone in my appreciation for what I'm discussing - certainly I'm just a fat office worker (that's true) - who has a fascination with planes and planemaking (that's true), but bringing all of these things together and getting real control over the dimensioning process is immensely physically satisfying. In the rare case I make a bunch of anything (I just made a bunch of kitchen cabinets over a long period of time), I get to do a lot of this. In the lull that I'm in now, I only get to size plane blanks. I would hand dimension wood the same way some people would take a walk in the evening if I had a supply that needed to be done and a user for it. Sometimes you just don't feel like going to the shop to think your way through a bunch of layout scenarios, and dimensioning wood and getting the exercise and tactile sensation is just what the doctor ordered.

I see three different things being discussed here:
* stop shavings (no contest, we all agree that it works. if someone doesn't, they're wrong)
* variable downforce - i'm not quite sure what this means. In simple terms, I'm assuming that's implying that someone is physically putting more total force down in the middle of a stroke than the beginning and end. I'm not advocating that.
* Similar downforce from start to finish, but force on different parts of the plane throughout the stroke - this is what I demonstrated. I thought for sure that this was as common as the first bullet point, and was really quite surprised. 

Kind of surprised the comments are on the two planes. The first panel plane is, as I said, a relatively inexpensive casted plane that appears to have been made from hardware store parts. I think it's a beautiful plane, and it works better than all but one of the 5 norris planes that I have, and the handle is sublime. The dovetailed smoother, I made from some parts kit and some parts mine. It's an indulgence. The 4 that's also on the bench wasn't sharp, but the result would've been the same. If I'd have had a 6 or 5 1/2 that didn't have a rank cambered blade, I would've used that instead, but I don't have any of those set up to do fine work. I do have a bailey pattern jointer (two, i guess), but wanted to keep this to using a plane the size that was being discussed (5 1/2).


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## D_W (21 Jul 2017)

Second comment, what I demonstrated in the video would actually provide stop shavings if the board had a hump. Despite not stopping the plane before the end of the board. When I have a board that's low on the ends and plane all the way through, the plane just won't cut the last bit of the board until it is up to the level of the center. I joint all of my wood by hand, but it's been quite some time since I've stopped a plane just shy of the end of a board. 

I don't feel a great need to make a video of that (removing a hump doing the same as the above), but it could be done some other day. I remove those humps as a spot item, sure, but that isn't followed by stop shavings.

Though I've overanalyzed this discussion and the relatively simple task (that's my specialty - especially on the heels of a complex migraine) it's been interesting. 

One point remains for the OP, and that is to make sure to never use a plane where the mouth is higher than the toe and heel. I have gotten planes of every make like that, and for some reason, the old infills seem to come like that a majority of the time. I had a LN 8 at one point that was right at its spec (1 1/2 thousandth to a starrett edge) and you could feel the effect of it and its desire to clip the ends off of boards. I had a 7 and 8 at the same time, and the 7 was beautifully flat. Plane dead flat with the 7 and plane with the 8 and it took several strokes for the 8 to be planing a full length stroke. The result was predictable once it was making a through stroke - it had already taken the ends off of the board and put a hump in the middle.


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## David C (22 Jul 2017)

D-W,

It has taken you pages and pages to disagree with my proposition, which I believe to be demonstrable fact.

Start with a straight edge on a 10 to 22 inch board. Take 10 through shavings with a sharp 5 1/2 and a minute bump will appear. (Shavings 1 1/2 to 2 thou thick).

This fact is due to the geometry of a bench plane, not inexperience or incompetence.

This bump is most efficiently removed with stop shavings. You can carry on till the plane stops cutting. The edge is now slightly hollow and one or two through shavings will leave it straight. (This may be one or two thou hollow but this is a good thing).

Ten more through shavings will cause the bump to return.

I was delighted to see that a number of posters agreed with this in the beginning.

There is nothing more to be said,
David Charlesworth


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## D_W (22 Jul 2017)

You're still incorrect. I guess I'll make another video, this time with a board that's flat. I'm at a loss as to how you can't extrapolate that from what I showed, which is actually more difficult to preserve.

Agreement from part of a group does not verify something as fact. You have over analyzed yourself into believing something that can be easily disproven in practice.


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## D_W (22 Jul 2017)

https://youtu.be/OHV9kdYlG0Q

Not sure what I sat the plane on that caused the iron to get a nick (i haven't done any woodworking this week - only metalwork, so it's not as if the plane got used between videos), but I hope there isn't a demand to resharpen the iron to prove the same thing again. I would, of course, resharpen it if I were going to do more than just shoot 20 strokes through something - it threatens squareness to have an iron cutting like that, but not flatness.

This plane is dead flat on the entire bottom within a thousandth or so. No tricks. The board is 20 inches, within your range (and shorter than the last one), and the straight edge is starrett - a shorter one, which i *do* use in day to day work (more like week to week, as I'm a hobbyist), short boards or long. 10 years ago when I was a beginner, I hauled out the four footer I showed in the other video, but I haven't encountered a practical need for anything longer than the easy-to-handle and much lighter 24" inch version (which is also MUCH cheaper). 

Any other demonstrable facts?


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## custard (22 Jul 2017)

Thanks for posting that video DW. I don't doubt the legitimacy of your findings, however it ran so contrary to my own experience that I had to just check I haven't been kidding myself for the past thirty odd years.

So I took a board about 21" long and trued the edges on the planer.







I took one pass with a bench plane to remove any machine scalloping and checked for straight. Yes, dead straight according to the backlit 24" Bridge City straight edge.






Then I took ten, end-to-end, through passes with a bench plane. My normal, non-finishing, planing thickness is probably a bit thicker than those DC mentioned, but I doubt that's going to change things all that much.






I checked throughout that the edge stayed square, it's not squareness as such I was concerned about here, but wind or twist which might have produced an odd result. Happy to say that wasn't an issue.






Then back on with the straight edge. And sure enough there's a minute bump starting to form in the middle of the board.






Took another ten through passes, again checking for square,






And the bump looks to me like it's growing,






Incidentally, I normally check for straight with either the blade of a Starrett 24" combi-square, or a meticulously maintained wooden straight edge. I apply some pressure in the centre and try to _pivot_ the straight edge. I'm _listening_ for some small scraping sounds and _feeling_ for a physical resistance, the degree of these let's me judge how straight the edge is. Maybe not very scientific but it's quick and after many, many years of doing it I'm confident with the findings. In this case the ease of pivoting was telling me loud and clear that I'd planed a hump into this edge.






I'm at a loss to explain this discrepancy. I respect the rigour and honesty you bring to these debates, which is why I was motivated to check for myself. Maybe it's down to some subtle difference in planing technique? I just don't know.


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## D_W (22 Jul 2017)

It may just be a difference in technique - as I described at the outset, it's a matter of making sure that you are cutting evenly and not putting pressure on the back of the plane at the beginning of the cut or the front of the plane at the end. But i don't know how I could prove any further, at least in my hands, that no hump forms!

I could teach someone this in person. it is useful when you're dimensioning by hand, because it cuts out a step. 

If you watch very closely, you can see that I've actually cut a very slight hollow in the board over 20 shavings, that wasn't intentional, but it's hardly a problem. 

In terms of taking my hand off of the plane at the end of the stroke, one might question how I square a board (I don't have a power jointer or even a good table saw, so it has to happen somewhere), and the answer to that is that I keep my hand on a little bit longer and bias the plane to one side or the other, but even squaring a board, i probably remove my hand before the end of the stroke - especially when the far end of the board is square and just needs an even shaving down the center. Not much changes when you take your hand off - the plane has to remain centered one handed or it will easily fall off - maybe it's even easier to retain squareness doing that. 

Something occurs to me thinking about this, and did while I was uploading the video. I know from dimensioning that if I ever have a fault, it's that the cut at the start of the board can sometimes be ever so slightly lighter than the rest of the cut, and if I have to remove a whole lot of wood (which is nice to be able to do without having to constantly stop to see what part of the progress is uneven), I end up hollow in the middle by whatever amount the plane will allow until I clip the start of the cut with a couple of "bump" shavings - short stabs where you make sure the plane starts a full cut and only takes a part of a plane length off. Final shavings to the mark are a bit more careful to make sure the start isn't lighter if you can help it. 

All of this contributes to thicknessing and hitting a mark without risk (which is the same thing that drove me to fiddle with the cap iron, even though it turns out there's plenty written about it, I'm too dumb to get much that doesn't come through my own hands). Edge jointing is just a byproduct.


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## D_W (22 Jul 2017)

By the way, did you put the straight edge to the bottom of that plane? If it's flat, I'd just say "stop planing the ends off of your board!!"


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## CStanford (22 Jul 2017)

I've always taken the approach of a guy with an IQ of 55 -- remove the humps. That takes care of 95% of it. It's sometimes hard to remove the humps with a long plane, but once they're gone a long plane works wonders.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 Jul 2017)

Harder to remove humps with a short one.


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## CStanford (23 Jul 2017)

I work obvious humps, as identified with a straightedge, with a jack or a 4.5. I think this is completely orthodox technique -- knock the obvious and large humps down before using the jointer. When working a face, a scrub plane comes into play or an aggressively cambered wooden jack. A No. 7 is too slow for this initial work. Once one face is trued the board is brought close to gauged thickness as rapidly as possible which means scrub or fairly heavily cambered jack.

Scrub - Jack - Jointer - Smoother


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## D_W (23 Jul 2017)

Taking out the humps is always the first step, but it seems this entire discussion is occurring after that's done. You're talking about working from rough, and I think a lot of people probably aren't doing that here, so they're not going to know what you're talking about.


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## Jacob (23 Jul 2017)

Planing is only about removing 'humps'. You can't fill in hollows you can only remove the humps either side.
And a short plane will do just as well - you just have to use it differently and keep a closer eye on progress.
Can't see the point of a straightedge for planing edges - much easier to just _look_ along it and if in doubt try winding sticks.
"Straightedge" features a lot in woodwork chat nowadays but it isn't part of the trad tool kit at all and isn't really necessary. Have people have lost confidence in their eyesight? How does a straightedge help - you still have to look at it in use, and also check it for straightness.


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## woodbrains (23 Jul 2017)

Jacob":z4xqaxbq said:


> Planing is only about removing 'humps'. You can't fill in hollows you can only remove the humps either side.
> And a short plane will do just as well - you just have to use it differently and keep a closer eye on progress.
> Can't see the point of a straightedge for planing edges - much easier to just _look_ along it and if in doubt try winding sticks.
> "Straightedge" features a lot in woodwork chat nowadays but it isn't part of the trad tool kit at all and isn't really necessary. Have people have lost confidence in their eyesight? How does a straightedge help - you still have to look at it in use, and also check it for straightness.



Hello,

They did use straight edges, you know! Custard's mahogany one is a very old design, as is his method for making them. Steel ones, for sure, would have been too expensive and heavy for the vintage craftsmen, but straight edges would have been made and therefore used.

Mike.


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## David C (23 Jul 2017)

Well I find the video quite remarkable! I will have to look into this.

My experience is the same as Custards.


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## Jacob (23 Jul 2017)

woodbrains":unckfeer said:


> Jacob":unckfeer said:
> 
> 
> > Planing is only about removing 'humps'. You can't fill in hollows you can only remove the humps either side.
> ...


It's easy to tell if an edge (or a face of a board) is straight by just squinting down it. You can also _see_ if it twists but winding sticks will help here. Either way I can't see how a straight-edge could help. 
Across the grain is different and an edge helps here - but nothing special just any old board with a freshly planed edge. Or a builders's spirit level - which is what I'd use.
Across the grain a steel ruler helps as you can rub it about a bit and it makes a mark on the high spots and shows up cupping on a board.

I can't see any point in the hollow planing video and I wonder why he needs a straight-edge - he just needs to lean down and look along the board. In fact he _should_ do - he needs to develop some basic skills and not rely on an expensive gadget!
His demo would no doubt come out differently with a different plane or technique but in general anybody planing 'blind' will usually produce a convex edge (as the OP noticed!) - a plane will remove more at the start and end of a pass as the aft or fore parts of the sole are not resting on the wood. Hence the universal advice to press the front down as you start and the back as you end a stroke. Otherwise described as 'try to plane a hollow'. Which is also what Custard shows and Dave describes I think - with 'stopped' planing. And Corneel and Graham describe above ( I haven't read all this thread through yet!)

Anyone joining two boards should match one against the other, not each to a straightedge, which in any case wouldn't show any twist and could be quite misleading.
It's the engineers turned woodworkers who bring in these redundant ideas IMHO - 'surface plates' and the likes :lol: 

PS man in vid with hollow edge - first thing I'd do is check the straightedge - not by buying another one but by _looking_ at it. 
Non so blind as those who will not see!

PS a thin straight edge which is the slightest bit bendy is more or less useless used as per the vid. but is good for cutting straight lines with a knife - which is why there are so many metal straight edges around - they are used by craft workers with card, leather etc.


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## custard (23 Jul 2017)

After sleeping on this a couple of other things occurred,

When edge jointing, achieving straightness (or a minute hollow) is only one part of the challenge. As well as being _straight_ the edge also needs to be _square_. Getting an edge perfectly square right along it's length is in my experience quite a bit harder than getting it straight.







So the real test of any technique is if it delivers an edge that's completely smooth throughout (for glue strength), an edge that's straight/minute hollow, and also an edge that's square and free of wind. I can't escape the conclusion that hitting all those objectives will need one final through pass of the plane, and to achieve a final pass that ticks all the boxes is a fair test of anyone's planing skills!

Another thing that occurred is how tight the glue lines have to be before you, the craftsman, are satisfied with them? There's no right or wrong answer to this, a chicken coop doesn't require the same standard as exhibition furniture. But when I'm thinking about edge jointing I'm looking for a method that reliably allows me to deliver completely invisible glue lines like this,






All I can say is that the method of stop shavings that DC outlined, which is basically the method I see widely used by most of the many cabinet makers I know, allows me to consistently produce this quality of work. I'm not saying this is the only way of achieving this standard, but I am saying this is the standard of finished work that I'd judge any edge jointing method by. If it can't result in ultra tight and invisible glue lines then it may well be the right technique for other woodworkers, but it's not right for me.

The third and final point that I thought about was the issue of achieving straightness by one complete pass, versus a number of shorter planing strokes. As a _joint _surface then I think edge jointing demands a single final pass from a sharp bench plane, and that's also the way I believe you get really invisible glue lines. However, I know some people advocate using end to end passes of the plane to achieve flatness on a face surface (as opposed to an edge). I've read articles by Christopher Schwartz where he seems to advocate really long bench planes to mechanically surface a table top, relying on the plane's length and geometry to automatically deliver flatness after following a set planing regime. I'm less convinced by this. I used to work in a workshop that regularly turned out large Hay Rake style Dining Tables. The clients who could afford something like this were generally looking for real whoppers, anything from 14 seaters and up. So the challenge became flattening a table top that was far too large to pass through the workshop's machinery. The craftsmen who were tasked with this used hand planes, and their general view was that, if necessary, they were perfectly capable of doing the job with a tiny block plane. The reason is that their methodology was to identify the high points (using a pivoting straight edge) and progressively knock them down until the top was acceptably, visually, flat. I agree with that view (it's hard to disagree, the results spoke for themselves). But when edge jointing we're not producing a _visual_ surface, we're producing a _joint_ surface. And that requires, in my view at least, a completely different approach.

It's an interesting discussion, so I'd also thank people for their thought provoking contributions.


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## Jacob (23 Jul 2017)

custard":3quvvhdp said:


> ...
> When edge jointing, achieving straightness (or a minute hollow) is only one part of the challenge. As well as being _straight_ the edge also needs to be _square_. Getting an edge perfectly square right along it's length is in my experience quite a bit harder than getting it straight.


Easier if you concentrate on matching edges to each other. If one has a bevel of 95º that's fine as long as the other has 85º. Works most easily if you put one board in a vice and sit the other on it to see how it goes. You don't need a straight edge and in fact you could do it without a square - but you might as well get them squarish before trying to fit them together


> ...... The craftsmen who were tasked with this used hand planes, and their general view was that, if necessary, they were perfectly capable of doing the job with a tiny block plane. The reason is that their methodology was to identify the high points (using a pivoting straight edge) and progressively knock them down until the top was acceptably, visually, flat.....


Exactly. That's how you flatten things with hand tools - with a gouge or adze even, and a straight edge comes in handy here. Much the same as the edge joining process except there you don't use a straight edge instead you use _the other edge_ and maybe swap them over.
An alternative (for faces, not edges) is a bright torch with a focussed beam - it shows up bumps and hollows and all planing marks - so much so it can make you want to give up in despair!


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## D_W (23 Jul 2017)

I also agree, no visible glue line. Period. I have never joined a board that left one, it's unacceptable when you're a hobbyist because you have no excuse to say "well, the budget didn't allow it". 

I don't know any local hand tool pros here except a guy who mostly gives classes, and I am not saying I am anything special with planes, but I could plane him under the table. He is generally teaching students who don't know how to sharpen or set up a plane, and he feels like my interests in using mostly or only hand tools are a little too obscure (I know him by chance outside of woodworking, he's a friend of the guy who got me into woodworking). He is a nice guy, though, that's just the state of the hobby and class attendees around here - you can't teach people like me, I'm not a good learner, but I am generally a good problem solver, which is how i make a living. Our local woodworking club is a lot more advanced, but I drew a crowd last year when I went there to pick up lumber in a smaller car and broke it down with a hand saw (the only person in the entire US who was felling beech for quartersawn billets - and supplying horizon - who supplies all of the makers here - happens to deliver to our local club for free). They only like tools that plug in, and there's lots of studio furniture talk there - i don't favor that. Nice guys, though, and productive.

Anyway, the method I showed, you have backed into now what the greatest advantage is of it with speed - you find square first (after removing bumps, etc), especially if you're working by hand, because there is no machine to get you close, and you're either working off mill marks and odd humps before this, or you're planing off your own hand saw marks. By the time I have found square end to end, I have found straight, sometimes just a little hollow. I have a set smoother for that if it matters, just like in the videos. Cambered and centered well, you can nip the ends off of the boards with an even cut without affecting the squareness, and since it's already a smoother, it's set so that it will only take off a couple of thousandths at a time. If doing that work with a try plane, where the edge jointing strokes tend to be 5-7 thousandths - the work is very quick, but the unintended hollow can be a little bit bigger and the smoother is more necessary to nip off the ends, and it makes me feel good to do as you say, which is to run over the whole surface with the smoother to make it uniform. Cap iron is essential with those (try plane) thicknesses to avoid tearout. With metal planes, not so much. If i am only edge jointing, I prefer metal planes, but I get straight and square faster with the try plane. 

I like the stop shaving method that you mentioned (and did previously use it - it's reliable), but just figured that out of economy of time and effort, anyone working by hand would get to the point of doing it the way I'm doing it. It looks like I was wrong about that. 

The biggest pain in the gones for a hobbyist like me has always been clamping large items without a helper, but at least as far as panels go, the plano clamp has eliminated that being anything more than an exercise in turning handles to tighten the contraption. 

After all of this talk of squareness, etc, we're way off from the OP's original issue, which was just planing the ends off boards. Squareness wasn't part of the talk, so I didn't discuss it specifically or demonstrate it in the video. It would dilute the discussion and make it too long.


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## CStanford (23 Jul 2017)

If I kept planing an already straightened or slightly hollowed edge I'm quite sure that a hump would appear because to prevent it would take far more concentration than I'm willing to expend on such a simple task, and it might appear anyway depending on the plane I was using. Stopped shavings are the deal, then passes until you take one or two continuous shavings from end to end. And of course you do check for square to the reference face, again, all covered in just enough detail in Robert Wearing's books. Jointing up a panel is always a little more ticklish and invariably requires essentially inexplicable nips and tucks here and there to get things just so, at least mine do. Theory says this shouldn't be the case, but it is.


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

I squared the edge of the board that I planed in the video tonight just to make sure I'm not crazy (at least not based on this). 

Through shavings, reasonably squared (dead nuts on the square, though the board is still rough on the face). I don't know how long it took a couple of minutes? the board is still flat - mostly - a slight hollow is developing (as usual). 

I have no idea why I'd do it any other way. I'll bet 200 years ago, it would look more like my method than Robert Wearings. 

(I do remember when I first started, fighting keeping things square while working the stop shaving method. It seemed like a bit of luck to get both dialed in. Now it takes an incorrectly set plane to not be about to hit square and flat quickly without doing anything other than just planing the board). 

I really don't get why this is that uncommon - it's certainly not hard. There are lots of things in wearings book that work but take unnecessary time. I think this is one of them, but if it doesn't work for other people, so be it. 

Challenge yourselves (not just in response to charlie, but to everyone) once in a while. I don't mean complicated layout, but expecting to plane flat and feel square, etc. And to get tools set up so that they're really dialed in (no issues with lateral adjustment, etc, no tearout, and so on....). It pays dividends in time later on.


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## Jacob (24 Jul 2017)

Sorry DW I just realised it was your video I was criticising. I thought you'd just lifted it from the net.
Have you checked your straight edge? i.e. in both directions - is it rigid and flat along the face as well as the edge? A bendy straight edge is no use used on edge in your way and can produce false results.
Is your plane perhaps slightly convex along the length of the sole?
Do you get the same result with different planes and different materials?
How do you account for others not achieving the same strange hollowing effect?

Why do you use a straight edge rather than just looking down the workpiece?


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

Jacob":15xpuwr3 said:


> Sorry DW I just realised it was your video I was criticising. I thought you'd just lifted it from the net.
> Have you checked your straight edge? i.e. in both directions - is it rigid and flat along the face as well as the edge? A bendy straight edge is no use used on edge in your way and can produce false results.
> Is your plane perhaps slightly convex along the length of the sole?
> Do you get the same result with different planes and different materials?
> ...



No worries, Jacob, it's a terrible video and was only put together to make a point. Both straight edges came with a two ten thousandths per foot flatness guarantee, they are milled steel and rigid. Of course, they are flat to each other. I'm sure they're right because I usually clip the ends to tune a matched panel if anything. Sometimes nothing are all, though, but the real economy in this comes with dimensioning and being able to just plane to a mark.

I get the same result with every plane, every wood. Some of my planes are convex a couple of thousandths (which I consider to be a bias in favor of the user), the two in the video are flat to within the smallest feeler that I have ...1 1/2 thousandths . It's only necessary that the sole isn't concave, there's no appreciable tearout, etc. The plane has to be working correctly, of course, to take an even shaving end to end.

No clue why nobody else has stepped forward yet. You'd think people would get tired of planing a hump into their work, which is why I worked to get to this point. Now it's just the default stroke. Because I'm planing flat by default, I can feel if a board isn't flat, the same as you can feel one that's out of square, or at least not the same squareness end to end.


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

Jacob":bc5lovtp said:


> Why do you use a straight edge rather than just looking down the workpiece?



I don't, usually, but I know most people are familiar with starrett and used it for proof. For a matched joint, the boards together tell the story. For cheap stuff like sticking, I use me bench top.

I usually use the straight edge on plane blanks, especially if I'm going to give the plane to someone else.

I made a video once jointing rough 8/4 ash and said "you should be able to feel and see roughly straight and square", and it got a lot of thumbs down! I thing people didn't like the video because it's not immediately helpful, and I jointed 8 pieces or so and didn't talk much. It bothers a fair number of people that I don't clean my shop for videos or edit them, and that I'm working in a small area. If I used all 900 sf of the shop, I'd have a bigger mess. I only use the whole area while spraying.


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## G S Haydon (24 Jul 2017)

Had a go myself at lunch time. Took an oak board, 1 1/2" wide, perhaps 3f long. Took in excess of 10 shavings and added to the hollow, can add photos later. Plane used was a Record 5 1/2.

The only way I can describe it is as Corneel did, try to dig the centre out. While that might sound crude, it's a pretty accurate description. If I think about digging hole, I find my emphasis changes to adding more pressure midway and light pressure at the ends.

I think the stop shaving method is sound, and, if making very unique items, it's very low risk when you've got a high risk task at hand. It's not a method I would use if I was preparing timber for a project or in normal workflow, just those times with high risk.


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

G S Haydon":1cnpnuik said:


> I think the stop shaving method is sound, and, if making very unique items, it's very low risk when you've got a high risk task at hand. It's not a method I would use if I was preparing timber for a project or in normal workflow, just those times with high risk.



Precisely. Eventually, if you keep doing what you're doing, it will also become what you do when there is "high risk" because everything you plane will be flat. I don't feel like I'm scooping at this point, I feel like I'm planing an even stroke - the easiest thing to do - it's a little less emphasis on the middle of the board than you would've made, but same line of thought. Think about where you want to remove the wood and do it evenly. 

It will be faster, too. 

I often state that the cap iron eliminated the single iron bench plane because of economics (aside from the fact that it just works better). I have no proof of that, but no other factor would've been as influential as money - that is what caused factories to squeeze out makers very early in the US). I believe that the method I use to true edges and faces would've existed along with the cap iron for the same reason - economics, and apprentices and masters would've had no tolerance for wasting time that didn't need to be wasted. There is no set of steps to go through. You plane the board square and you can feel if it's flat at the same time. If it doesn't feel untoward, it's flat when you have it squared, all at the same time. 

That doesn't mean it's appropriate for someone with 3 months of woodworking experience, I guess. But, there are lots of little wastes of time (guides, flattening stones, etc) that are common these days, most of them can be worked past.

Anyway, if you have to use stop shavings, then you have to. If you don't, then you don't. If it's easier to do the latter (less effort), then I can't see why anyone would do the former just to agree with a text book or method that's reliable for people who don't plane that much. 

Efficiency isn't that big of a deal for me, I have all the time in the world and no customers. I found stop shavings a little bit aggravating, though, because it interrupts a natural planing stroke. If I had a good power jointer and power planer, maybe I wouldn't care as much. There's not much left to do after good stationary power tools have done their work. Even if I don't have any use for efficiency, it's satisfying to understand it.

Thank you for making the attempt, Graham. I thought Kees' advice was quite good before it was poo pooed as being impossible. There is yet one more speed gain that we haven't discussed, but it probably applies more to wood straight off of a table saw or that is being prepared from rough. I found it out after I started making planes.


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## Jacob (24 Jul 2017)

If "stopped" shaving means not shaving the full length of a piece then everybody does it (including DW) when they have to i.e. to remove high points.
If the high points are not that high then everybody does what DW does - which is to dig in a bit by shifting pressure - you can see him doing this in the vid - his hand is off at the end of a the pass.
DaveC does the same but more specifically - whole plane off not just pressure off.
If there are no high points then digging in will produce a bit of a hollow - given a sharp plane and a steady action.
Most people will do all these things without giving it a thought.
Over-thinking causes confusion!


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

Already said that earlier. I just don't have to stop my plane to get stop shavings. If the board is high in the middle, my plane doesn't cut on the ends. At least not both of them. Before I get to that most of the time, I've already hit the edge of a board with a try plane, so there isn't much left to do. It's faster to joint with a try plane with a heavy shaving, too, but you have to be able to do it tearout free. Certainly removes out of square areas a lot faster. 

I'm curious as to what steps the "stop shavers", the ones who physically stop the plane short of the edge of the board , what those folks do for squareness. When I first started to join panels, I did squareness first, then stop shavings, then check for squareness once more, and correct if needed. Now, it's all one process. When the try plane or metal jointer goes over a panel and doesn't feel high, anyway, or push your feel away from vertical, the board is ready to go. Check for squareness, and if it's a match planed panel (talking about furniture type work, if it was architectural work, probably no need to even check for square, you'd be able to see close enough), then check the match and adjust the panel left in the vise as needed, apply rule or straight edge to the face of the matched panel and if it's all in plane, off you go). 

Of course we are all doing the same basic things, it's just a matter of how many steps. You can do a bunch, or you can find squareness and flatness all at the same time.

you can do it with thin shavings, or if you have a pile of 25 edges (not just panels ,but edges of any type), you can break out a try plane cutting a heavy shaving and do 99% of the work *very* quickly. The only detriment is that if you use a try plane for an extended length of time on edges only, it will go a little hollow in the middle. 

Now, let's get back to the point of the OP - we don't know what he's doing other than that he says he's planing the ends off of boards. That doesn't have to be, that's the whole point. I don't much care about what's in various modern books, we can probably better much of it. IF we can't, then we ought to adhere to it. 

Talking about all of this has been more than I'd ever thought about it before, other than that I made a conscious decision a couple of years ago that I'd like to move past stop shavings because I don't want to have to take them on the faces of boards, and I shouldn't have to keep checking for flatness on something that I just dropped an eighth or something with a try plane (could be a piece of cabinet sticking that was over thick, etc). I never had to type or say a word of it until giving the OP a reasonable answer.

I've got a superior method for taking the planer marks off of a board and having an initial smooth with no plane marks, too. One pass. Does anyone else need to save that time? Probably not. Do I think it's worth discussing? Maybe another day.


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## D_W (24 Jul 2017)

Side comment - I'd love to see some of the folks here who do a lot of work by hand just record a session of it. Maybe an hour or three, just with a camera in the background. 

There is a lack of that on youtube, because most of the people posting videos are either copying something someone else did (and not really making anything), or they're trying to make short videos to make money.

Videos of people actually doing work don't really generate many views.


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## Ttrees (24 Jul 2017)

A bit late to the game here, as the workshop was a bit chaotic.
I done the test anyway, to see what the outcome would be.
Well, I'm afraid I cant be a reliable subject, as my bench flexes in use.
And to add more inconsistency... I have much too deep of a camber on the iron for the job.
So what was the outcome ?
After planing a length of timber flat which was around 1 1/2" or thereabouts, by about 7 foot,
and with a fresh sharpening afterwards on a Bailey no.5 1/2 
I detected the end getting low after 6 shavings.
I could not see the low spot on each side of the timber though, so the camber might have been off center a bit.
I took some more strokes, focusing on the other side of the cambered iron to even off the high spots.
I did seem to be getting more of a hollow in the middle, although I felt this might just be a hump before the 
end of the timber.
To do this again I would want to have a bench that does not flex, and do it with a very tiny camber 
to have any surety.

I suspect if I had spot planed those high spots and taken more through shavings afterwards, it might have caused 
this phenomenon.

Interesting topic  
Tom


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## custard (24 Jul 2017)

D_W":2qcnict4 said:


> I'm curious as to what steps the "stop shavers", the ones who physically stop the plane short of the edge of the board , what those folks do for squareness.



It'll vary according to board thickness. But for the 1/2" to 1 1/2" thick boards that are the lion's share of cabinet work I'll take a pass or two on the machine planer then clean off the scalloping with one or two through strokes of the bench plane. Then test for smooth, straight and square.

About half the time, maybe a bit more, that's it.

Sometimes though I'll mess up and the plane will skip or skew, generally at the start of the cut. Or I won't find the dead centre of the camber, or very occasionally I'll wander from side to side during the stroke. In any of these cases the board will fail one or more of the tests. I might go back to the machine planer, although in a shared workshop you've often then missed your turn. Alternatively you might have painstakingly matched the paired boards for a certain grain arrangement, so taking off a mill or more of wood for a second time with a machine planer might risk that. Therefore most times I'll go to stopped shavings using the bench plane. And it's during that process that I bring the board back to square. 

I'll check every 4 to 6" and pencil in marks that tell me where I have to drift the camber to correct any problems. I'll keep checking, but by the time the stopped shaving sequence is done (a minute or two at most), I've generally got my eye in with the plane settings and the edge is square, but not yet smooth or straight. Then it's one or two through passes with the bench plane and I'll run a finger slowly along the edge feeling for smooth, a final check with a combi square for square/wind, and a long wooden straight edge or the blade of a 600mm combi square for straight or a minute hollow.

Next the two paired boards get tested against each other. One goes in the vice glue edge up, and the other gets placed on top of it glue edge down. I'll pivot the top board, listening for a slight scraping sound, and feeling for some friction out at the ends. If it pivots freely that's a clear fail. And I'll closely examine by eye for any gaps at the joint. If there's a sliver of daylight in the centre that's okay, but I want to know I can block it out just with hand pressure. I place the blade of a 300mm combi square vertically on the two boards at a few different positions and check that they're in line. Any concerns and I'll investigate until I've identified the specific problem and fixed it.

Next the boards get placed on waxed bearers for a dry glue up in the cramps. If the grain pattern across the boards is now out of whack this is the last chance to shuffle the overlong boards back and forth to make amends. If all's well then I generally glue up there and then. I don't like leaving edges for more than 24 hours to gather dust, oxidise, or get dinged.

One last point. I'm fussier with tight grained pale timbers than with open grained dark timbers. Just because glue lines are more obvious against a pale, smooth background. PVA gives the best glue lines, but if the job demands hide, UF, or epoxy glue then I crank up the fussiness a notch to get acceptable results. I'm looking for tight, strong joints, with invisible glue lines and I'll do the least amount of work to achieve that.


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## CStanford (25 Jul 2017)

I made the top to this cherry desk in about two and half hours from rough lumber -- planed, jointed, glued, breadboard ends mortise and tenon joinery, pegged, and glued, top finished planed, both sides, one coat of oil applied (it had several others over a period of days). Perhaps this was slow by the planing experts' standards, but as I recall the work seemed to proceed fairly well from this furnituremaker's perspective. The edge jointing was accomplished with the stop-shaving method we've been discussing.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

You ought to set up a camera next time, Charlie. I think people would enjoy seeing you do that entirely by hand in 2 1/2 hours. No need for production video, just off to the side camera catching the process. Would make for an interesting time lapse, too, if it was done all in a row.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

By the way, a guy who can make something in 2 1/2 hours entirely by hand ought to be able to avoid planing the ends off of a board unintentionally.


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## CStanford (25 Jul 2017)

To be frank, a guy that can make that top in 2 1/2 hours doesn't need lessons from a guy who couldn't. If you can, then do it. I'll be the first one to congratulate you, as I've always done with your plane builds.

I don't plane the ends off unintentionally since I don't run the edge all the way through until I've put a little hollow in. I intentionally use the stop shaving method in order to get the work done, delivered, and billed.

I'm not interested in seeing myself on camera. I'm interested in seeing myself at a teller's window making a deposit.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

duplicate post.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

CStanford":6hv2fwwp said:


> I'm not interested in seeing myself on camera. I'm interested in seeing myself at a teller's window making a deposit.



Oh Jeez, here we go, the boasting starts. There are smarter ways to achieve that (making deposits - I thought you mentioned once a while ago that you were carrying a CPA). 

(I misread earlier while watching the kids and thought you said you made the entire thing in 2 1/2 hours and were just giving everyone a yank. )


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

custard":2k273g1i said:


> D_W":2k273g1i said:
> 
> 
> > I'm curious as to what steps the "stop shavers", the ones who physically stop the plane short of the edge of the board , what those folks do for squareness.
> ...



Thanks for the summary, Custard. A friend of mine who is hyper about machine accuracy will always glue straight off of his jointer (machine jointer), but he is constantly fiddling with it to try to make it like a machinist's tool (in terms of accuracy). I do find a lunchbox planer very useful (and compact, and inexpensive so abusing it is fair play), but was glad to ditch a lot of the rest of the stuff. I'd still like to have a bandsaw, but not that badly. I literally have never wasted a stick of anything working by hand.


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## Paddy Roxburgh (25 Jul 2017)

When I read that Charles made that table top in 2 1/2 hours and that DW has never wasted a stick when working by hand I really need to question my woodworking abilities. I'd be happy to have made that top in a day, and I can practically heat a boat with all my mistakes.
As to the discussion about planning an edge, I did a little experiment with a scrap board and found that with very careful hand pressure I could take a board edge from slightly convex to slightly concave with through shavings. This is not my usual technique, I do stopped shavings and then a couple of passes of through shavings. I repeated this a couple of times (anything to avoid my actual work) and can confirm it is possible, however my edge ended up out of square, undoubtedly as I was concentrating on so hard on removing the hump. I doubt this is a consequence of the technique, just the fact I am not used to it.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

Paddy, the comment about not wasting a stick by hand is true, but not close to true if I use mostly power tools and try to work quickly. I have repaired things while working (dovetail gaps, etc), but never made the kind of measurement errors of haste, like cutting a batch of sticking a quarter narrow or something. Wasting good stock is more annoying than taking twice as long to build something by hand.


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## essexalan (25 Jul 2017)

Planed up some 12" x 2" cherry this morn ready for an edge grain cutting board. I always use the same part of the bench because it is flat, how do I know it's flat? Because a board planed flat sits on it nicely without rocking with no discernible gap underneath it. How do I know the board is flat? I use a straight edge. How do I know the straight edge is straight? Two boards planed flat and checked with that straight edge fit face to face with no clearance or visible light showing through the join. Why do I use a straight edge? Because I am very short sighted and am unable to tell whether a board is flat or not by looking at it and glasses do not help. Anyway Wearing tells you how to make your own straight edge so they must be OK. 
Flattened the concave side first and squared an edge using an engineers square. Convex or the side with a hump I took the hump out using a # 5 1/2 but a # 4 1/2 will do the job. I suppose you would call them incremental stop shavings as in take longer cuts as you flatten the hump out until you get a full through shaving, check with the straight edge and square. Finished it up with a # 5 1/2 set for a fine cut. This time I did continue taking a number of shavings but was unable to recreate a hump unless I kept the pressure on the front of the toe throughout the cut when I rounded one end, a couple of through shavings sorted that. Tried the same procedure with three different planes and the same result. Can't see how a plane with a flat sole taking through shavings of consistent thickness can create a hump unless you make it. Just a raw amateur and this was worked out by trial and error and all made easier using the cap iron sort of correctly.


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

Thanks for reporting back with your results.


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## Cheshirechappie (25 Jul 2017)

I dare say I'll be sneered at for this, but what the heck - here are an engineer's thoughts on what might be happening.

A few people have been close to mentioning the flexibility of planes and workpieces, but haven't actually done so. I think it may be a factor.

Considering the workpiece first, a piece 4 feet long and an inch thick being edge jointed is usually held in the face vice at about it's mid-length point. Thus, there can be quite a bit hanging free fore and aft of the vice. If the piece is nine inches wide, then applying the force of a plane to the edge won't deflect it much, but if it's only an inch-and-a-half wide, it could well do. Thus, deflection of parts of the workpiece might sometimes be a problem - less likely with a board being face planed flat on the bench.

Then there's the flexibility of planes themselves. An infill plane will be stiffer than a Bailey plane of similar length, because infills are more like a piece of steel channel having nice, wide, upstanding webs pretty much all the way along, whilst Bailey planes have longish parts at the toe and heel with much less stiffening web, so they'll flex more. The amount of flex will not be much in woodworking terms (you won't detect it by squinting down the plane sole), but it'll be there, and depending on how much pressure the craftsman applies and where he applies it, it could affect the plane's sole flatness enough to reflect in the work, especially if multiple shavings are taken at a fine depth of cut setting. Longer planes will tend to have more lengthwise flex than shorter ones, too.

That might explain disparities in results between Bailey planes and infills doing the same thing.

One thing to note is that the deflections in question are probably tiny - perhaps fractions of a thousandth of an inch over the length of a plane sole - but cumulatively over several shavings they could add up to different results from different planes. I don't know if anybody has ever tried to measure plane deflections under working loads, but given that almost everything else in the woodworking tool arsenal has been scrutinised and analysed - almost to death in some cases! - it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone has at some time or other!

The pragmatic craftsman at the bench won't bother with any of the above, of course. He'll do what all his forebears have done - work out what technique works with HIS tools and equipment, and stick with it!


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## custard (25 Jul 2017)

Cheshirechappie":3jhye1aa said:


> One thing to note is that the deflections in question are probably tiny - perhaps fractions of a thousandth of an inch over the length of a plane sole - but cumulatively over several shavings they could add up to different results from different planes. I don't know if anybody has ever tried to measure plane deflections under working loads



It's fairly common on many furniture making courses and apprenticeships to rest the toe of a number 5, 6 or 7 Bailey on a thin bit of wood with the heel on the bench, shim the gap at a fixed point, then apply some moderate downwards hand pressure to the mid point and re-shim it. I can't remember the exact results, but it was quite a bit more than fractions of a thou. I've also heard it said that beech bodied jacks and jointers were superior by virtue of their greater stiffness, but I've never seen that measured so I've no idea if it's hard fact or nostalgic propaganda!


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## D_W (25 Jul 2017)

Cheshirechappie":1dpkwoii said:


> I dare say I'll be sneered at for this, but what the heck - here are an engineer's thoughts on what might be happening.
> 
> A few people have been close to mentioning the flexibility of planes and workpieces, but haven't actually done so. I think it may be a factor.
> 
> ...



Bailey plane vs. infill won't make any difference. Wood deflection shouldn't make a difference unless you put a small stick in the vise (and that kind of work is done on the top of the bench). Iron thickness won't make any difference. The only thing that will make a difference is if a user is unfortunate enough to have a plane with a toe and heel lower than the mouth. Other than that, the difference here is user to user. 

I don't have a 5 1/2 sized bailey plane, except two with rank set irons in them, and chose only to not use a bailey style plane because I figured if I used a jointer, instead of talking about infill plane vs. bailey, it would just be said that the longer plane was the reason for the flatness. The rank set planes I mentioned were never flattened - they were rough work planes at one point (one mine, and one belonged to a friend's father), so I have no clue if they're flat enough for this, anyway. 

I do the same thing with bailey, infill or wooden planes. The only thing that matters (aside from no convex sole) is avoiding tearout (which is not hard) and avoiding the tendency to keep pressure on the front of the plane as it's passing off of the board. 

I've never noticed any noticeable deflection on bailey pattern planes. I know you could put one in a vise and flex it if you bent hard enough, and measure that, but when you're planing, if you leaned that hard on one, it would be like planing with the brakes on. I had two LN jointers at one point - a 7 and an 8. The 7 was almost perfectly flat. The 8 was hollow by about the smallest feeler in my set (1 1/2 thousandths). If you were planing a board 42 inches long (remembering the board where I noticed this, part of some casework that I was building), or 42 plus a couple (whatever was to be trimmed off), you couldn't reasonably let the plane run over a jointed edge that was flat without first clipping the ends off. You could probably lean on the plane and get it to cut, but I didn't try it because you wouldn't do it in work. I sold the plane as soon as I noticed that because at that time, if you adulterated a LN plane, it dropped in value significantly. I think people are over that now, and I could easily have fixed it in 20 minutes.

There's no universal rule about what's more rigid in terms of infills vs. other planes, as quite a few of the infills have thin steel or gunmetal sides and a mild steel sole. They could flex at the cheeks. Many of the older ones don't have a universally tight fit of the wooden parts, either. I'm amazed that the old beech planes don't deflect more, but I've never noticed that they do. If they do, it's something you can easily overcome as a user. I can work faster on edge jointing work with them (there is less effort wasted in friction), but not finer. There is also much less tendency to fiddle with adjustment on them and try to be finer than you need to be. If I am matching a panel with one set to cut aggressively, I take a through cut (perhaps two thirds of a hundredth in shaving thickness), match the panels and clip the ends off with a smoother as needed. It's faster. Lateral adjustment on a jointed edge with one at a shaving thickness that thick is super fast. The only real detriment is if wood is really temperamental with tearout, and the fact that if you do a couple of hours of edge jointing (which implies from rough, otherwise you won't use one long enough to make a difference) with a wooden plane, it will have a noticeable area of wear in the center, and if that matters to you, then you will have to flatten the sole again.


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## Cheshirechappie (26 Jul 2017)

custard":25wo9h4d said:


> Cheshirechappie":25wo9h4d said:
> 
> 
> > One thing to note is that the deflections in question are probably tiny - perhaps fractions of a thousandth of an inch over the length of a plane sole - but cumulatively over several shavings they could add up to different results from different planes. I don't know if anybody has ever tried to measure plane deflections under working loads
> ...



I've just done the same experiment using a 1980s Record 5 1/2 shimmed up at the toe with a conveniently handy piece of brass sheet. Inserting feeler gauges under the plane sole just behind the mouth, I managed to get 25 thou feelers under, with a sliding feel. Applying a load to the top of the plane (fingertips of one hand, and not a lot of force - a sort of normal planing downforce) I managed 23 thou feelers to give the same feel at the same point along the plane's sole. The 'test bed' is the flat bed of a metalworking lathe, and can be trusted to be flat and rigid enough not to have affected the results.

Must admit, I was quite surprised at how much the plane deflected. I knew it would, because everything deflects under load, but 2 thou deflection for a very moderate downforce was more than I'd expected.

Edit to add - Just tried the same experiment with a 17" wooden jack plane (2 3/8" cutter, 3 1/8" wide body 3" deep, beech, no maker's mark). The result was that there was a deflection under load (same sort of 'working' load as before), but much less than with the Record; perhaps 1/2 thou or less. I could detect difference sliding the feelers along the sole, but it wasn't sufficient to warrant a different pack of feeler shims.

I don't own any infills, so can't try with one of those.


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## ED65 (26 Jul 2017)

For anyone who doesn't own feeler gauges and can't do the test themselves Paul Sellers demonstrated that a plane can deflect in the centre in one of his videos on YouTube a few years ago. I don't recall the context but I'm sure if you hunt around you can find it without too much bother. 



Cheshirechappie":10twxhhq said:


> I've just done the same experiment using a 1980s Record 5 1/2 shimmed up at the toe with a conveniently handy piece of brass sheet. Inserting feeler gauges under the plane sole just behind the mouth, I managed to get 25 thou feelers under, with a sliding feel. Applying a load to the top of the plane (fingertips of one hand, and not a lot of force - a sort of normal planing downforce) I managed 23 thou feelers to give the same feel at the same point along the plane's sole.


Not to try to out-think an engineer on this but that's not normal planing downforce. The magnitude yes, but where the load is exerted must be important surely [rhetorical] and it's completely different. Hands fore and aft versus pressing in the centre changes things completely, but furthermore there's the surface against which a plane is pressed in normal use.

To my mind in normal edge planing where widish boards are held in a vice, boards less wide possibly resting directly on the bench, if deflection were an issue you'd have to be exerting sufficient pressure to deflect the board, or in the latter case the entire bench. I don't care how many Weetabix you've had that morning that's not happening :mrgreen: 

So I expect that in the normal run of things plane deflection simply can't be a significant factor, in fact it may not be a factor at all as your further test strongly suggests.

Because it's just as easy to dub the ends, _and just as badly_, with a wooden jack or fore plane as with their metal counterparts.


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## Corneel (26 Jul 2017)

When I wrote about the method of "trying to dig a hole" that was ment as a learning exercise. I am not all the time trying.to dig holes in my timber. Stuff now happens almost automatically with a plane long enough. When I joint an edge I first work hard to square the edge which needs quite some back and forth for me with a trysquare and planning left or right on the stock. When I finally reach square front to back that usually means (9 out of 10 times) I reached straight and flat too. 

The stop shavings technique is good to know, sometimes the edge doesn't want to reach straight that easilly so it is good to have another trick. 

And really, I don't regard myself as a top qualified planing professional. Amateur for ever.


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## D_W (26 Jul 2017)

Thanks for that accounting, Kees. I'd also like to be an amateur forever. Getting good at things is fun. Doing them 200 times once you're good at them in a prescribed set of steps - not so much. I can do that at work.


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## Cheshirechappie (26 Jul 2017)

The experiment could be done t'other way about, as it were. Place a shim under the plane sole somewhere near the mouth, and see how much shim you can insert at toe and heel. Then grasp handle and knob, apply normal working downforce, and ask your glamorous assistant to check toe and heel with shims again. You will have spotted that by doing things this way round, you need at least three hands, which is what makes the original method outlined by Custard somewhat easier - only need two hands at most. The end conclusion will be the same - Bailey planes do flex a bit longways.

The effect in 'working mode' (hands on handle and knob) will be to cause the toe end and heel end to deflect downwards a bit, with the wood holding up the middle. Thus, the plane will act like one with a slightly concave sole. The degree of 'induced concavity' will obviously depend on the amount of downforce applied at the handle and knob, and won't be great using normal amounts of planing force. However, given enough shavings, it will result in a slightly crowned board or edge, as has been noted in Andy Kev's original post, and in David C's posts. Clearly there will some more complexity than that, given that planing downforce shifts as the plane moves from start of cut to end run-off, but with about even force down on heel and toe at mid stroke, the effect noted will happen.

The stop-shaving technique (or 'digging a hole in the middle') will correct for the plane's deflection by leaving up-standing wood at the ends, forcing the plane's toe and heel upwards and correcting for the sole distortion from downforce.

Thus, technique overcomes the natural imperfection inherent in the design of the tool.


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## D_W (26 Jul 2017)

Working mode off of the end of the board shouldn't have any measurable downforce on the front knob of a plane once it's headed off the end of a board. That's the entire point. It's not imperfection in the plane that causes the problem, it's imperfection in the user. The plane will do whatever you manipulate it to do. 

I recall that David is very fond of a "lockdown" position when planing. One gets away from this when they do the kind of work Charlie showed (making a table top in 2 1/2 hours, which is about how long I'd expect it to take me to make something like he showed- not sure if our steps would be the same, but certainly different order than you'd have making that top with power tools). I may not make the first one as nicely as Charlie did, but I'd expect to by the second or third. Anyway, in the "lockdown" position that David C likes, you are not putting yourself in a situation where you can easily adjust pressure, and thus you'll plane the ends off. It's not hard to learn to plane well enough that you can literally let go of the front of the plane - as long as it remains engaged in the cut (something aided by the cap iron keeping the shaving continuous). 

Subtle things, but things you can learn to stop doing if you really want to. If Charlie has made stuff like his table top by hand on a regular basis, then he's one of the few on here who has really done a lot of that. 

Quite a lot of this is like golfing forums where guys talk about this or that club causing them to hit a draw or a fade when they've got a swing path that hits a draw or a fade regardless of the club. It's not the plane.


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## Cheshirechappie (26 Jul 2017)

I think the type of plane (and how the different types flex longways) could be a factor. It could explain why David C finds he needs the stop-shaving technique to achieve with a Bailey 5 1/2 what an infill of similar length (but greater stiffness along it's length) achieves without.

Please do try for yourself if you don't believe my experimental findings. I was surprised by how much the Record 5 1/2 deflected under quite moderate forces, and in consequence I'm fairly confident in asserting that the plane could be a factor - a factor which using technique appropriate to that type of plane corrects, but a factor nonetheless.


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## D_W (26 Jul 2017)

Something has not gotten across. I have tried all of them myself. Here is another video where I did the same thing, but using wooden planes. 

It's possible that it could be easier to attain flatness with one or the other (infill, wooden, metal stanley or copy of stanley's pattern), but I've never noticed a difference. 

https://youtu.be/b4_5gpdyH6E

(this video is unlisted on youtube because it's not really worthy of being public)

It was 2 years ago that I recorded this, one was just to see if I could get an exchange going where people showed themselves doing something that was actual work, and the other was because I thought it was important to be able to see approximately straight and square (which I bloviate about in the middle of it). These are rough edged boards being jointed, and the planes are two wooden planes that I've made. They are just about dead copies of a mathieson closed-handle jack and a griffiths of norwich long/try plane (24 inches), so there is nothing special about them in terms of rigidity. 

I guess some of that stuff isn't as important as I thought, but I do think it's useful if you're working by hand to:
* feel a hump, at least reasonably close, so that you can remove it without having to put something on it to see how big it is
* be able to feel and see relatively square
* be able to get flat or close to it as part of that without taking extra steps

I used a straight edge in this video as a final check because these pieces were laminated to make bench legs (not matched to anything), and I didn't want to have to do any significant work to three of the sides, and I probably table sawed the fourth on a cheap jobsite table saw (can't remember for sure) because I'd had enough of ripping ash by hand with the top laminations (I remember that well). It's not that nice to rip by hand if it's got a bunch of runout in it, and even if it doesn't - it doesn't rip like cherry. 

It's the same thing every time with every plane. I think in terms of "trying for yourself", what I'm saying is that I have.


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## Corneel (27 Jul 2017)

And it also works with flat stuff. As soon as all the ripples, cup, twist etc are gone, and I am able to take through shavings, the board will be flat lenghtwise. Most of the time. And when the plane is long enough of course. 

This used to be a problem for me, especially making it convex towards the ends. But it seems I did learn something through the years.


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## Ttrees (10 Oct 2017)

This post popped into my head again while I was planing this length for the bench.
I said I was going to redo the experiment again, as I felt there were too many variables last time.
Just planing off some remaining saw marks, this piece was still square and flat though beforehand.

This agreeable length is 82 1/2" quite close to my maximum planing length of 7 feet (with this stop batten)
I guessed my bench was much longer  
I have a bit of camber, maybe a bit much for the (25 maybe?) shavings I was taking on the no.5 1/2.
The cap iron had not be needed to be set tight, but I always have it closeish for jack planing I suppose.
Mouth always set back level with castings since learning how to use the cap iron.
I felt I noticed this more on the no.8 but could not be certain, I might try with it soon.

The timber is starting to pivot on the bench two-thirds of the way through the length, not bang on in the middle.
Absolutely no stop shavings, nor any weight changing applied during planing. 

Now I suppose I could prove that this bench is flat, by butting two full bench length timbers together to show no light 
when matched, as I did when properly shimming the bench top not so long ago, but I don't think these
lengths will deflect much anyway.

Tom


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## D_W (10 Oct 2017)

So, what's the conclusion - the ends are planed unintentionally during the process?

I can't remember an accounting of this, if anyone else is doing what I do (which is more efficient and definitely faster and easier, because it's just intuitive - but intuition doesn't matter if you still plane the ends off of the boards, anyway). 

I don't know if the cap iron is vital and in what % of cases, but I always have it set so that it is working on edges because it ensures with certainty that the shaving thickness will be the same from end to end - assuming that you keep the plane in the cut the whole way. That is probably a big key to why I don't plane ends off of boards. If shaving thickness is ensured from start to finish, it becomes difficult to plane the ends off in the first place.

I realize the reality is also, though, that very few are working with hand tools only, and what I see as a time savings is just one of many things, and many others may not care because it's such a small part of the process.


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## bridger (10 Oct 2017)

You're missing a critical force. The iron is pulling the center of the plane downward into the workpiece. The amount of force is small but proportional to the forces needed to handle the plane * in normal use*. As the iron dulls the down force of the iron decreases. An obvious beginner response is to push down harder rather than sharpen. Couple that with inexperienced technique and a crowned board is the inevitable result. 




Cheshirechappie":24290c8s said:


> The experiment could be done t'other way about, as it were. Place a shim under the plane sole somewhere near the mouth, and see how much shim you can insert at toe and heel. Then grasp handle and knob, apply normal working downforce, and ask your glamorous assistant to check toe and heel with shims again. You will have spotted that by doing things this way round, you need at least three hands, which is what makes the original method outlined by Custard somewhat easier - only need two hands at most. The end conclusion will be the same - Bailey planes do flex a bit longways.
> 
> The effect in 'working mode' (hands on handle and knob) will be to cause the toe end and heel end to deflect downwards a bit, with the wood holding up the middle. Thus, the plane will act like one with a slightly concave sole. The degree of 'induced concavity' will obviously depend on the amount of downforce applied at the handle and knob, and won't be great using normal amounts of planing force. However, given enough shavings, it will result in a slightly crowned board or edge, as has been noted in Andy Kev's original post, and in David C's posts. Clearly there will some more complexity than that, given that planing downforce shifts as the plane moves from start of cut to end run-off, but with about even force down on heel and toe at mid stroke, the effect noted will happen.
> 
> ...


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## Ttrees (10 Oct 2017)

Hello David
I would say that these were single consistent shavings engaged at all times throughout the length of the cuts 
At no time did the plane stop cutting, whilst not dead square I took full length passes even though I knew I 
only needed to do a spot, and this felt very silly.
Back planing dead center again to finish.

I wonder if you would get the same results with a longer stick 
Must watch your video again
Tom


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## D_W (10 Oct 2017)

I get the same results with a longer stick. It's actually a little easier to bias pressure and cut the center out of a stick a little without stop shavings. The shorter sticks just turn out flat. 

I haven't taken a stop shaving in years. 

In terms of just planing a spot, though, if I start with a board that is high in the center, or on an end, or whatever, I plane the high spot off first and then finish with through shavings. If the board does not have a high spot, I don't do that. 

I don't think the video will help - what's hard to see is that I bias the pressure to the front of the plane in the video at the start and then to the back at the end. It keeps the plane from cutting the ends off and becomes habit (as in, you don't have to do anything or think anything to do it) very quickly. 

The efficiency then translates to working faces, because you can thickness an entire face and the only thing that actually happens is that occasionally you end up with a face that's slightly hollow in the middle. The reason that's so efficient, I guess, is because you can just plane to a mark rather than planing short of it and then taking stop shavings, etc. 

I don't know what I did before cap iron (that was more than 5 years ago now), but I'm sure it wasn't as fast or easy. The cap iron being engaged makes it very clear why it eliminated single iron planes for the most part - economy in time for a whole gaggle of reasons. keeping the shaving together (no or little tearout) is very economical in terms of planing without having correct what you're doing.


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## Ttrees (10 Oct 2017)

Reading what you said David, I recall the video only now.
I haven't tried planing with one hand in most of the cut, until after the test again last night.
I wasn't trying your technique though, If I can indeed replicate it.

Honestly....
_I wanted to try that cool draping the shavings trick, that Cosman does frequently_  


I have to say now thinking about it, its a similar style.
I always try to bear down a bit more I suppose, and I'm not gonna change that because 
my legs get a bit of help this way.

I think I will experiment for fun anyway, but choose not use the technique.
Tom


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## Jacob (10 Oct 2017)

Ttrees":mcrpz84g said:


> ...
> _I wanted to try that cool draping the shavings trick, that Cosman does frequently_ .......


You need some perfect pieces of lime or similar if you want to do pointless Cosman circus tricks!


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## D_W (10 Oct 2017)

Ttrees":2od31i1e said:


> Reading what you said David, I recall the video only now.
> I haven't tried planing with one hand in most of the cut, until after the test again last night.
> I wasn't trying your technique though, If I can indeed replicate it.
> 
> ...



In the end, if what I do doesn't work for you, no big deal. I have no idea what I do that's different than what anyone else does, because I'm very lazy in a sense, but in a way to try to drive improvement rather than repeating steps. 

A quote from Frank Gilbreath, Sr (well, not a quote, but a commentary, maybe). I used to think this was attributed to Bill Gates or Chrysler, but it's not. 

_Gilbreth studied the methods of various bricklayers—the poor workmen and the best ones, and he stumbled upon an astonishing fact of great importance and significance. He found that he could learn most from the lazy man!

Most of the chance improvements in human motions that eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce fatigue have been hit upon, Gilbreth thinks, by men who were lazy—so lazy that every needless step counted.”

Another important thing Gilbreth noted was that the so-called expert factory workers are often the most wasteful of their motions and strength. Because of their energy and ability to work at high speed, such men may be able to produce a large quantity of good work, and thus qualify as experts, but they tire themselves out of all proportion to the amount of work done._


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## Phil Pascoe (10 Oct 2017)

That's always been known - if you want to find the easiest way of doing something, ask a lazy man.


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## memzey (10 Oct 2017)

Go ahead and ask. I’m listening


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