My LN No 4 1/2 and European Oak

[Chems]

I've been working solely with white oak or european oak as its called here the past few weeks. I'm getting good results with my new LN no 4 1/2 but I'm also getting tear out. I have the mouth up tight and the blade is sharp.

Is this a wood that you would want a higher angle with?

 

[chingerspy]

Seems to be the concensus that a high angle reduces tear out significantly from what I've read on here matey.
Philly stated 60 degrees in this one for smoothing:
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/tear-out-t26174.html?highlight=high angle

 

[OPJ]

Yep, I'd also try honing at a steeper angle - no need to regrind the primary bevel!! :shock: :wink:

A couple of years ago, I received a Veritas bevel-up smoother and it was tearing up everything - even pine! It wasn't until last year when someone on here advised me to try honing at 50° that I found it really was capable of an outstanding finish. With the bevel-up configuration, it was almost like a 'scraping' action.

As yours is a bevel-down plane though, I'm not sure precisely which angle would be best?

 

[Steve Maskery]

If it is bevel down (i.e. trad) then altering the honing angle won't have any effect at all on the cutting angle, it will just reduce the clearance angle. For a steeper cutting angle you will need a different frog.

That is why BU planes are so much easier for this kind of work, you can just hone at a steeper angle without needing a steeper frog.

If you have a spare plane iron that fits, you could try honing a back bevel. This does increase the cutting angle (by however many degrees of BB you hone). The problem is that to revert to normal requires considerable grinding, so it shortens the life of the blade if you do it a lot. It's best to keep a separate iron for BBs.

Of course, the same is true of BU irons, you have to remove material to regain the original grind angle, but it is not quite so bad as a trad bevel down plane.

S

 

[mr grimsdale]

Back bevel is one way to go, and it works.
Have you tried going in the other direction? Planing downhill is easier!
You also need to camber the blade and set it fine to take off thin narrow shavings.
I've got a Stanley 4 1/2 which works perfectly well but to be honest I've never quite seen the point of it - it's the same width as a 5 1/2. It seems to me that after a 5 1/2 jack you need a smoother with a smaller footprint, i.e. 4. For boards that is, for edges 4 1/2 is OK I suppose.

 

[Chems]

I gave it a polish on the Tormek and that helped no end, it probably wasn't as sharp as it could have been. Getting the direction right is a bit of trial an error. I've been reading this but it doesn't seem to help much:

http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/bl ... ection.pdf

What is oak like for tear out, is it an ok wood or a harder one? I'd have thought been so hard it would have been less likely to tear out.

 

[mr grimsdale]

The drawings on page 2 (7) are clear about what is up or down hill. But it's often not that obvious. You just have to keep doing it and following the results closely (i.e. looking at them and thinking about them).

 

[Paul Chapman]

If you want to guarantee no tear out, a scraper plane is the way to go

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Chems]

Ah yes I did think of that picture whilst I was working today. I have been using my card scrapers a lot to avoid it.


Grim, yeah that article is quite good but it doesn't always appear that simple your right, I was getting the wrong direction when the grain looked to me to be running exactly straight. Its a learning curve an I'm on the bottom!


I was making very quick process up until this point, I see why pro shops always have a drum sander in pride of place.


Thanks for the advice, I'll have to make it to a meet at some point to see all these different planes in use.

 

[Karl]

Chems - try this post for an easy way of applying a back bevel to your blade.

You'll find the job much easier with a sharp blade, a 15 degree back bevel, and a very light cut. Keep the blade sharp.

Cheers

Karl

 

[Chems]

If it is bevel down (i.e. trad) then altering the honing angle won't have any effect at all on the cutting angle, it will just reduce the clearance angle. For a steeper cutting angle you will need a different frog.

But steve said this Karl?

I may try Ollys suggestion first, I don't normally do a micro bevel as I use the Tormek.

 

[Karl]

Steve isn't talking about a back bevel, merely the normal honing angle applied to the cutting edge (ie honing the blade at 35 degrees as opposed to 30 degrees won't make any difference, and I agree).

My link was for applying a back bevel, which increases the Effective Pitch of the blade, changing if from a nominal 45 degrees to,say, 60 degrees. You will see in my link that I was honing the back of the blade as well as the normal cutting edge.

Don't confuse the honing angle with a back bevel.

Cheers

Karl

 

[mr grimsdale]

BTW for those who are a bit timid about freehand honing, applying a back bevel to a plane blade is absolutely easy peasy done freehand and should take about 20 secs. including turning a few times to remove the wire edge. Most easily done on an oil stone - across, not up and down.

 

[matthewwh]

If it's any help we have just listed replacement Quangsheng plane irons here.

I keep a spare back beveled iron next to the bench for tricky stuff and it works a treat. Oak shouldn't be too bad though especially if it's reasonably straight grained. It might also be worth having a read of this before you resort to steeper pitches, the same techniques can also enable you to plane (with a back bevel) much more of the stuff you would otherwise have scraped.

Nothing against scraping, it's just that planing generally requires less effort.

 

[woodbloke]

I've been working solely with white oak or european oak

'White' Oak is usually American and will tear...I personally don't like the stuff, but European is more or less the same as our native English Oak which is a completely different kettle of worms and ought to behave itself when planed - Rob

 

[bugbear]

BTW for those who are a bit timid about freehand honing, applying a back bevel to a plane blade is absolutely easy peasy done freehand and should take about 20 secs. including turning a few times to remove the wire edge. Most easily done on an oil stone - across, not up and down.

Whilst there is probably a long and dull thread to be had about freehand honing, applying a back bevel is quite different.

The effects of EP are quite dramatic - whilst tear out is decreased, blade wear is increased, pushing effort is increased, and surface "gloss" is reduced.

As such, one wants the *LOWEST* EP that achieves the request tear out suppression.

Quite small changes in angle have quite strong effects, which is why (in the original days of fine hand tools) smoothers came in quite finely gradated bed angles.

http://www.handplane.com/perfect-pitch- ... -explained

This means that the actual angle achieved (wether back bevelling or honing a BU blade) is important. Unless you happen to have an uncanny ability to judge and hold a desired angle freehand, some kind of assistance is definitely called for.

BugBear

 

[mr grimsdale]

BTW for those who are a bit timid about freehand honing, applying a back bevel to a plane blade is absolutely easy peasy done freehand and should take about 20 secs. including turning a few times to remove the wire edge. Most easily done on an oil stone - across, not up and down.

.... Unless you happen to have an uncanny ability to judge and hold a desired angle freehand, some kind of assistance is definitely called for.

BugBear

It's a lot easier than they say. Nothing uncanny about it.
No 'fine gradations' involved either - big jumps of 5º to 10º. For any particular piece of wood a range of angles is likely to be desirable ideally, but an approximation is the best you will get, i.e. +/- 5º
A bit of practice may be called for - or just having a visual reference to hand.
You don't need to 'hold' the angle either - as long as you start the hone at about the right angle and don't exceed it as you hone. This is easy if you do 'the dip' for a convex bevel.

 

[bugbear]

It's a lot easier than they say. Nothing uncanny about it.
No 'fine gradations' involved either - big jumps of 5º to 10º. For any particular piece of wood a range of angles is likely to be desirable ideally, but an approximation is the best you will get, i.e. +/- 5º
A bit of practice may be called for - or just having a visual reference to hand.
You don't need to 'hold' the angle either - as long as you start the hone at about the right angle and don't exceed it as you hone. This is easy if you do 'the dip' for a convex bevel.

That certainly sounds as if would make a back bevel of some kind.

BugBear

 

[matthewwh]

Surely if you are producing a temporary back bevel that you later intend to remove then using 'the dip' would extend the back bevel further up the back of the blade and increase the amount of metal that needs to be removed.

Admittedly the specific angle is not critical - the higher you go the lower the chance of tearout and the more energy it takes to push the plane - but it does want to be one single flat angle and as small a bevel as you can get away with. Otherwise you will end up expending more time and effort removing it than you would have done pushing the plane a bit harder until it is sharpened out naturally.

Clearly if you use a separate blade this is not an issue.

 

[bugbear]

Surely if you are producing a temporary back bevel that you later intend to remove

I think that's a rather unusual thing to do - most people either designate a plane to "high EP" use, or have a spare blade for high EP use.

As you detail, converting a blade to-and-from back bevel use is tedious.

BugBear