A Pair of Jack Planes

[woodbrains]

Hi Mike.

You won't find any sandpaper in my shop. Just the odd sheet of 'wet and dry', for rust cleaning and flattening purposes!

John

Hello,

If you don't have to use sandpaper, then good for you, I don't like sanding myself.

Incidentally, even Krenov had a few sheets of fine sandpaper in his bench drawer, it was other people who stated he didn't use it and it is their legend that gets repeated. It was his aim rather than a rule and he did use it, but lightly, he didn't want to dough over any detail the tool made. I quite like some of his knife marks, which burnished the wood and would have been ruined if sandpapered.

I made some planes when I was at the college; the college used to sell sandpaper!

As said earlier, Krenov did use machines, he wasn't a hand tool only maker. 'How else?' (Would he do it) he would explain. He did use scrapers, too, though I don't know to what extent. He had one once, made from half a sole of a Stanley compass plane!

In David Finck's book on making Krenov style planes, there is a section on scrapers. He advises that all scraped surfaces should be sandpapered, as it is vastly different to a planed finish. It is his opinion. As much as I would like to disagree, in most cases, I would find it hard to, actually. Krenov seems to endorse the book, I wonder what he would have thought of this.

Mike.

 

[D_W]

Interesting thought on scraping. I guess it might be the case in softwoods (that sandpapering is necessary).

Most of the woods we use commonly here are probably 800 to 1300 on the janka hardness scale, except for pine (which a lot of us don't use, but it's not uncommon to see people making things out of it).

Some of those things scrape well and some don't. Anything soft, especially quartered, can look fuzzy of of a scraper, but you can still forgo sanding and get away with it if you have some soft plane shavings handy. I never work the tops of my card scrapers. If I have to fix something I can't plane, I scrape, then I use the top (which is worn smooth) to burnish the spot and then rub with shavings. It ususally looks similar to the planed surface and absorbs finish similarly.

I'm curious as to why all of us are that sensitive about what other people do. I don't like sanded surfaces that much, and the mouldings on the case I pictured vs. the shelves and the top show why, but I wouldn't look at a nicely designed case. I wouldn't think too much of my own bookcase either other than maybe "that's a fairly thoughtful little bookcase for ..well, for a cheap bookcase", and I'd think the same if it was sanded, and might try to peek in the corners to see evidence of dovetails or how it's joined.

Point being, if krenov has a reputation for not sanding, and finck thinks something should be sanded, what do you think?

I love excuse projects like the shelf I pictured because I can do them as fast as I can physically think to (including smooth planing and dovetailing - no harm in that, they're hidden, and applying shellac and wax) and then see how they turn out. I wouldn't dare work that carelessly on something that would sit in front of my wife's face most days in bright light. It's interesting to see how quick work turns out.

Charlie and I know each other from elsewhere, obviously. I don't think charlie cares what I think (I know he doesn't), and it would be highly unusual for me to do something based on charlie's opinion (I did buy a primus plane once because he gushed over them. That didn't turn out well, I can't think of any other times.). Garrett Hack is supposed to be an authority on planes, which is really what interests me the most, but I don't think I've had too much regard for his opinion - only the people I talk to offline do I have a lot of regard for - we work to make ourselves happy and that should be good - and possibly those we actually know. If I called George Wilson to talk to him and sent him a picture of something asking for advice, and he said "you know, I'm really disappointed with what you did there, it just shows a lack of judgement and it's ugly", then that would have a bigger effect. And he's not afraid to say stuff like that, though he wraps the poo in sugar before he delivers it, so it's not said quite like that.

 

[D_W]

By the way, has anyone yet pondered building a plane out of solid like these? That's really what I'd like to see more of if people want to do it.

Maybe someday I'll send one of these to charlie as a spoof. I can't imagine what his reaction would be. I don't have his address, so I"d just have to find his picture in that other thread and paste it on a package and write "To: Grumpy in Memphis, ship to the man in the picture"

 

[Trafalgar]

re: the furniture, I would've liked to have known your secret if you could build furniture for money. I don't even know who *buys* it here, even surgeons, etc just buy manufactured furniture and turn it over at a high rate.

It's an interesting coincidence that store's not you. I thought for sure I'd seen the caned chairs that you made with florida gators colors, and the store had a mix of shaker and danish modern when the listings were up.

Whoever it is, they've listed a lot and sold little. My mother sells little things on etsy, and lots of them. I don't see how it's worth the time, but it's her time and not mine. i've never seen much big sell there - perhaps because I'm interested in things that people refuse to pay much for.

Nope, I've never done any sort of seating in orange and blue.

I did a set of handrails for a church, quite nice actually, years ago. That netted some work and then that netted some work. It's all essentially word of mouth. Most people had seen something that I had built first hand so if they had a similar need there really wasn't much need for a 'sell job.' I'll never be fast enough or live in an area rich enough to make a lot of money on one-offs. I did do some work for an interior designer out of town and that was nice but tapered off. It's just knowing people I guess. There's no real money in it unless you're super talented and famous both of which I am not.

 

[custard]

I'll never be fast enough

I read your post about a 20 hour table build. Not fast? You're the Tokyo Bullet Train of the woodworking world!

In fact following your post I was motivated to get the price book you referenced and compare it with a number of old British price books (they all paint the same picture by the way...supersonic build speeds. There's something a bit odd going on there that's worthy of further investigation. Maybe apprentice labour wasn't explicitly declared but actually delivered much of the grunt work? Who knows, but many of those price book timings just don't add up.)

It's interesting, whenever I hear one professional craftsman talk about another it's only a matter of time before the whole speed thing comes up. A professional is nearly always benchmarked by how fast they are, and it's rare to meet the craftsman who is satisfied with how fast he builds.

The workshop where I trained drummed the need for speed mantra into you every day. As you worked your way through the apprentice pieces, you made every piece once to reach the required standard, then again to reach the required speed. And the quality standard was always a lot easier to achieve than the speed standard!

I've always been a bit sceptical of this approach. To me it's like the folk stories about man versus machine. The American railway worker competing against a powered spike driver, or the Cornish Tin Miner competing against a steam shovel. The thing that's crucial in all those stories is that the man always wins...but then drops down dead from exhaustion. I've never found that a very inspiring message.

In furniture making I think it reflects some deep rooted belief that if the maker was only a bit quicker then they could compete with factory made furniture.

Never going to happen. Indeed the moment the situation is even framed in price/speed terms then we've already lost the battle.

The best analogy I can think of is Saville Row tailoring. If you buy a striped shirt in Saville Row or Jermyn Street the stripes on the yoke will line up with the stripes on the arms. Yes, the buttons are a bit nicer and it's south sea cotton, but basically it's all about the stripes. And in London's financial district there's a secret club, it's formed of those people whose stripes line up. It's like MCC ties, they recognise one another from fifty paces.

When I'm talking to a prospective client I talk in the same language a Saville Row tailor or a Jermyn Street shirtmaker uses with a new client. I show them what ultra thin drawer sides and drawer slips actually look like. I invite them to experience the smell of Cedar of Lebanon or Camphor Wood drawer bottoms. I illustrate the difference between a top made from carefully matched, sequential boards, versus one made using boards in whatever order they happen to arrive. And I basically spell it out that even though none of this adds much to the practical utility of a piece, they do make it an altogether more pleasant thing to live with. I'll sometimes toss in the old phrase about the only furniture worth owning is that which you've inherited, and imply they're laying down a legacy for their children and grandchildren.

Hey, I'm as impoverished as the next maker. But I'm clear in my mind that shaving build times by 10% isn't the solution, because even if I do I'll immediately drop down dead!

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Custard speaks sense, well, at least to me!

There is a point where you can work faster and no longer enjoy the work, or make a mistake that takes longer to rectify than doing it right but steady the first time. You can design out details that take time and then dislike the thing you've made, because you see the lack of detail even though the customer might not. You may even start to excuse yourself by saying things about the work not being as good as you could have done if only you'd spent a bit longer. It might be great for the short time it took, but who cares, it is not fabulous? Are we going to provide disclaimers with our pieces? If it is just OK for 20 hours imagine what it could have been in 40? No, you get no marks for that, I'm afraid. The piece speaks for itself and has no concept of the time it took to come into being. People judge it only by what it can say. I stopped professional furniture making because I made the shortcuts, tried labour saving and hurrying and justifying leaving out detail and still I could not sell enough to make a living. And I learned to hate making that stuff. Speed was no consolation and client satisfaction did not pay my rent. The compromises were just to much, so I stopped completely. It was mainly due to the area I live, but I could not sell the quality I wanted to and did not want to lose quality with speed. I wish every day that I had my workshop so I can make things again, but reality for me at least, is that I cannot sell it. So now I do something I hate a bit less and will not kill me through exhaustion.

Mike.

 

[D_W]

Speed may not be the right term for me to use in discussing the double iron, rather economy of effort.

Speed implies that you're going to go faster and faster until you're hurrying, but economy of effort would be a better term because you're not hurrying with it, but getting through with things faster.

The straw man extrapolation that takes place every time this is brought up in the presence of some people ignores the fact that it's less effort to use the double iron properly, and in order to do decent work without hurrying (I'd prefer to keep a rhythm of work that allows you to continue working but observe while you're going - as opposed to hurrying), we all have a collection of experience with various things that allow us to do things more easily without adjusting a design.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Some of those old Price Books should be read with a bit of caution. Certainly in London, and possibly in other major cities, there were enough cabinet tradesmen about in late Victorian times to allow them to specialise quite narrowly. There were chair specialists, case work specialists, veneering specialists and so on. That built speed. Also, the wage rates to even quite skilled tradesmen were not (by anything approaching modern standards) at all generous - hence the old saying, "Carvers are starvers".

I rather suspect that joiners and cabinetmakers in the smaller market towns, more used to a variety of jobbing work, didn't take much notice of the Price Books; quite possibly didn't even know of their existence.

 

[Jelly]

In furniture making I think it reflects some deep rooted belief that if the maker was only a bit quicker then they could compete with factory made furniture.

Never going to happen. Indeed the moment the situation is even framed in price/speed terms then we've already lost the battle.

Indeed, having worked in a factory making joinery products, they can be made to run with ruthless efficiency; it's an environment where Just In Time production and the Kaizen/Toyota Managment System can be put to very good use; very little wasted material, very little wasted time...


Capitalising on the "Saville Row" example; a lot of the tailors and shirtmakers have now started offering a made to measure service, where they have a lot of patterns that will fit a lot of shapes quite well, and they measure you to choose the best pattern to cut... you get the stripes that line up exactly, for a fraction of the price, made in a semi-industrial manner... just not quite as perfect as if you were going the whole hog.

In this vein, a maker who could find backers and wanted greater commercial success could create a line of pieces which employ traditional "proper" joinery and use carefully matched timbers, but are made in a factory which has been set up for the purpose of manufacturing their designs in an optimised but "authentic" way...

If the industrial aspect of the design is really good, one can go as far as to offer people a custom size or material option on a product they 've seen in the showroom (we did this with windows; the parts are produced during the next run the machining line does in the nearest standard size, then modified to specified size by a smaller team with more traditional hand-adjusted machines, and fitted together by a joiner; said joiners also made custom orders which required specialist attention from start to finish).

The three major issues would be:

• Ensuring that the individual production cells had the right skill mix, as one needs someone who can acquire a level of skill in a particular aspect of production, do it over and over accurately without getting too bored, and then switch to learning a new skill quite quickly
• Ensuring consistency of supply for the materials
• Convincing the public they really could have traditionally made furniture for the price of an "oak furniture land type jobbie"

Of course, this probably wouldn't help the poor old custom furniture makers who didn't take that track... or maybe it could awaken the public's desire for something more custom, more original, more exceptional; rather a revolving door of well thought out, cheaply made flat-packs of Swedish tat; Hard to know until someone succeeds at it really.

 

[G S Haydon]

Nice points Jelly,

I think Custard sounds like a very, very fine furniture maker, aptly described with the Savile Row description. I'd love to have him make something for me .

When it's work time we have to look carefully at reducing waste and making a process as efficient as possible. After reading the "Toyota Way" six or seven years ago it's been an ongoing process at our workshop. An example of this would be improving set up times on tenoner, a Wadkin EKA 5 Head machine with cut off saw http://www.wotol.com/1-wadkin-eka-tenon ... id/1021696 . To reduce our batch sizes and flow the work better means more tool changeover, the goal with changeover being SMED. By reducing variation and making things consistent we have reduced setup time to 14mins from 25 mins. No customer needs to pay for poor process. This saving improves quality as the setup is more repeatable too. Now we are at 14min we'll review again and keep improving. It's interesting to talk about the pace of work too, takt time .

That's why I understand (at least I think I do) D_W's thoughts on the double iron wooden planes. They are likely the best way of converting material from sawn stock with minimal further steps. If they weren't any good the trade would have chewed 'em and spit them out very quickly. They instead did that to single iron planes.

 

[D_W]

That's why I understand (at least I think I do) D_W's thoughts on the double iron wooden planes. They are likely the best way of converting material from sawn stock with minimal further steps. If they weren't any good the trade would have chewed 'em and spit them out very quickly. They instead did that to single iron planes.

And they did that when the double irons were substantially more expensive than single irons.

I lurch a little in my chair when I see kaizen, just in time, etc. It's just good sense if a tenoner takes a long time to set up, to engineer work flow to minimize setups, and to examine if setup can be made faster.

But when the entire life of us gets unitized into a comrade-ish group of people bean counting every single thing and going "lean" to the point of not allowing people with desk jobs to sit, etc, it makes me wonder.

(graham - that, of course, really doesn't have too much to do with your tenoner, more just a general statement. I worked in the '90s in a shop that went just-in-time, and it reduced costs and inventory, but it made some things a real pain. Plus they had all of us doing exercises before work, which was bizarre in rural america. Someone heard "the japanese people exercise before work, so we will, too".)

 

[G S Haydon]

Agreed, if it's bean counting you're not going to see the benefits. I like to think of it as bagging easy wins. Where do we keep the manual for a machine? There is a QR code on the machine with a direct link to the manual. We're at a stage where we are flowing work much better, avoiding large volume of wip too. I never expected this discussion to come of the back of a pair sweet jack planes.

Regarding exercise, I know I should do some but first thing in the morning? I like having an interest that keeps me active, hand tools woodworking does that nicely. I'm sure rural Devon would also not be the place to begin a 7am aerobics session.

 

[Trafalgar]

I'll never be fast enough

I read your post about a 20 hour table build. Not fast? You're the Tokyo Bullet Train of the woodworking world!

In fact following your post I was motivated to get the price book you referenced and compare it with a number of old British price books (they all paint the same picture by the way...supersonic build speeds. There's something a bit odd going on there that's worthy of further investigation. Maybe apprentice labour wasn't explicitly declared but actually delivered much of the grunt work? Who knows, but many of those price book timings just don't add up.)

It's interesting, whenever I hear one professional craftsman talk about another it's only a matter of time before the whole speed thing comes up. A professional is nearly always benchmarked by how fast they are, and it's rare to meet the craftsman who is satisfied with how fast he builds.

The workshop where I trained drummed the need for speed mantra into you every day. As you worked your way through the apprentice pieces, you made every piece once to reach the required standard, then again to reach the required speed. And the quality standard was always a lot easier to achieve than the speed standard!

I've always been a bit sceptical of this approach. To me it's like the folk stories about man versus machine. The American railway worker competing against a powered spike driver, or the Cornish Tin Miner competing against a steam shovel. The thing that's crucial in all those stories is that the man always wins...but then drops down dead from exhaustion. I've never found that a very inspiring message.

In furniture making I think it reflects some deep rooted belief that if the maker was only a bit quicker then they could compete with factory made furniture.

Never going to happen. Indeed the moment the situation is even framed in price/speed terms then we've already lost the battle.

The best analogy I can think of is Saville Row tailoring. If you buy a striped shirt in Saville Row or Jermyn Street the stripes on the yoke will line up with the stripes on the arms. Yes, the buttons are a bit nicer and it's south sea cotton, but basically it's all about the stripes. And in London's financial district there's a secret club, it's formed of those people whose stripes line up. It's like MCC ties, they recognise one another from fifty paces.

When I'm talking to a prospective client I talk in the same language a Saville Row tailor or a Jermyn Street shirtmaker uses with a new client. I show them what ultra thin drawer sides and drawer slips actually look like. I invite them to experience the smell of Cedar of Lebanon or Camphor Wood drawer bottoms. I illustrate the difference between a top made from carefully matched, sequential boards, versus one made using boards in whatever order they happen to arrive. And I basically spell it out that even though none of this adds much to the practical utility of a piece, they do make it an altogether more pleasant thing to live with. I'll sometimes toss in the old phrase about the only furniture worth owning is that which you've inherited, and imply they're laying down a legacy for their children and grandchildren.

Hey, I'm as impoverished as the next maker. But I'm clear in my mind that shaving build times by 10% isn't the solution, because even if I do I'll immediately drop down dead!

Oh my gosh, a two-drawer hall table. Haven't we all built a half dozen of these at least? Walnut is just so amenable, such a lovely wood. I take no credit for the speed. I just pushed the plane and watched the wood cooperate.

That table is probably the only thing in my repertoire that isn't a one-off.

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

I agree Charlie! Seems after we build one, others see it and want the same of something similar. I have right in front of me, a "short legged side table" built in about a 24 hour period (over several days) for a wide screen TV, built after at least 3 other tables. This was about 6 or 8 years ago, and in that period of time, I've learned to go slower-MUCH SLOWER, so as to keep the wife at bay from similar projects that get old.

I also agree on walnut, but it doesn't agree with my allergies, so I go to my second choice of cherry. Anyone here use any butternut?

 

[Trafalgar]

Yep, butternut is a honey.