CStanford":2dcyzqvd said:
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!
A planing question.
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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!
D_W":3n56zy4k said:
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.
David C
In Memorium
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
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
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.
>>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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.)
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.
David C
In Memorium
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
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
David C":26wxkpnj said:
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).
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.
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.
David C
In Memorium
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
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
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.
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.
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?
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?
custard
Established Member
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.
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.
Attachments
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.
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.
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.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Harder to remove humps with a short one.
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
Scrub - Jack - Jointer - Smoother
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.
