Beeswax for the sole . . .

[ydb1md]

This weekend I did a lot of work with my low angle jack and smoothing planes. I was trying to finish flattening the apron, tail vise and front vise for my still-in-progress work bench. A number of times, I wished I had one of those new scrub planes while I was flattening and squaring up the apron I'd made from six oak 1x6's . That red oak worked me and the planes pretty hard. To ease my effort, every so often I'd stop and rub some beeswax on the sole of the planes to make my work a little easier. What a difference that stuff makes.

Do the majority of you neanders out there prefer furniture wax or some other wax for keeping your soles slick?

 

[ike]

I use nuttin' fancy, jus plain ole' furniture wax.

 

[Alf]

Candle stub - so paraffin wax I think?

Cheers, Alf

 

[Adam]

I'm sure somewhere I read beeswax is recommended over paraffin wax - but I can't remember exactly what the benefit is.

Course, I'm biased as I have easy access to beeswax!

Adam

 

[Anonymous]

I just use a candle - as you say, an amazing difference

 

[Anonymous]

With a little wax, a metal plane is almost as slick as a wooden plane with nothing...

Beeswax is amazing stuff. It will retain it's lubricating propertied at very high RPM when turning with fixed centers. Grease will have burned off long before beeswax, like it might last a minute or two, where the wax will last the whole turning. The trouble is getting it on thin enough. So a diluted polish form may be easier to handle.

 

[bugbear]

With a little wax, a metal plane is almost as slick as a wooden plane with nothing...

Heh. You got that right. But a wooden plane with wax...

WHOOOOSH!

BugBear

 

[Anonymous]

Whoosh indeed!

If the wooden plane has a wave pattern sole, I have been know to do that mime thing where you lean on the table top and slide off. Got to stay in ballance cause the plane is like "finding" the kid's skateboard.

Actually bronze is pretty good too. I was in mourning for several years when LN gave up on making their full line in bronze. I hate cast iron. I lost pretty much a full collection of planes when the moving boxes ended up in a puddle of water.

 

[Anonymous]

Actually, when I was at the japanese plane making seminar, I was surprised to see they didn't have much of anything on the soles. I have been making and using J planes for 25 years, and I always followed the advice of soaking them in tung oil. I did wonder what folks did when re-truing the soles. Well the re-truing seems to lead many to just not bother with the finish since the sole is going to be scraped anyway. so why set up a diff. they just didn't finish them at all. And they are fast like that too.