Derek C - Clarification on Smooth Planing

[D_W]

Derek - I saw your post over on SMC about finishing with thick shavings using a double iron supplanting the thin final finish shavings that were popular 5 years ago, or 4, or whatever it was.

The process of smoothing with a single double iron plane is as follows:
* A heavy shaving is worked from the planer, or from the prior step if dimensioning was done by hand - ensuring that the shaving is full thickness with no interruption across a piece (and if a power planer was used, ensuring that all compression marks are gone below the scallops).
* If the workpiece is going to be planed without scraping or sanding, the final step is still to adjust depth and take several passes with a thin shaving. The cap iron is doing nothing during those final shavings.

Camber on the iron is not significant enough to plane track free on the first set of shavings, you tolerate the tracks because you will remove them.

If finishing is by scraping and sanding, then the light shavings aren't necessary unless you want to use them to remove tracks.

The heavy shavings are the most useful and quick way to get to the thin shavings, thus my commenting often about the cap iron being the most useful with the try plane if you could only have it on one plane.

On bad wood (as custard showed), it's awfully helpful on the jack. I find the same on the worst of the quartered cherry and beech, otherwise I don't worry too much about the cap iron on the jack. When it's needed though, nothing else is nearly as quick - both for jack and try plane work.

A heavy (smoother) shaving like 4 or something thousandths or such is not quite a finished surface on wood like curly or quartered cherry, it's a little bit harsh and blotchy. If the cap iron is set to stand up a 4 thousandth shaving, it's very unusual that a shaving a quarter as thick will cause surface problems without resetting the cap (i.e., setting the cap so that it's straightening up the thinnest of smoother shavings is not something I have done more than a couple of times).

 

[D_W]

I suppose the confusion about this has to do with avoiding tearout vs. finish planing.

You don't need a thin shaving to avoid tearout, but that's a different matter than getting the brightest mark free and most level surface.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

David, my post at SMC was just a comment that fine shavings (for finishing) have appeared to be out of vogue with those who use the chipbreaker. Use of the chipbreaker permits thicker shavings without tearout. Prior to the chipbreaker becoming a reliable method of controlling tearout, a common method was to take very fine, see-through shavings.

I suspect that many confuse these two methods and do not see them as complementary. One is for dimensioning, and the other is for finishing. Instead they see them as choices for the same task, which is smoothing. Final smoothing is often done with a fine shaving. This does not alter dimensions, but allows one to remove any tracks or blemishes. This is where a mild camber comes into its own.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

Mild camber works fine for heavy smoother shavings, there aren't two different camber profiles on an iron.

As far as thin shavings *before* final smoothing, it's sort of like driving a car only in first gear. You can get to your destination, but why make it take longer than it needs to?

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

David, a mild camber + thick shavings = tracks.

You can avoid tracks by deepening the camber, however this will leave a scalloped surface.

Finish with fine shavings to remove the tracks. It's not a race.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

Derek, I have no idea what the disconnect is here. You take a pass with heavy shavings until the surface is tearout free and you get continuous shavings end to end and left to right, then you back off of the adjuster a little bit and take finish shavings and the tracks are gone. to do it only with scads of thin shavings is a waste of time, and it's also annoying unless you're just planing to make shavings for entertainment.

None of these discussions ever have much clarity because few people actually do much dimensioning by hand. If you're taking wood off of a planer, then maybe it doesn't matter if you stand around and take gobs of thin shavings and do the additional sharpening that goes along with it, but if you dimension more than few board feet by hand, it gets old pretty quickly.

This sort of notion of "YMMV" rather than discussing how to get through work efficiently is exactly what sends people around saying "oh, you can't actually make anything if you work by hand".

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

David, I think we are talking at cross purposes. Perhaps I have not understood what your intent was in starting this thread. I think that we are saying the same thing.

I have not mentioned dimensioning, other than meaning that a smoother can take a few thick shavings to reduce parts in thickness when necessary. Dimensioning for me is to use a jack and jointer (which, incidentally, I do use all the time. Some of my boards will be dimensioned with the aid of machines. Some will not). Thin shavings are taken by a smoother at the end, just a couple of final strokes. Most of the work is done by jack and jointer. One aims to get this close to dimension with these two planes. The smoother does not do much work. It simply finishes - but it needs to do this well, otherwise all the work that came before is wasted. I am not saying anything new. Are you trying to say something different?

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

Dimensioning would be classified as working from rough wood to something ready for finish work without hand tools. Not a little bit of jack work here and there or match planing a joint, but the kind of stuff custard showed, etc. Very few people are doing that, which makes these discussions almost pointless, but..

"4 years, when fine shavings began to be displaced by the thicker shavings under a chipbreakered smoother"

That's a false statement. The cap iron and a thick shaving is not finish work, it didn't displace thin shavings, except for where very thin shavings would never have been done on the clock to begin with (taking out planer chatter, planing out, tearout, etc).

I've never seen warren talk about finishing with heavy shavings, nor have I seen brian do it. What is more typical is to work heavier up to that point.

As far as taking tiny shavings being the hallmark of a well set up plane, I doubt that's historically been the case. By that, I mean I doubt anyone was checking to see if they could take a full width shaving that they could read through. It's not necessary to get a clear surface that shows no marks.

If full circle is intended to suggest there will be a cycle where we talk about competent planing being a whole bunch of thing shavings, I doubt that has ever existed anywhere but the hobby community, and even the hobby community is aware now of why there wasn't a huge rush of heavy vintage super precise planes with super hard irons.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The cap iron and a thick shaving is not finish work, it didn't displace thin shavings, except for where very thin shavings would never have been done on the clock to begin with (taking out planer chatter, planing out, tearout, etc).

If full circle is intended to suggest there will be a cycle where we talk about competent planing being a whole bunch of thing shavings, I doubt that has ever existed anywhere but the hobby community, and even the hobby community is aware now of why there wasn't a huge rush of heavy vintage super precise planes with super hard irons.

David, you have taken what I wrote out of context. You lifted a statement from a thread at SMC, which was begun by Stanley on smoothing with Japanese planes. He was writing about the use of straight vs cambered blades. The essence of his commentry was that one finished with a fine shaving with a near straight blade, or a straight blade on a very wide plane.

My comment about thin shavings and thicker shavings with chipbreakers was a reflection on how fashions can evolve on the Internet. I was thinking about those newer to the use of handplanes, who do not understand why they do what they do, only follow the what to do as others suggest.

As far as taking tiny shavings being the hallmark of a well set up plane, I doubt that's historically been the case. By that, I mean I doubt anyone was checking to see if they could take a full width shaving that they could read through. It's not necessary to get a clear surface that shows no marks

The ability to take see-through shaving is the hallmark of a well set plane. It is very difficult, if not possible, if the toe-mouth-heel are not coplanar, and the blade is not bedded correctly, supported well, and not sharp. That is what the Japanese planing competitions are all about - taking the thinnest, longest shaving. However, the finest shavings are not necessary for a good finish. One can get a satisfactory finish off a jointer, and if this is acceptable, one does not need to go to another plane, such as a smoother.

For many years - until the chipbreaker became an established method of controlling tearout - the main means for controling this was either to take a very fine shaving, use a high cutting angle (which necessitated a fine shaving), or both. With the chipbreaker, shavings did not need to be as fine. Certainly, in the planing I do, I can take fine-ish shavings with a chipbreaker if I want.

Dimensioning would be classified as working from rough wood to something ready for finish work without hand tools

.

David, that is your definition, not mine. Dimensioning in my book occurs in various stages, using as many different methods as you wish. It does not have to be from rough wood. You have this thing about using handplanes from rough boards up, as though only those who do this know woodworking.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

No, i don't think that HT only is the only people who know woodworking. I do think that if I have a conversation with Brian, Warren or George about dimensioning, it goes a lot more differently and the "YMMV" kind of notion goes away, just as custard mentions - you get into a specific set of steps that gets the work done the fastest without compromise in quality.

I expect if someone says they're dimensioning by hand, that means everything. Otherwise, they may say they're jointing, sawing, smoothing, thicknessing, etc. by hand, whatever the individual operation might be.

As far as the planes go, it just simply isn't very difficult to make any commercial plane work as you describe. It can be done without a perfectly flat sole, and with something as simple as a washita stone (no ultra sharpness needed). It can't be done with certain sole defects (like a sole where the toe and heel are below the mouth) unless only the defective plane is used on a board, etc. Too much is made of making fine shavings from planes, it's not difficult until you get to stipulations like kzerou where it has to be done 2 inches wide with uniform thickness and less than 3 ten thousandths. And that is a pointless exercise itself, but I can see how it would be fun for competition.