Dimensioning by hand

[nosuchhounds]

Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it

 

[profchris]

I do, for making musical instruments.

95% hard graft, hogging off the excess.

The last 5%, creeping up on the line, isn't exactly romantic, but it does give me a feel for how the wood will behave when it's made up into the instrument.

 

[Ttrees]

It's not a romantic view for me, but out of practicality's sake.
I wouldn't want a plastic throwaway machine, so would have to be something
I could afford, likely old and broken, fine by me if I happen to come across one too cheap to refuse, much like the 500squid bandsaw or tablesaw.(which I needed)
Not as common on the ground either, so to get one even at that price ain't common)
Takes a lot of juice to run a P/T if you consider everything, so another reason
as well as space and noise.


I consider the other machines a lot more necessary as in, try doing some of the other stuff by hand like cutting veneers and so on.

A lot more time consuming than a few swipes of a plane IMO.
That's why I regard my flat workbench (without chisel or saw cuts anywhere) polishedy, fairly rigid, stable, adjustable, long enough to do the work, and very well lit with an angle poise lamp, as so important.

A cleat on the end is all that's needed for me for dimensioning,
no trapping the work in vices, dogs, wedges, winding sticks, that all looks like faff to me.
I see @profchris has replied regarding thinner stock, which i would clamp down
Thankfully using the cap iron correctly honed @50 degrees, regarding either planing into a stop, or veneer like thickness doesn't require one to flip the work or do anything difficult or fafflike, like having to scrape where the clamp was, or require moving it constantly, as that would be annoying otherwise.


Most folk think otherwise than this!
Even with this thin lab counter top, which flexes on the ends, it still looks a lot quicker and easier to use it as such, anything else I've ever seen looks like harder work for a lesser result to me.

 

[Adam W.]

Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it

I do it always because I want high quality riven wood to work with for joinery and carving and I'm picky about the framing timber that I use too, so I convert everything myself.

But then my stuf has a certain...how can I say it....wonkyness to it. I like to call it "The sculptural qualities of the workshop."

Then I can get away with it when speaking to the posh folk.

 

[nosuchhounds]

I had the Titan Thicknesser but sold it as it was so noisy and a pain to swap between modes.

Would people recommend a scrub plane or have a jack plane set to a deep cut with a wide mouth?

 

[Adam W.]

Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.

No doubt someone will pipe up soon and say that you don't need one, but I guess they prefer to push around a heavier plane than necessary.

 

[thetyreman]

I like to use my no7 for dimensioning, but still use a bandsaw for a lot of the bulk waste removal, the key is marking out properly and having a good face/edge before making it four square.

 

[deema]

For me, the most useful piece of kit I own is the P/T. It would be one of the last pieces I will dispose of. Why? Well planning up stock takes a lot of time and energy. I have unfortunately a problem with my back, so heavy work it doesn’t like. The PT takes for me all the hum drum work out of woodwork. I have had sets of Record, Stanley (from my father and grandfather) LN and Veritas planes, most of which I have now got rid of for this reason. Planing up small bits, or refining work is still the domain for my a hand plane. But processing say a doors worth is not somethiNg I would willing take on.
The other bit of kit that will be the last to leave would be either a table saw or a bandsaw. In my case it’s the Table saw. It gets used 100% of the time for any project.

 

[niall Y]

I have to agree with deema, a planer/thicknesser is what makes everything else possible.

I remember reading a journal of a cabinet maker from the late Victorian period. The sheer drudgery of collecting his wood on a handcart,from the docks to converting it all by hand, was something he only did at the start of his working life. When he took on apprentices, it was they who took on this role. And when machines took over, this approach was no longer competitive.

I have done my fare share of planing up timber by hand at the bench and over the years it has taken its toll on my back. In my younger days I met a retired builder, who passed on this little nugget - "They say hard work doesn't kill you - but it doesn't half make a mess of your body"

 

[nosuchhounds]

I like the idea of dimensionsing by hand but i get limited time in my shop to do anything.

Ill definitely be dimensionsing by han on my next project, not sure how it will go though!

 

[D_W]

I generally dimension by hand -it's not a matter of just one or two things. It's a complete cycle of being able to set up and use everything from saws (good saws) to planes, etc.

For anything big, it'll probably take longer, but if you're bad with inaccurate power tools and have to clean up after them, that won't be better, either.

Two things come to mind:
1) if you're in a hurry, nothing good with happen woodworking (power tools or hand tools)
2) don't try to reinvent the wheel. Use tools generally that were made for dimensioning by hand and use them the way they were designed to be used

Sharpen accurately, and often. Very often.

You're viewing this from the short term, but it isn't really a short term thing. Neither is woodworking with any other method.

My preference for working flat work is simple for planes, though. One double iron jack plane around 16-17 inches long. One double iron try plane, about 22-24 inches long (24 is often referred to as a "long" plane), and a stanley 4. There is very little that those won't cover aside maybe from wet wood work or sculpture.

 

[profchris]

Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.

I too find a wooden smoother converted to a scrub very useful.

But I'd recommend a European design, with a handle. I've tried with a converted coffin smoother, doesn't half leave my hands aching!

 

[deema]

One of the planes I’ve retained is a Veritas Scrub. Now, any No4 with a bit of fettling can become a good scrub, the Veritas was an ebay steal.…I was looking for an old unloved 4 to convert. For taking off material fast you can’t beat a scrub, the biggest danger is going too close to finished dimension before switching to No5 or 6 ( I use a 6 and don’t own a 5, only because I’m tall with large hands, and it feels right to me) to get down to within a whisker or size and then finishing with a 4.

 

[D_W]

For the folks using a scrub plane on flat work, I'd propose doing a comparison with rough sawn lumber - a comparison with a jack set to cut deep.

I think most of the tutorials online show someone using a jack set just a bit steeper than a smoother, or they're set radically like a 3" radius.

Reality is somewhere between those with about half of the plane's width in the cut, or maybe slightly less (the full iron width is never in the cut in a jack, but the cut width isn't a narrow drastic strip, either).

where the scrub will lose on time (putting metal aside - metal planes for heavy work will rob you of some effort, even if waxing often - I have tried both of the premium scrubs in the past, but sold the one I kept at the time - a friend and I each bought one - I bought an LN, he bought LV's) or the bismarck is in flatness.

The objective with the jack is to both remove wood without significant damage, and to get a surface flat enough for the try plane to follow quickly and hit the thickness mark or nail flatness. For small work and work that doesn't need to be flat, it doesn't matter as much. For most cabinet work, the jack plane will be faster and if you're concerned about having one for softwoods and one for hardwoods, just get two wooden jack planes at some point.

The scrub type plane gives the illusion that it will be faster, but it will cost you in time other than just in how fast kilograms of shavings get through the mouth.

 

[D_W]

I forgot one other point - if you will be dimensioning by hand, you need straight wood. I don't mean wood that's devoid of figure or is easy to plane without tearout, but rather not junk wood hat has runout into the surface of boards or big knots with grain going in different directions around the knot running out into the surface. #1 common lumber here is often clear but graded down because of runout - it is a bear to saw and plane wood where you are not able to determine the dominant grain direction through the length because you cannot jack plane something reasonably if the grain is running out in the surface four different directions within half a square foot.

lumber that bad forces you to do rough work with a jointer or a fore set far shallower than a jack, it saws poorly, and it will tie you in knots when you get to the ends of boards and want to cut joints.

 

[bp122]

I like the idea of dimensionsing by hand but i get limited time in my shop to do anything.

Ill definitely be dimensionsing by han on my next project, not sure how it will go though!

I didn't have a planer thicknesser, did everything by hand. Sure, I am not gifted or talented in that but every time I tried to learn it, I spent an hour carefully planing something and then something comes up and I have to go away. Come back a few days later when I have an extra hour, I'm still planing the same piece of my timber on my vice.

When I saw @Fidget 's workshop and saw what a planer thicknesser actually does for someone like me, I looked for one immediately and found one a few weeks later.

On Saturday evening, I started on a chopping board for a friend. Started milling my first piece of walnut at 8.25, I had it all glued up by the time it was 8.50.

Within half an hour, I had milled and glued the whole thing which would have taken me better part of a fortnight doing by hand.

Next evening, I spent another 15 mins and it was flat on both sides. I even cut the curved side on a mitre saw (yes, a mitre saw)

My point is, if you have the talent, experience and muscle memory to dimension by hand, all the power to you.

If you just want to learn and enjoy it, go for it.

But if you are like me who wants to learn but only has 2 hours in a week to spend in the workshop but have a list of "must make now" projects longer than your arm, get the right tool. You can find a decent induction motor planer thicknesser for less than most people's yearly Costa coffee budget!

And if it's something you really need, you can find a way to make space for it in most cases!

 

[nosuchhounds]

I generally dimension by hand -it's not a matter of just one or two things. It's a complete cycle of being able to set up and use everything from saws (good saws) to planes, etc.

For anything big, it'll probably take longer, but if you're bad with inaccurate power tools and have to clean up after them, that won't be better, either.

Two things come to mind:
1) if you're in a hurry, nothing good with happen woodworking (power tools or hand tools)
2) don't try to reinvent the wheel. Use tools generally that were made for dimensioning by hand and use them the way they were designed to be used

Sharpen accurately, and often. Very often.

You're viewing this from the short term, but it isn't really a short term thing. Neither is woodworking with any other method.

My preference for working flat work is simple for planes, though. One double iron jack plane around 16-17 inches long. One double iron try plane, about 22-24 inches long (24 is often referred to as a "long" plane), and a stanley 4. There is very little that those won't cover aside maybe from wet wood work or sculpture.

I get this and really understand. Its part of understanding how things work, how wood reacts etc.

With regard to wooden planes, i have an old coffin smoother that i got for free when in bought a wooden Jack plane.

Ive also seen Lemongrass Pickers version off a Hareshi Kanna. An inexpensive kanna from ebay etc..

 

[bp122]

And regarding a scrub plane, I fashioned one out of a wooden smoother someone had chucked out. Has a curved edge and it rapidly reduces most timbers to what you want!

 

[D_W]

I get this and really understand. Its part of understanding how things work, how wood reacts etc.

With regard to wooden planes, i have an old coffin smoother that i got for free when in bought a wooden Jack plane.

Ive also seen Lemongrass Pickers version off a Hareshi Kanna. An inexpensive kanna from ebay etc..

You can use the coffin smoother without issue as long as you set the cap iron up properly on it. In hardwoods, they can really beat you up (elbows, wrists and shoulders) and the lack of quick adjustments may seem, "suboptimal" let's say.

I've delved into japanese planes. At one point when i first started and wanted to go full bore all the time, instead of developing a rhythm that can be done for hours, i would go back and forth between western and japanese planes for the jack work (a cheap one, like you say, sharpened with a pretty significant camber).

I don't use it now, but have since learned to saw and plane at least to a reasonable extent with my off hand. On an english jack plane, you'll generally have two hands on the plane, anyway, and it's easier to switch hands to plane something than it is to do some other wild gyrations.

I've never felt (noticed) any loss of time for not having an adjuster on anything but the smoother. The try plane is more or less set at a depth setting with the cap iron set properly to limit any tearout to tiny amounts that will be removed in smoothing with no additional effort. that may take reading twice, but it will make sense in use if you get there. It's set just to remove material and make flat before smoothing and do a good job of it (not perfect, but very close to perfect).

 

[nosuchhounds]

You can use the coffin smoother without issue as long as you set the cap iron up properly on it. In hardwoods, they can really beat you up (elbows, wrists and shoulders) and the lack of quick adjustments may seem, "suboptimal" let's say.

I've delved into japanese planes. At one point when i first started and wanted to go full bore all the time, instead of developing a rhythm that can be done for hours, i would go back and forth between western and japanese planes for the jack work (a cheap one, like you say, sharpened with a pretty significant camber).

I don't use it now, but have since learned to saw and plane at least to a reasonable extent with my off hand. On an english jack plane, you'll generally have two hands on the plane, anyway, and it's easier to switch hands to plane something than it is to do some other wild gyrations.

I've never felt (noticed) any loss of time for not having an adjuster on anything but the smoother. The try plane is more or less set at a depth setting with the cap iron set properly to limit any tearout to tiny amounts that will be removed in smoothing with no additional effort. that may take reading twice, but it will make sense in use if you get there. It's set just to remove material and make flat before smoothing and do a good job of it (not perfect, but very close to perfect).

No I think that makes sense. Im might give the Kanna a go. Thanks for your advice though. I appreciate it