Dimensioning by hand

[D_W]

@D_W
Nearly sounds like that setting the depth of the plane is also more forgiving with a rounded, or smaller "2paint by numbers" bevel?

Cheers
Tom

Absolutely. I didn't put that plainly enough - the rounded cap will work with a much greater range of shavings. It's really uncommon to have a plane with a cap set for smoothing and have to do anything between sharpening's, but it might not be so easy to say that. I think the cap use is somewhat misunderstood. More typical use for smoothing is a relatively coarse set of shavings (think 3-4 thousandths in cherry) where the cap is engaged, and then back off of the depth for a very thin set of shavings and make a couple of overlapping passes. If the shaving is 1 1/2 thousandths and the cap is set at 8 (I only know a figure like that 8 thousandths because someone pushed me to look at where the cap actually is under a microscope), then the final shavings aren't using the cap and don't need to. It's shavings thicker than those not strong enough to lift that benefit.

if a cap is set with a rounded shape about twice as far away as the thickest shaving anticipated (no measuring is needed, this is just a comment since I later looked at it), then it will go from nothing to more than half of that and work fine. If it's set at 8 thousandths with an 80 degree flat front, then it seems to go from nothing to bulldozer right away.

I guess if following the video's principles, if I'd use a rounded cap at 8 thousndths (or a hundredth or whatever) on a smoother, the video suggests you could blunt a big wall and set the cap further back. There'd be a whole range of shavings above fine smoother shavings that would tear out before the shaving was thick enough to be compressed by the cap iron and fibers prevented from lifting.

(50 or 60 by the way, also does allow for a wider range of shavings, as does keeping the facet on the smaller side. If using a single facet, if it's tiny, it won't work. if it's too big, it'll limit cheating shaving thickness a little higher in a pinch. It's got to be in the middle somewhere, so I'd creep up on it being effective rather than just making it big and trying to correct it later).

Stanley's design is so wonderful because you can pretty much just take the stock cap iron if it's well made and "trace" the front rounding and it'll get steepened a little at the terminus. It'd be a shame to try to hone a flat facet on it.

 

[Ttrees]

the video suggests you could blunt a big wall and set the cap further back. There'd be a whole range of shavings above fine smoother shavings that would tear out before the shaving was thick enough to be compressed by the cap iron and fibers prevented from lifting.

(50 or 60 by the way, also does allow for a wider range of shavings, as does keeping the facet on the smaller side. If using a single facet, if it's tiny, it won't work. if it's too big, it'll limit cheating shaving thickness a little higher in a pinch. It's got to be in the middle somewhere, so I'd creep up on it being effective rather than just making it big and trying to correct it later).

Stanley's design is so wonderful because you can pretty much just take the stock cap iron if it's well made and "trace" the front rounding and it'll get steepened a little at the terminus. It'd be a shame to try to hone a flat facet on it.

Did you discuss this with Warren, AFAIK he was still suggesting @80 w/rounded profile.

Food for thought about having a wall, I must look a bit more closely at mine,
I'd doubt it would be that noticeable for me @50, but might just be worth taking a look.
Be nice to have two identical cap irons to find out, but as is what you say makes me
not want to find out on a timber which I don't need to work on yet.

Nice to know of some reasoning behind why honing steeper might not work well
i.e for thinnish shavings because of the distance, so quite interesting to delve into the origins of the first thin double irons with that specific profile.


All the best
Tom

 

[thetyreman]

also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it, it's much easier to control the bevel on the cap iron of the modern LN/hock type of cap iron, the most important thing is how the cap iron mates to the blade imo, which I learnt from david charlesworth (not cosman) as for high angle planes, I like them, it's how I plane really difficult figured woods or woods with reversing grain with no tear out at all, usually for final surfacing, I can't say I agree that high angle planes have no use, they have their place but it's a specialist tool, if I was working in australia using their exotic woods they'd be essential, flamed jarrah for example.

 

[D_W]

Did you discuss this with Warren, AFAIK he was still suggesting @80 w/rounded profile.

Food for thought about having a wall, I must look a bit more closely at mine,
I'd doubt it would be that noticeable for me @50, but might just be worth taking a look.
Be nice to have two identical cap irons to find out, but as is what you say makes me
not want to find out on a timber which I don't need to work on yet.

Nice to know of some reasoning behind why honing steeper might not work well
i.e for thinnish shavings because of the distance, so quite interesting to delve into the origins of the first thin double irons with that specific profile.


All the best
Tom

We were in my shop, so I didn't see anything of warren's. I think he says something about the last little bit being stepped up to a very steep angle, but that part probably isn't very tall and the rest may follow the contour of the stock cap iron more closely. He didn't protest about anything that I did while he was in house, though, and I think he saw enough to know that I wasn't full of it, both on the wood and toolmaking sides.

I think he may stop by again - I'll ask him when he does. It's a whole lot easier to discuss this kind of stuff in person.

the progression I mentioned is important for quick work. The cap is set to take the next to last shaving thickness, and then the surface is refined with a couple of passes of shavings too thin for a cap iron to be needed. Wood that doesn't plane nicely with this method is either usually junk or is very ribboned with opposing directions and very soft wood in some of the ribboning that won't plane the same as the wood around it.

At some point, if wood is so bad that there's a constant fight to set the cap iron close enough but not have accordion shavings, then scraping and sanding after planing to a tolerable point is better. It's still far better (faster) to plane as close as possible to the point where you jump off to a scraper or sandpaper.

 

[raffo]

also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it

You're forgetting the whole class of double iron wooden planes. Those and the Bailey type cap irons have, cumulatively, near 300 years of continuous use.

 

[Ttrees]

I've got a load of this stuff at me folks, whatever it is beside the iroko and meranti, it's the toughest stuff I've encountered
and the cap needs to be so close that the smallest change i.e a bit too much off a corner will require fixing.
I can still comb the fibres with this stuff, but reckon a better finish can be achieved
with just a little more influence, as the cap cannot be set closer.

Same deal with some blackwood, be nice to have a little room for error, without any tradeoff.
I'd still be inclined to read the grain on those examples,

So it would be nice to never have to question if some piece of these densest of tropicals may ever bite you.
As this is nice to have, if even for on the sites like 50 degrees on a Bailey cap would!
i.e no suck it and see for iroko, and no grain direction needed to be noted.

 

[D_W]

also lets not forget there are two distinctive types of cap iron here, the lie neilsen/hock type and the original curved bailey type which has a spring in it, it's much easier to control the bevel on the cap iron of the modern LN/hock type of cap iron, the most important thing is how the cap iron mates to the blade imo, which I learnt from david charlesworth (not cosman) as for high angle planes, I like them, it's how I plane really difficult figured woods or woods with reversing grain with no tear out at all, usually for final surfacing, I can't say I agree that high angle planes have no use, they have their place but it's a specialist tool, if I was working in australia using their exotic woods they'd be essential, flamed jarrah for example.

they have their use for people who won't use a cap iron long enough to get better with a cap iron than they can be with a high angle plane.

The reason I've gone on at length on this thread is because it's actually about dimensioning. I was so taken by how much better a stanley plane could be than my 55 degree infill with an office paper mouth gap - think brese plane, because that's what the iron and cap iron are and I pretty much used ron's adaptation of the norris no 13) that I thought this was the thing for everyone.

But I've realized since that there's no great effort economy gained by using the cap iron instead of high angle planes if someone has a good machine planer and really isn't interested in sizing things by hand. I'm not a huge fan of bevel up planes, but I did get one testing the whole edge buffing thing, and tested it on a block plane. Short 5 degrees of the intended angle and heavy buffing on the bevel side and they will do great. if one is set 60 effective and buffed, it should plane anything smoother shaving thickness that could reasonably be planed. The edge life is a bit short compared to a plane with a cap iron, but that can be combatted with speeding up sharpening.

A cap iron will handle anything that can be planed in australia as well as anything up to mid 60s in bevel angle, and how hard the wood is won't matter much. It can, especially if silica is present, create some problems to deal with in terms of edge damage, but that can be handled better with adjusting edge geometry (better handling it that way than trying to go up the ladder in costly specialty steels).

There are woods that won't plane well, though - thinking of stuff like macassar ebony with characteristic "wrinkles" across their length. No clue what those are, but they don't plane well with much of anything, and that also appears in other hard woods like cocobolo, etc. Eventually if planing just OK and then scraping and sanding makes more sense.

Or for the well kitted, finishing the thicknessing with a drum sander.

This part doesn't seem believable at first - that a common stanley plane will match a plane with a 65 degree iron, but they will. I solved getting stock irons to hold up in really really hard wood about two years ago. The problem isn't abrasion resistance, it's just initial edge damage due to lack of strength - the geometry is so important compared to the steel that getting harder irons only solves or improves the situation a tiny bit and maybe not at all.

 

[D_W]

I've got a load of this stuff at me folks, whatever it is beside the iroko and meranti, it's the toughest stuff I've encountered
and the cap needs to be so close that the smallest change i.e a bit too much off a corner will require fixing.
I can still comb the fibres with this stuff, but reckon a better finish can be achieved
with just a little more influence, as the cap cannot be set closer.
View attachment 142725
View attachment 142726
Same deal with some blackwood, be nice to have a little room for error, without any tradeoff.
I'd still be inclined to read the grain on those examples,
View attachment 142727
So it would be nice to never have to question if some piece of these densest of tropicals may ever bit you
As this is nice to have, if even for on the sites like 50 degrees on a Bailey cap would!
i.e no suck it and see for iroko, and no grain direction needed to be noted.
View attachment 142728

I see the ribboning. the trouble with ribboning when it's really obnoxious is that it's more or less like runout into the face and some of it will be facing straight into the cap iron or right up the bed angle. It's difficult to plane fibers no matter what if they are oriented really close to the bed angle of the plane, You can turn the plane around and plane the ones causing trouble, but others will be facing the bed angle then.

there are two follow-up cases. If fuzz and damage is really minor, it literally will disappear in a french polish - but almost nobody does that.

otherwise, scrape and finish with a dull scraper so that the finish uptake will be the same as planed areas if that's important. In the world of guitars, that stuff gets buzzed through a drum sander. Occasionally, anything quartered will have some early wood that is extremely soft living among grain lines that are not, and the soft stuff will be fragile and trouble to plane if parts of it are "pointing" back into the iron.

 

[Ttrees]

A cap iron will handle anything that can be planed in australia as well as anything up to mid 60s in bevel angle, and how hard the wood is won't matter much. It can, especially if silica is present, create some problems to deal with in terms of edge damage, but that can be handled better with adjusting edge geometry (better handling it that way than trying to go up the ladder in costly specialty steels).

There are woods that won't plane well, though - thinking of stuff like macassar ebony with characteristic "wrinkles" across their length. No clue what those are, but they don't plane well with much of anything, and that also appears in other hard woods like cocobolo, etc. Eventually if planing just OK and then scraping and sanding makes more sense.

Or for the well kitted, finishing the thicknessing with a drum sander.

Or persevering with the non buffed edge geometry and planing where the bench says instead!

 

[Ttrees]

Nothing soft about the stuff I posted, that's at least a hundred years old huge window frames which had rusty nails everywhere, and there's not much density lost like there would be if it were iroko or something else. (no rot penetration)
It's pure silica and is twice to three times the weight as some heavy iroko , so seemingly another level of influence neseccairy compared to the ribboning from say iroko or sapelle which ain't the worst of those examples.

Interesting to note it sounds like you reckon the cap iron may not totally be the answer for this kinda timber!
i.e I'm not going to improve much on what I have now, @ a conservative 50 or 51 degrees

Tom

 

[D_W]

can you define "comb the fibers" (americanized that) and "plane where the bench says"?

Does comb mean that the fibers in the ribboning are fuzzy?

 

[D_W]

Nothing soft about the stuff I posted, that's at least a hundred years old huge window frames which had rusty nails everywhere, and there's not much density lost like there would be if it were iroko or something else. (no rot penetration)
It's pure silica and as heavy so another level of influence neseccairy compared to the ribboning from say iroko or sapelle which ain't the worst of those examples.

Interesting to note it sounds like you reckon the cap iron may not totally be the answer for this kinda timber!

Tom

I have always said, but I guess it's probably difficult to find in the volume, that a cap iron will plane anything reasonable to plane, but sometimes there are aspects about wood that are not good for planing no matter what. And sometimes they won't even scrape well even if they are hard.

Older wood is definitely more brittle and I'd bet the contrast between hard wood and soft fibers making up the ribboning gets worse after those soft fibers release all of their volatiles over the years and become low density and brittle.

Anything like that is sort of a chore because it won't take coarse scraping well, either. I cannot do much of anything with a #80 with wood that's not good to plane, but a well prepared scraper with a fine edge can occasionally go a step beyond.

I make the comment about drum sander often, but I don't have one. I think it opens up a whole world of working with thin wood that has terrible characteristics, and on something like this, you could get close with one and zip the wood through.

If you let me french polish a piece of wood, then there's not much I can't plane because the hair that's left and the difference in density will disappear in a french polish. French polish is semi magical for ribboned wood that's been planed but still is fuzzy. if the standard is applying oil and wax only, then that's a tough go for some stuff.

 

[Ttrees]

Aye, fuzzy in both directions when planed, like my auntie's old car seats.
Not tearout as such, but fuzz depending on which end you look at the timber.

And I find planing where the bench says, visual feelers if you will,

requiring a long angle poise lamp like so, makes one see where the plane will be hungrier, and was quickly half used, regarding that blackwood with a dull iron.
An easier way to work with a plane which maybe in need of a sharpen with such timbers, or indeed for planing a really thick finish off.
Not saying that it may be comparable to suggest the trips to the sharpening setup would be similar, but most of the time it's just a bit of finish I have to remove,
and may well visit the buffer when I get working that stuff.
If the edge lasts twice as good, then it's a no brainer!

 

[D_W]

if the wood has silica in it, the buffer will get you seemingly absurd planing distances. For example, a smoother that will plane 75 linear feet before it stops in cocobolo may plane 400-500 feet before clearance becomes a concern.

the trouble with it is just simply that the buffer imitates the profile of abrasive wear, so off the bat, the plane feels like it's halfway out of clearance if it's modified enough to tolerate silica. And then it plane several hundred feet, anyway. It's definitely better than splitting shavings for a tiny amount of footage and getting very little done.

I also planed corian, which is no damage and pure abrasion - just have to sharpen often with it. I didn't plane it to thickness, obviously. I planed to a mark and planed the built up edges with it (that may sound odd if you haven't used corian - you have to build the edges yourself by laminating it with special glue and then sanding, routing or planing off the excess. it handsaws and planes well, but needs to be sanded to finish...we'll avoid going down that road too far. I found it easier in some cases to plane parts of it than to engineer getting the router in place. Only had to use it once.

It was murder on tracksaw blades, though, and once they wear and there's a lot of rubbing it smells like death, and so does the special super epoxy that cures quickly.

At any rate, if you're getting dings in the edge of the iron in just regular planing, modifying the edge geometry is worthwhile. It will give up some abrasion/clearance, but literally eliminate edge damage due to small dirt or silica. It's stark - and the volume that you're planing remains a full shaving compared to pitiful little 1/4 weight broken apart junk.

 

[G S Haydon]

Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.

The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.

Single iron planes are cheaper and easier to make yet they were wiped out. Dodo.

I'd urge any readers to give it a try, it's worth it!

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.

The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.

Single iron planes are cheaper and easier to make yet they were wiped out. Dodo.

I'd urge any readers to give it a try, it's worth it!

This thread should not go under! Lots of good info and things to try!

i forgot the most important word!

 

[Jacob]

Just before this thread goes under I'll add a last few points to clarify my position.

The cap iron was developed, in my opinion and based on the evidence for the primary reason of increasing the working range of a plane. Slide it back for mild timber and easy working, move it closer as required. It's easy to discover this for ourselves if we try it.

Single iron planes are cheaper and easier to make yet they were wiped out. Dodo.

I'd urge any readers to give it a try, it's worth it!

I agree.
Except that in my experience it's more theoretical than practical. Many happy hours tool fiddling with small pieces of "difficult" timber shows that it is possible as you say, but when it comes to a whole table top it's no go. The "difficult" bits are all over the place, to different degrees and in different directions.
So it's out with the belt sander!
I've done a lot of table tops mostly in sycamore.

 

[Jacob]

You're forgetting the whole class of double iron wooden planes. Those and the Bailey type cap irons have, cumulatively, near 300 years of continuous use.

.....and the Stayset two piece. I've got several of these, not essential but are handy.
What about the low angle bevel up planes? No cap irons, is this possible?

"Dimensioning" seems to mean different things:
1 sawing fresh cut wood to useful size before seasoning,
2 sawing sawn stuff to size to a project cutting list,
3 planing these pieces to finished size
4 in the case of timber yards, planing long lengths all 4 sides "planed all round" (PAR or mouldings) for retail trade. Sometimes sold as PSE (planed square edge)
If you google it seems to be very confusing with lots of bad advice for beginners!
The classic common novice mistake is to attempt to plane stock before it has been reduced to cutting list sizes.

 

[D_W]

I agree.
Except that in my experience it's more theoretical than practical. Many happy hours tool fiddling with small pieces of "difficult" timber shows that it is possible as you say, but when it comes to a whole table top it's no go. The "difficult" bits are all over the place, to different degrees and in different directions.
So it's out with the belt sander!
I've done a lot of table tops mostly in sycamore.

I'm not unfamiliar with belt sanders - i have three now, including a 27 pound dead flat hulk that's nice and is a treat to use, but I have little to use it on. If a belt sander is faster than planing, then there is more for you to learn. It is the case that if something is 3 feet in on a table, it's a lot easier to hold on to a belt sander and just let it run than it is to get in that far from both sides with a plane (backache).

The part of this that's useful is what you're describing, not test pieces.

It's too bad custard is no longer here. He mastered it almost right away and flatly said there are other ways to do the same thing, but the plane was faster.

the fact is almost nobody knows how to use it well and the lack of discussion until I started beating the drum is proof of it.

Being told about it in a school class isn't the same as learning to use it.

powered hand planer and wide belt sander are faster than a plane, but no belt sander is.

 

[Jacob]

........

the fact is almost nobody knows how to use it well and the lack of discussion until I started beating the drum is proof of it.

Have you ever planed a large table top say 8'x3', in a moderately difficult wood like sycamore, perfectly and entirely by hand?

Being told about it in a school class isn't the same as learning to use it.

powered hand planer and wide belt sander are faster than a plane, but no belt sander is.

Oh yes it is, especially on a large surface! Start with 40 grit if necessary and work through the grits to say 100 grit, then take it from there with an ROS.