Effects of cap iron on planing...

[Corneel]

Jacob, I really don't understand why you are still arguing against this technique. It's completely in line with your ideas of doing good work with simple tools. Any old Stanley with thin iron can quickly be transformed into a supersmoother. You could sell your LV low bevel thing AND your Ros.

It's very easy too. Hone a narrow microbevel, something like 70-80 degrees, on your cap iron. Then turn the iron with capiron into the light so you can see the reflection of the narrow line behind the edge. Do this before you fully tighten the screw so you can still push it forward. Then move it forward as far as you dare. Tighten te screw.

That's all.

Then experiment. Grab some gnarly stuff from the bin. Full of knots is good. And wonder about how easilly this stuff gets smooth. Don't take thin shavings, make them thick, just to wonder even more.

In a lot of circumstances you won't need this uebersmoother. So you could dedicate just one of your old Stanleys or Records to this task with a straightish edge. Maybe clip the corners to prevent tramlines.

Another advantage of this setting is the increased support of the edge. No chatter anymore, not even with a cheesy UK 1980's Stanley blade.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob, I really don't understand why you are still arguing against this technique. It's completely in line with your ideas of doing good work with simple tools. Any old Stanley with thin iron can quickly be transformed into a supersmoother. You could sell your LV low bevel thing AND your Ros.

It's very easy too. Hone a narrow microbevel, something like 70-80 degrees, on your cap iron. Then turn the iron with capiron into the light so you can see the reflection of the narrow line behind the edge. Do this before you fully tighten the screw so you can still push it forward. Then move it forward as far as you dare. Tighten te screw.

That's all.

Then experiment. Grab some gnarly stuff from the bin. Full of knots is good. And wonder about how easilly this stuff gets smooth. Don't take thin shavings, make them thick, just to wonder even more.

In a lot of circumstances you won't need this uebersmoother. So you could dedicate just one of your old Stanleys or Records to this task with a straightish edge. Maybe clip the corners to prevent tramlines.

Another advantage of this setting is the increased support of the edge. No chatter anymore, not even with a cheesy UK 1980's Stanley blade.

I'm not sure which technique I'm arguing against - there seem to be so many variables and alternative ideas kicking about!
Steep cap iron microbevel? I had a cap iron with about a 90º at the edge and it wouldn't plane at all - thick shavings just concertina'd up against it and wouldn't clear. Thin shavings not much better. A lot better when I backed it off!
I'll keep fiddling about though - it's all harmless fun. If you really can improve any old Stanley to be better than a LV la bu smoother I'm all for it!
I found that stayset irons did improve performance considerably - was this just down to geometry, which I could have achieved by filing and polishing?

 

[Corneel]

The main point of the capiron technique is setting the capiron really close to the edge. Closer tgen you ever thought possible. I meassured once just to have an idea what i'm looking at and it was 0.2mm. You can see now how the shavings straighten out. Don't curl as much anymore. More important you don't leave any tearout.

The steepened capironis just an extra helpfull bit. 90degrees is abit too much probably.

 

[David C]

Just a few words about camber.

I have prepared my smoothing plane chipbreakers, for many years , with a similar or slightly greater camber than my blades. Just using the same techniques which I use on the blades.
Now these curves are certainly not exactly matched, but seem close enough, and have not caused any problems yet.

The more people we can get to try these techniques, the better.
Best wishes,
David

 

[ac445ab]

The main point of the capiron technique is setting the capiron really close to the edge. Closer tgen you ever thought possible. I meassured once just to have an idea what i'm looking at and it was 0.2mm. You can see now how the shavings straighten out. Don't curl as much anymore. More important you don't leave any tearout.

The steepened capironis just an extra helpfull bit. 90degrees is abit too much probably.

Hi Corneel,
This technique of setting chipbreaker is interesting, but how did you measure 0.2 mm on your chipbreaker?

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Here's what happened to me today ..

I used a Stanley #3, initially set up with a Mujngfang HSS blade. It is a little thicker than the original Stanley. I also used an original Stanley blade. Wood was a nasty piece of Jarrah.

What I found was that the mouth would jam with shavings if I closed the chip breaker down (it was set at 0.03". The leading edge angle of the chip breaker was 50 degrees). Pulling the chip breaker back alleviated the problem. Of course that does not help with the experiment. So I swapped the Mujingfang for a thinner Stanley blade to create a wider mouth (the frog was already pulled back as far as it could go). But same thing all over again.

I redid the experiment, this time with the front of the chip breaker ground and honed to 80 degrees (as per the research). This made it worse as the thickness of the chip breaker was forced even further forward than before, and blocked up the mouth even more.

Now I was serious about this experiment. I have photos of everything and happy to post them. I was going to compare the Stanley #3 with a LN #5 (double iron with 55 degree frog), Veritas SBUS (single iron, 62 degree cutting angle), and Marcou BU smoother (single iron, 60 degree cutting angle).

All the blades were freshly sharpened. Out of interest, in addition to the HSS Mujingfang in the Stanley #3, I had an A2 blade in the LN, a Veritas test 3V blade in the Marcou, and a pre-production PM-Vll blade in the SBUS (not that any of this is relevant to to outcome). All the planes took excellent shaving (with the Stanley set up with the chip breaker 1/8" back), but the surface finish is where the results count: it was pretty much in order of the cutting angle, with both the Marcou and the SBUS (with the higher angles) leaving a better finish that the LN. The finish of the Stanley was a little clearly rough.

So, I just could not pull it off with the chip breaker. Since others are claiming positive results, clearly i am doing something wrong. Clear this up for me.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[David C]

Derek,

There was one thing about the Stanley plane I used, the front edge of throat is filed and polished at 15 degrees forward. The

My next thought is that the 80 or 75 degree edge of the C/B should be kept quite narrow, perhaps 0.012". I have guessed this from the film.

I am also fairly sure that width of mouth has no effect on this arrangement, so may as well be wide!

Best wishes,
David

 

[Corneel]

I had troubles with not enough pressure of the capiron on the blade. Shavings were pushed under it, leading to clogging. So i bended the capiron in a vice. You really need a lot of pressure there.

 

[Jacob]

3 conclusions I draw from this thread:
1 without a cap iron a sharp blade finely set will be effective on difficult grain
2 with a cap iron, ditto.
3 with a cap iron, if you fiddle about for long enough you may get a good but deeper cut on difficult wood, but there are so many variables that you can't rely on this, but have a go if you have plenty of spare time!

I'd add to 1 - many planes need the cap iron as part of the blade holding system, with "chip breaker" tendencies being just a side benefit.

 

[Corneel]

No, I'm afraid you don't quite get it.

- The chipbreaker lets you take thick shavings without tear out. That's a major time saver, especially for people without big machinery.
- Your plane becomes a universal planing machine. Easy straight wood? Pull back the chipbreaker and whale away. Some light tearout? Set the chipbreaker at about 0.4 to 0.5 mm and have at it. Really difficult grain? Set it very close and have fun. This is especially important for people without a huge plane collection. For the avarage user of this forum it's a good idea to prepare your smoothers and jointers with different chipbreaker settings.
- The chipbreaker protects the back of your iron. This should mean less wear of the edge at that side. As long as you have enough relief angle you can keep planing for longer. (To be honest, this is just a theory for me at the moment, I didn't really experiment enough yet).
- When you can finish boards without having to resort to scraping or sanding, the woodsurface is much nicer.

 

[Corneel]

The main point of the capiron technique is setting the capiron really close to the edge. Closer tgen you ever thought possible. I meassured once just to have an idea what i'm looking at and it was 0.2mm. You can see now how the shavings straighten out. Don't curl as much anymore. More important you don't leave any tearout.

The steepened capironis just an extra helpfull bit. 90degrees is abit too much probably.

Hi Corneel,
This technique of setting chipbreaker is interesting, but how did you measure 0.2 mm on your chipbreaker?

Sorry i forgot to answer this question. I used a vernier caliper. The depth meassuring part of it. It' a bit fiddly so take the number with a grain of salt.

 

[Jacob]

No, I'm afraid you don't quite get it.

- The chipbreaker lets you take thick shavings without tear out. That's a major time saver, especially for people without big machinery.
- Your plane becomes a universal planing machine. Easy straight wood? Pull back the chipbreaker and whale away. Some light tearout? Set the chipbreaker at about 0.4 to 0.5 mm and have at it. Really difficult grain? Set it very close and have fun. This is especially important for people without a huge plane collection. For the avarage user of this forum it's a good idea to prepare your smoothers and jointers with different chipbreaker settings.
- The chipbreaker protects the back of your iron. This should mean less wear of the edge at that side. As long as you have enough relief angle you can keep planing for longer. (To be honest, this is just a theory for me at the moment, I didn't really experiment enough yet).
- When you can finish boards without having to resort to scraping or sanding, the woodsurface is much nicer.

It'd be nice if it was so simple! I'll certainly bear it in mind. What about wear on the cap iron?

 

[Corneel]

Theoretecally you would expect wear on the capiron. But according to Warren Mickley, an old time defender of the capiron on the American woodforums, it's not a factor. He hasn't repaired his capirons in 30 years.

We will see. I am not even sure if that effect on the wear of the iron is noticable at all.

 

[Modernist]

Although the original video is interesting I am a bit concerned it has too many differences with actual conditions to be meaningful. In particular the effect of the plane body is missing both in front of and behind the edge. I think this is very important, especially the leading edge, which must improve the situation if smoothed and angled by holding the fibres down more effectively in front of the blade, thus decreasing tearout. This is of course only true if the mouth is set very fine. This adjustment to the mouth also reduces the chance of jamming with a fine mouth setting.

It can be clearly seen that the levering effect on the shaving is caused only by the blade as there is a radius of clearance under the shaving where the CB meets the blade (but the shaving remains in contact with the blade). This seems to support the idea that the effect of the CB is to compress the shaving between the CB and the edge, working against the levering effect of the edge, and therefore decreasing the chance of tearout. This point was not really emphasised in the video other than to note the compression effect which is of course increased with higher CB leading angles, along with the chances of jamming.

It seems to me that the effect of the so called chip breaker may actually be shaving compressor in addition to its role in blade clamping and vibration suppressor.

In my own experience the best results are obtained with a sharp BU configuration with a thick blade and fine mouth i.e no CB. The much loved "singing" sound of common planes is, in fact, unwanted vibration, which is eliminated in my preferred arrangement.

 

[Corneel]

Although the original video is interesting I am a bit concerned it has too many differences with actual conditions to be meaningful. In particular the effect of the plane body is missing both in front of and behind the edge. I think this is very important, especially the leading edge, which must improve the situation if smoothed and angled by holding the fibres down more effectively in front of the blade, thus decreasing tearout. This is of course only true if the mouth is set very fine. This adjustment to the mouth also reduces the chance of jamming with a fine mouth setting.

My experiments of the last few weeks show me that the video is VERY meanigful. A tight chipbreaker and a tight mouth don't combine very well. So you should choose, either one or the other. I get the best results at the moment with an noname infill plane with a mouth opening around 3mm.

This cheap wooden plane, a somewhat newer Nooitgedagt with a prewar Nooitgedagt blade, works perfectly now on that rowy piece of maple on the left. Not a hint of tear out. The shaving was very thick for a smoother.

This plane cost me about 5 euro, plus some fettling of course to clean up the blade, flatten te sole and removal of the paint spatters. It now works at least as good as your 300 pound bevel up planes. :twisted:

 

[Modernist]

The concept of tuning planes to produce thick shavings is new to me. Heavy stock removal is not normally a problem and for finishing I would expect the plane to be set for much less than the 0.1mm shown. Something like 0.03mm might be typical where mouth setting may be more important than CB setting but mainly requiring a very sharp blade e.g. 8000 grit to produce a fine finish.

 

[Corneel]

Of course this was just a test. I can take thinner shavings too. But it is pretty impressive to see this simple plane taking a thick shavinh against the grain without any tearout. That is major timesaver too when you want to get some work done. Every plane with a sharp blade and a flat sole can take thin shavings. It's the thick ones where you see the truely excelent planes appear.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

This is a copy of my post on SawMillCreek, where the identical thread is running.

Following up on my previous post, where I failed to improve the quality of shavings with a Stanley #3 on some interlocked Jarrah .....

I spent time today doing everything could think of, and even things I said I would not do, trying to give this my best shot.

I did take photos, which I will post if anyone desperately wants to see them, but I am just too busy right now to bother with them.

David Charlesworth's advice rang bells. I checked the plane, a UK-made Stanley #3. Yes, the mouth escapement was vertical. This would be a cause of the choking. However, before I filed it out, I replaced the HSS Mujingfang blade with the original. The original UK blade is a POS but it is thinner, and it did not have to hold an edge for long. I ground a new primary bevel, and honed it to 13000. That should be better. I also replaced the chip breaker, and refiled the leading edge to a micro 70-ish degrees.

The mouth was now larger (since the Muji blade is thicker). I ran the plane down the Jarrah board ... and it chattered the entire length. Nice little parallel lines along the board. That won't do. At all. I'm sure I can turn the blade into something, but what ...?

Back to the Mujingfang blade. With the chip breaker back about 3mm it takes decent shavings, but the surface left is rough. If I move the chipbreaker forward, the mouth fills. I filed the escapement at 45 degrees. This left the mouth size unchanged but made some improvement to the flow of shavings (well done David). Unfortunately, it ended up choking after a short while. The mouth was still too small.

So ... there was only one thing for it - I had to file open the mouth. I made my apologies to Bob (my late FIL), and carefully removed about 0.5mm. This did the trick, and the shaving now flowed easily.

However, the quality of the wood surface did not change one iota. Really. It was still rough to the touch and sight.

To compare, I ran the 55 degree LN #3 along the same spot. Much improved finish. Decently smooth. Not perfect, but acceptable. I ran the Veritas SBUS with a 62 degree cutting angle, and the finish was improved again. I did all these side by side, and it was possible to pick out the LN and Veritas. It was a no-brainer to decide which was the Stanley.

There you have it. I will try again with a different Stanley - for what it is worth. I really did hope to see some improvement, something along the lines a few others have reported.

What I should add is that this may be part of the learning path one needs to go through to master the technique. If so, the point should be made that this method is finicky, and there are other methods to reach the goal that are just so much easier. The goal is an improved finish on wood with difficult grain. I have no difficulty achieving a fine finish with high angle planes. The reason to try and do so with a common angle plane is the belief that a lower cutting angle shears the wood and has greater potential for the finish. I must disagree that the finish off one of my high angled planes does not leave a shine.

I think that it is horses for courses. The timber I use is perhaps the limiting factor. Anyway, as I said, I will keep trying.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Steve Elliott]

Derek,

Your experience planing interlocked grain is the same as mine. Back in 2005 when I first heard of Kato's work I tried a closely set cap iron on the most difficult wood I could find, a piece of Bolivian rosewood. The closely set cap iron reduced tearout considerably and convinced me that cap irons work, but when I compared the results to those produced with a steep cutting angle the 59.5 degree cutting angle gave the better surface.

In addition, the Bolivian rosewood would not form a continuous shaving. Instead the shaving broke up into smaller bits while it was still in the plane and if I remember correctly had more of a tendency to fill up the throat, even though it was not actually jamming.

The species I normally work are North American hardwoods which produce better shavings and respond to a closely set cap (which I only use when necessary) much better than the hard tropical wood I used for the test.

My account of the cap iron test can be seen at http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html/a_controlled_test.html.

 

[Jacob]

I thought I'd delete this one I might have missed the point!