Effects of cap iron on planing...

[Corneel]

Yes 0.1mm is really pushing it. Their conclusion at the end was, with a steeper edge on the capiron you can get away with 0.3mm.

 

[Jeff Gorman]

Corneel write:

>Yes 0.1mm is really pushing it. Their conclusion at the end was, with a steeper edge on the capiron you can get away with 0.3mm.<

If my trig is correct, this means that we can get a set of 0.21 mm before the face of the CI protrudes.
This ought to allow a set of 8.3thou - A shaving this thick will take some pushing.

Jeff
[email protected]

 

[Corneel]

Corneel write:

>Yes 0.1mm is really pushing it. Their conclusion at the end was, with a steeper edge on the capiron you can get away with 0.3mm.<

If my trig is correct, this means that we can get a set of 0.21 mm before the face of the CI protrudes.
This ought to allow a set of 8.3thou - A shaving this thick will take some pushing.

Jeff
[email protected]

Indeed. Especially because you can really feel the work of the capiron. That energy must be supplied by the user pushing the plane. You can really note the difference. The same kind of extra force you feel in a high angle plane.

 

[Philly]

Yes, I'd agree with you there - it really takes some pushing with CB close, even on a reasonable shaving.
Jeff - have you given this exercise a try yet? I had a 3mm wide mouth and got excellent results, so I wonder if a combination of tight mouth and not quite so close chipbreaker will yield similar results?
Philly

 

[Jeff Gorman]

Philly wrote:

I wonder if a combination of tight mouth and not quite so close chipbreaker will yield similar results?

I think so. I reckon that the tight 'mouth' is the secret. The next best is a high angle.

Please see the demonstration on http://tinyurl.com/2gyb294 where the shaving aperture was 3thou on a cheap Record 'Special Production' plane with a tuned-up sole. The capiron was set back at a usual couple of millimeters or so.

I fear that I made this ages ago to indicate that you don't really need a very expensive Bailey type plane to get such results.

Jeff
[email protected]

 

[Jacob]

Interesting thread. The consensus seems to be that almost any old plane/blade will do it on difficult grain if properly set up. The other essential, from Jeff's site; "very frequent re-sharpening is necessary". Makes sense to me, maybe time to ebay my one posh plane.
I'm out of it as I'm still staggering about on crutches so planing is not possible - I can't wait to have a go!

 

[Racers]

Hi, Jacob

You could sit down and pull the plane towards you like the Japanese do.


Pete

 

[Paul Chapman]

maybe time to ebay my one posh plane.

I'd hang on to it if I were you, Jacob. What's clear from this thread (and one's own experience) is that different woods require different set-ups, so having various planes set up for different situations is helpful (and a great time saver).

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

maybe time to ebay my one posh plane.

I'd hang on to it if I were you, Jacob. What's clear from this thread (and one's own experience) is that different woods require different set-ups, so having various planes set up for different situations is helpful (and a great time saver).

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Anyone care to hazard a set up for the Wood from Hell? :-" :mrgreen: :lol: - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Anyone care to hazard a set up for the Wood from Hell? :-" :mrgreen: :lol:

A Veritas #80 scraper

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Jacob]

maybe time to ebay my one posh plane.

I'd hang on to it if I were you, Jacob. What's clear from this thread (and one's own experience) is that different woods require different set-ups, so having various planes set up for different situations is helpful (and a great time saver).

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Anyone care to hazard a set up for the Wood from Hell? :-" :mrgreen: :lol: - Rob

ROS

 

[woodbloke]

For those unfamiliar with the notorious WfH, it's almost impossible to plane with anything, let alone any fancy set up with conventional irons...Paul, myself and others have tried! The only person who tamed it was the LN guy at the last West Dean event who went for a low angle LN jack (out of all the LN planes on his bench) I once gave a piece to Matt from WH and asked him to have a go...he eventually did it and returned the piece to me half the thickness as it had taken him that long to get a decent surface (with Cliffis)
You never know, some lucky soul might get a lump as a Secret Santa prezzi! :lol: - Rob

 

[David C]

Rob,

I seem to remember having a go at this with a back bevel giving an EP of about 70 degrees. Not sure if it was Oxford or Cressing temple.

Wish mine was more accesible. It is a wide plank, about 15 feet long, at the bottom of a sizeable pile. Could do with a small piece to try the ultra close capiron......

best wishes,
David

 

[woodbloke]

Could do with a small piece to try the ultra close capiron......

best wishes,
David

David, you may find a little parcel in the post shortly :wink: - Rob

 

[David C]

Thank you Rob, much appreciated !

David

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Chip breaker experiment: session four

Rationale

The conclusion after Session Three was (1) I had either not found the sweet spot for the very hard Jarrah I was planing, or (2) the effect of a chip breaker deflecting shavings is wood dependent.

Session Four

The plane is an unmodified Stanley #604 with LN chipbreaker (given a 70 micro bevel and slightly cambered) and a custom M4 blade.

This time around I chose a piece of Tasmanian Oak. For non-Aussies, this is (in my experience) similar in density to USA White Oak and also to European Oak. Tassie Oak is not an oak, however, it is a eucalypt. As such, it tends to be a little more interlocked. This piece was fairly typical.

How would I know if I was in the "sweet spot"? Well the video shows the shavings coming off the chip breaker vertically. This is why I have begun to think of the chip breaker (never again a "cap iron"!) as a "chip bender".

I set the chip breaker at a modest 0.3 (keep in mind that the chip breaker readings are slightly larger at the edge of the blade compared to the centre of the blade) ...

The mouth was "wide" at about 1mm. No effort was made to close it down as I normally would do for a smoother.

Here is the result ..

This was a good result. In the background you can see shavings from a chip breaker set back about 3mm. Those shavings are curled.

Of particular relevance here is that the planing took place into the grain.

The surface result was also superior - a shiny, clear and tear-out free finish ...

A close up around the knot reveals the absence of tear out ...

The second part of this session now moved to closing up the chip breaker to about 0.1 - 0.2mm ..

The result of this was very similar to Session 3, where the plane struggled to cut.

Clearly the chip breaker is now too close. However this is further evidence that it has a significant effect on the way the plane cuts.

For Part 3 the chip breaker was returned to the position of Part 1 ..

That particularly nasty piece of Jarrah (which is almost like end grain in the one section) was brought back. The #604 proceeded to plane this. The result was a little better than on the previous occasion, but not really that noticeably so. The board had some straight grained sections that were softer, and where the plane met this area, the shavings where long and straight. The surface quality was poor.

The LN #3 (with 55 degree frog, chip breaker set back 3mm) had its turn. The result was the same as before: decent surface to the touch, a noticeable improvement over the common angle #604 ...

The chip breaker in the LN was now adjusted to 0.3mm and the board planed again. The result was a significant improvement in the quality of the surface ..

This was repeated with the Veritas Small BU Smoother (with a 62 degree cutting angle). In the previous experiment the SBUS left a clearly better surface than the 55 degree LN #3. This time the SBUS was shaded ...

Neither LN nor SBUS produced shavings that were vertical. THis must be due to the high cutting angle.

Conclusions

There does appear to be a performance difference in the woods used thus far, indicating that the technique is likely to be wood dependent. The chipbreaker does, nevertheless, appear to be capable of improving the performance regardless of the wood type. However cutting angle does play a significant part as well, with a higher cutting angle still seen to be important for hard woods with interlocked grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Philly]

Interesting results, Derek! I'm glad to see you got the "straight" shavings when the Cb was in the zone.
How tight was the mouth on the 55 degree LN test?
Cheers
Philly

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Philly

With the exception of the chip breaker, the LN was set up as I would usually do for smoothing: as tight a mouth as possible that would permit shavings to flow smoothly.

Of course, at 55 degrees, the mouth is almost irrelevant.

The chip breaker on the LN was also left stock.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Racers]

Hi, Chaps

I had a go with a finely set chip breaker on some Silver Birch burr.

Its soft stuff with lots of reversing grain, I used a Record N03 with a LN blade and breaker in.
The best way to adjust it I found was to slightly tighten up the cap screw, and tap the breaker forward with the leaver cap.
It worked well but I still had some areas of tearout, I didn't check how sharp the blade was
I got nice straight shavings.

Pete