Hand plane sole flatness?

[Phil Pascoe]

I must admit it might not be absolutely essential for a plane to dead flat and have right angled sides, but if they are, great. I have a Stanley No.6, a Marples No.7 and a Stanley No.8 all of which are as flat as makes no difference, but I have a Record No.5 1/2 (my oldest plane) which I owned for about fifteen years before I had it flattened by an engineering firm that did cylinder heads, and it feels slightly different to the others. I have a Marples No.5 1/2 that was winding so badly I took a flapwheel to it to start with - it is now flat.

 

[D_W]

stuck down paper backed is superb for flattening. PSA roll, it's hard, and I personally like the heavier paper weight a little better, but lately it costs 3 times as much here. ....

But it's never going to be as flat as thin paper wetted on a flat surface, which is also cheapest. Wet also cuts faster and is easier to keep clear of swarf (rare earth magnet) which means it lasts longer.
Summary; it's flattest, fastest, cheapest and last longest. :lol:

Speed wise, that's not my experience. Coarse al ox paper dry is faster, and you remove the swarf with a shop brush. I started flattening planes with regular 60 grit wet and dry, but moved on to what I use now because it works better and is faster.

 

[G S Haydon]

If I was in the process of flattening that sole I'd think I was very close. Just a touch more to get the front of the mouth right and I'd leave it at that.

The nasty thing about lapping is that as the flat area grows, the process slows.

When you start, you think "GREAT; this is going really well; the little flat spots are growing really fast, I should have done this ages ago"

An hour later, the sole is mainly flat, with (probably) a dip in front of the mouth. And that little dip just refuses to come out. Because you don't get to raise the dip, you have to lower the whole sole (obviously). And you think "that's near enough ..."

It's frustrating.

BugBear

N.B. - the dip in front of mouth in the photo is fairly small, but we don't know how deep it is...

Agreed! Thankfully I've not had to spend an hour yet, but getting old tools into shape does have its hurdles.

 

[ED65]

The standards people are aiming at also vary; I saw a plane sold on eBay a while back, where the seller claimed to have flattened the sole. There were helpful photographs.

Egads. I'll accept some out-of-flat conditions that others won't but that looks like it could have done with just a smidge more work!

 

[ED65]

stuck down paper backed is superb for flattening. PSA roll, it's hard, and I personally like the heavier paper weight a little better, but lately it costs 3 times as much here. ....

But it's never going to be as flat as thin paper wetted on a flat surface, which is also cheapest. Wet also cuts faster and is easier to keep clear of swarf (rare earth magnet) which means it lasts longer.
Summary; it's flattest, fastest, cheapest and last longest. :lol:

Speed wise, that's not my experience. Coarse al ox paper dry is faster, and you remove the swarf with a shop brush. I started flattening planes with regular 60 grit wet and dry, but moved on to what I use now because it works better and is faster.

Mine also.

Not just a little faster but IME an order of magnitude faster. And the abrasive lasts as much as ten times as long. Now obviously the quality of whatever each of us is buying plays a huge part in this but for me even with better quality W&D paper compared to a cheap-as-chips resin-bonded roll paper the latter wins by a country mile.

 

[D_W]

Mine also.

Not just a little faster but IME an order of magnitude faster. And the abrasive lasts as much as ten times as long. Now obviously the quality of whatever each of us is buying plays a huge part in this but for me even with better quality W&D paper compared to a cheap-as-chips resin-bonded roll paper the latter wins by a country mile.

It's the nature of the abrasive. Silicon carbide breaks very quickly under pressure, and it remains sharp with the breakage, but tiny sharp particles aren't that useful. The material isn't that hard to abrade, and the alox is much tougher and maintains its size longer and doesn't break down. Cheaper Silicon carbide paper for me seemed to last a little longer (better breaks faster, which would be useful for tough material like high speed steel - to keep that sharpness).

None of these papers are engineered for what we're doing - really high pressure at really low speed, but al-ox does the best with it per cost. The trick is to be able to get the 4" wide PSA roll with some price stability. For a long time, i could get Mirka Gold for $18 a roll, which is spectacular, but it is much more than that now. The Porter Cable paper here (who knows who makes it, I think it might be eastern european) is less than half the cost, and probably about 70% as good, but even that has strange prices for different grits (the 80 grit is cheap on amazon, but then the 120 might be twice the cost).

I expect to lap a good shape smoother in about 3 minutes or less. One in bad shape in 10 minutes, maybe. Considerably longer for longer planes that are in bad shape, but now that I've got a filing process, that'll be the end of that (I used to use cheap alox belt material on a 2x3 wood block to spot remove on long planes, anyway, it's much faster for heavy metal removal). The last straw for me with loose silicon carbide wet on my glass lap was when lapping a long plane, the paper eventually tears under pressure (3 sheets fit on my lap with room to spare).

 

[bugbear]

I expect to lap a good shape smoother in about 3 minutes or less. One in bad shape in 10 minutes, maybe. Considerably longer for longer planes that are in bad shape...

Since you've claimed/admitted to a plane problem, how may planes do you think you (at least partially) flattened?

I've only ever done 5. (#3, 2 x #4, 2 x #5). Learnt something each time.

EDIT; I've done 6. Forgot the broken #4 1/2 I did purely for my website.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

..... The last straw for me with loose silicon carbide wet on my glass lap was when lapping a long plane, the paper eventually tears under pressure (3 sheets fit on my lap with room to spare).

I've never had that problem with cheap 80 grit wet n dry used wet on a flat surface. Try a different paper. It needs to be thin, paper backed, not cloth, not thick. I use the normal (A4?) sized single sheet stuff you buy in packs, not rolls.
NB by wet I mean very wet - drop the paper on to a pool of fluid, pour more over the top. After it's settled in and had a pass or two over it with the plane it stays there very flat and can be difficult to peel off! Helps if you store the paper between boards as curly edges take time to flatten down.

PS it's very suited to long planes - if you want to remove from the ends of a concave sole you just drop another piece on the bed and leave a gap between them.

 

[D_W]

I expect to lap a good shape smoother in about 3 minutes or less. One in bad shape in 10 minutes, maybe. Considerably longer for longer planes that are in bad shape...

Since you've claimed/admitted to a plane problem, how may planes do you think you (at least partially) flattened?

I've only ever done 5. (#3, 2 x #4, 2 x #5). Learnt something each time.

BugBear

Somewhere around 75, maybe. Maybe more. Metal that is. 20 of those have been infills, 4 that I've made.

Those four have been the worst, but old dovetail panel planes can be a bear.

 

[bugbear]

Since you've claimed/admitted to a plane problem, how may planes do you think you (at least partially) flattened?

Somewhere around 75, maybe..

:shock:

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

I haven't done many about 20 I suppose. I went through an experimental phase with some dodgy old planes - the challenge being to get them usable after having been rescued from a pond or whatever.
Did my own collection too, as necessary, which is not that often.
Regretfully sold on my first no.7 as it was slightly hollow and I hadn't discovered the fast wet process (see above) and hadn't learned that polishing and fine grits are not necessary.
Removed a deep scratch from the bottom of a Clifton 4 - discovering that 'ductile' steel is soft and scratchable was a surprise, but then it's very easy to remedy. Wasn't functionally necessary but I was going to sell it. Decided to keep it as a collectors piece.

 

[Sam_Jack]

Probably not worth mentioning and slightly esoteric; but, I have noted that the ‘different’ vintage planes in my small, though regularly used collection respond better to different treatments – even down to some of the chisels. For example, I have a ½” ‘Titan’ firmer chisel which likes it ‘rough’. There is a temperamental # 5 plane who’s blade requires, nay demands, only the gentlest of treatment – if I am to have a long lasting, fine edge. Routine maintenance on working tools IMO precludes any ‘fixed’ system. I use diamond ‘plates’ for ‘touch up’ and running maintenance; but, there are those in my stable which demand varying ‘abrasive’ persuasion to perform – at their best. All have suffered from my learning of this. Try sharpening one of my #4 Stanley’s on the ‘wrong’ stuff and it’s trouble all day long. Seriously; starting ‘flattening’ on 240 grit, when 280 is the preferred medium will eventually lead to more work and cursing. Just saying – it takes time to get to know your tools; particularly the older Duchesses. My two bob, spent as best pleased me.

 

[D_W]

I haven't done many about 20 I suppose. I went through an experimental phase with some dodgy old planes - the challenge being to get them usable after having been rescued from a pond or whatever.
Did my own collection too, as necessary, which is not that often.
Regretfully sold on my first no.7 as it was slightly hollow and I hadn't discovered the fast wet process (see above) and hadn't learned that polishing and fine grits are not necessary.
Removed a deep scratch from the bottom of a Clifton 4 - discovering that 'ductile' steel is soft and scratchable was a surprise, but then it's very easy to remedy. Wasn't functionally necessary but I was going to sell it. Decided to keep it as a collectors piece.

I like that, got one from a pond.

There are obviously a lot of stanley planes around here, but what we don't have is the superb woody supply that you guys have. I went through a short phase where I got basket case planes, but they just have no residual value here in the states (so when I went to sell them, they were almost the price I paid for them), and I got too many that were hiding damage because they tend to come from dopey sellers here. One guy sent me four #7s in a box, the box was larger than the four planes by quite a lot and there was no packing material in it - you can imagine what they looked like when I got them (one of them had broken completely in half at the mouth and was in two pieces, I can only guess how much of the damage the others had that they had already).

Ebay has sucked a lot of the good tools off the ground, so you can still find basket planes on the ground for the price that good tools used to be (that doesn't make much sense, either).

I hope to do another couple of hundred planes in my lifetime, but work is getting in the way (and it's what I'll be done all of today, despite having two infills and a cabinet that I'd like to be working on).

If I didn't have kids and a wife, I'd quit working a traditional job and make planes (entirely by hand) and live a pauper's lifestyle. Time is what's keeping me from becoming good at it.