Hand planing issue

[G S Haydon]

An example of the very low grind I find on many old tools.

 

[profchris]

Hello,

I would like to ask for and advice. I have stared to plane some oak, and I cannot get full width full length shavings.
I have a slight camber on my No.5 Stanley, Cap iron is set 1mm from the blade. Sole is waxed.
These are my shavings View attachment 98980

Personally I think that my blade is not sharp enough, but I would like to ask if this is the main reason, or are there some other possible causes?
When I plane the wood it feels as if the plane stops and then when I apply more force it jumps forward. The blade is set so that it takes as thinest shavings as possible.

I sharpen free hand, as my entry level honing guide was severely out of square, so I thew it away. I use sandpaper for coarse sharpening and 1000/4000 waterstone after it. I use the ruler trick on the back of the blade. Some diamond stones are on the way home for Christmas.

Thank you very much for your feedback.

Stepping back to tibi's original question ....

My answer is from the perspective of someone who has several years experience but little planing time - I mainly make ukuleles, so I'm planing small bits of wood! So I'm a bit further on, but not a huge amount.

I'd say the important thing is to have a sharp blade, and to take fine shavings. If you can take fine shavings and get a flat surface on the wood, then you shouldn't care about full width or full length shavings. These are nice if they happen, but they don't make the planed surface any flatter

My two big discoveries over the years:

1. The wire edge left on the back of the blade after sharpening can be much more persistent than you think. So sharpen the blade, and then work the back. If you can't feel a wire edge, still give it a few more strokes. I often sharpened, found the blade didn't work, took it out and did a little more on the back, and suddenly discovered that I now had a sharp blade.

2. If the plane doesn't seem to be working, swap the wood end for end and plane the other way. You might think you can see the grain direction, but sometimes the wood fools you.

Of these, 1 was the most important. Maybe it's my sharpening technique, but I never got a wire edge you could strop off on your palm - my wire edges were (and are) solid beasts which require removal on the stone. Once I started paying more attention to the back after sharpening, my planing improved a lot.

 

[toolsntat]

In the recent years with the onset of engineered Oak doors I was getting them shot on the edges ok .
My set up on a Stanley 5 was with frog and sole aligned (made easy with frog adjustment screw) cap iron at about 1mm. Just how my planes had been set up for 30+years.
This was alright until not long ago some Wickes ones had the gnarliest toughest Oak lippings I'd ever encountered.
Having seen people on here banging on about getting the cap iron as close to the cutting edge as possible without stiflIng the cut I had a go.
The difference was remarkable with no tearout.
Unless something else transpires to improve on this I'm hooked.
Now the only double iron plane to get a greater set back is my No3 scrubber at appx 2 - 3mm.

Cheers Andy

 

[Jacob]

You can't have both though!
The close set cap iron completly eliminates any chance of tearout on the toughest of timbers, where as a tight mouth will only reduce tearout, and be a whole lot harder to push.
A tight mouth will make it seem like the cap is set as close as you can get it, so it will never be close enough for the toughest species you will encounter.
If you try to do both, the plane will clog, chatter and refuse to take a shaving from the get go.
Everyone who uses the cap states the same.
Tom

But the close set cap iron is not possible with a cambered blade.....and so on.
Yes planes can be pushed to perform in extremis but for most people most of the time what they need and will use most often is a fairly simple default set up.
If the going gets tough there's always a scraper, a sander, or if you want to be a plane enthusiast - a finely adjusted and set up spare plane, suited to a very particular situation but useless in others.

 

[Ttrees]

You are talking about a very finely smother Jacob, with say around 1/64"of camber.
I was talking in general terms, the cap iron on my no. 5 1/2 is set around twice that distance away.
You have a useful camber at that distance, which is evident from the shavings coming from the center of the plane on a very light cut, compared to a heavier cut which will take very near full width shavings...
If the mouth is closed up with this blade setting/camber, or what you could call the start of useful influence of the cap iron, the plane will refuse to work.

To delve further into this for clarity, I will suggest that the leading edge of the cap
makes a difference, as the steeper it is honed, the further away from the edge it can have influence.
Best not go under 50 degrees as the cap iron will need to be set closer..which means you cannot have that stated above useful camber.

I have got nicks in the blade before from staples or whatever, and the cap iron was far enough away from the edge not to get damaged.
I will stick to 50 plus a degree or two to ensure I'm over 50 degrees mark.

Once you get to see how well it works, you understand that the folks back in the day working tough stuff, wouldn't have settled for anything less.
I'm in no way a historian, nor do I study furniture for tool marks and the like...
but am guessing that the timbers of the last century or two were selected for easier to work properties, and cheaper which led to the widespread loss of this knowledge.

A time before that, folks needed to use the cap iron for most of the stuff they were working, for whatever reason.
It seems that things are going full circle again, as many new comers will be likely to be working with what they have, when they start out, which is likely knotty pine, or possibly the polar opposite people buying something tropical or figured to make
furniture with...why buy bland stuff if you've gone to a merchant or buying online,
then again, even a local oak tree can have some tough grain to it.

Yet to see a reason for a making a tight mouth on a double iron plane, where an open mouth plane would not achieve the same or not as good of results.
There must be very good reason for it, I wonder what the first article is which came out with the suggestion of doing so was?

All the best
Tom

 

[D_W]

An example of the very low grind I find on many old tools.

Yessir, and that grind is a treat as long as the secondary is steep enough to hold up. Plane iron damage never occurs way up into the primary, so it doesn't need to be that steep. More sharpening in between grinding the way that one is set up.

 

[D_W]

But the close set cap iron is not possible with a cambered blade.....and so on.
Yes planes can be pushed to perform in extremis but for most people most of the time what they need and will use most often is a fairly simple default set up.
If the going gets tough there's always a scraper, a sander, or if you want to be a plane enthusiast - a finely adjusted and set up spare plane, suited to a very particular situation but useless in others.

Not only is it possible, but it also works well when you need it. The old gutter planes had a cap iron that followed the profile of the sole, and Nicholson prescribed contouring the cap to march the iron, though I don't see a practical advantage in doing that.

Quartered curly cherry is a disaster without the cap set closer on a jack plane. This is yet another reason why a jack plane was common but the modern gimmick scrub plane was not.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I didn’t realise there was so much controversy and religious fervour over planes.
Personally I’ve never had a plane that didn’t work just fine once it is sharp and the basics, like the blade being held securely in the body sorted out. I have planes I’ve made myself that handle the knarliest of woods and can produce transparent full width shavings that float in the air. I also have inherited wooden planes, Norris and Spiers pattern planes and all of them work just fine. A lot comes down to preference for one type over another rather than any one type being better than another. Even a cheap modern Chinese plane can take shavings even if they are horrible to hold and set up.
I set planes up as I was shown by my grandfather when I was a kid fifty years ago, it worked then and continues to work today. I do use the chip breaker close to the edge on blades that have it, well less than 1mm. I keep the mouth tight for smoothing planes that take the finest of shavings and like to see a bit of light for planes taking heavier cuts.
I have sharpened plane blades on stones for fifty years and one of the key elements of success with tools is a sharp edge. You don’t need fancy machines or precision jigs to get a good result but if you want to use them it works too. I use a honing guide or free hand depending on the situation and the amount of rework required.

To the OP; try all the suggestions, or at least those you like the sound of, and don’t be fooled into thinking there is a right and a wrong way to do things. You will learn with every attempt you make. With anything in life a certain amount of practice and experience is needed to reach a level of proficiency. It is all too easy to try something and not get the supposed perfect results touted by the ‘experts’. Just ask yourself is it good enough, if not try again.