Adam W.
A Major Clanger
"ahh, correct to say you're working wet wood, then?"
No, not always.
No, not always.
How Necessary is a Specialised Scrub Plane?
- Thread starter Andy Kev.
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jeez - I'm just looking for a straight answer. I've worked wet wood a few times. It's not common for me. I would respond "generally rough lumber and generally dried", or if I did half and half, I'd say half.
i'm not looking to wedge you into some position, just gathering why someone who does "cubic yards" of wood doesn't match typical practice 200 years ago for cabinet work. One very good reason would be wet wood - the whole issue of troubles with dry wood is kind of moot if you do a large percentage of work with wet wood, especially if it's riven. It planes entirely differently vs. flatsawn dry lumber, even when it's hardwood.
I did the shift with the scrub planes first - they lost out to a single jack. I kind of resented the whole US blog expert thing as they described plane setups in a way that didn't end up being accurate (as if each would have graduated camber, when generally with dry wood, only one plane with significant camber is needed. If we're planing sawn lumber, we don't do the initial work taking off the roughness and most of the thickness on wet riven lumber.
If you do a significant amount of wet lumber dimensioning, then I'd expect what I observed to be N/A for what you're doing, just as I'd expect the mention of riven lumber for planes to make more sense now (it does - riven is often better than commercial sawing, but not *good* commercial sawing, which is what's in planes. The quality of the sawing done with planes is generally unseen at this point - only Horizon lumber in the US actually does it, despite lots of folks selling beech here and there on ebay - it's not a great idea to make a nice plane from most of that stuff. I've thought about trying to get permission to get some of the beech that falls on township land here, and I'd rive it for a simple reason - just to see how straight it is).
Context is important, it's the answer to "why does nicholson say this and not that?", and nicholson answers a question for me as I'd changed from having the scrubs to only using a single cambered plane nearly all the time before ever reading it. The lack of information about using a scrub plane (but rather one jack or one set more rank) makes sense because nicholson is talking about cabinetmaking, and this is what 95% of people reading this forum are probably doing. I know of only two people who ever worked entirely by hand professionally, and both also had no use for a scrub, but lots for a jack - both were also using dry lumber and doing cabinetmaking.
i'm not looking to wedge you into some position, just gathering why someone who does "cubic yards" of wood doesn't match typical practice 200 years ago for cabinet work. One very good reason would be wet wood - the whole issue of troubles with dry wood is kind of moot if you do a large percentage of work with wet wood, especially if it's riven. It planes entirely differently vs. flatsawn dry lumber, even when it's hardwood.
I did the shift with the scrub planes first - they lost out to a single jack. I kind of resented the whole US blog expert thing as they described plane setups in a way that didn't end up being accurate (as if each would have graduated camber, when generally with dry wood, only one plane with significant camber is needed. If we're planing sawn lumber, we don't do the initial work taking off the roughness and most of the thickness on wet riven lumber.
If you do a significant amount of wet lumber dimensioning, then I'd expect what I observed to be N/A for what you're doing, just as I'd expect the mention of riven lumber for planes to make more sense now (it does - riven is often better than commercial sawing, but not *good* commercial sawing, which is what's in planes. The quality of the sawing done with planes is generally unseen at this point - only Horizon lumber in the US actually does it, despite lots of folks selling beech here and there on ebay - it's not a great idea to make a nice plane from most of that stuff. I've thought about trying to get permission to get some of the beech that falls on township land here, and I'd rive it for a simple reason - just to see how straight it is).
Context is important, it's the answer to "why does nicholson say this and not that?", and nicholson answers a question for me as I'd changed from having the scrubs to only using a single cambered plane nearly all the time before ever reading it. The lack of information about using a scrub plane (but rather one jack or one set more rank) makes sense because nicholson is talking about cabinetmaking, and this is what 95% of people reading this forum are probably doing. I know of only two people who ever worked entirely by hand professionally, and both also had no use for a scrub, but lots for a jack - both were also using dry lumber and doing cabinetmaking.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
OMG!
You're trying to jam me into a corner and trying prove me wrong.
I've been studying this shiz for 25 years to MSc level and I practice what I preach, daily. I can fling around a small scrub plane all day long and it's a superbly powerful tool for removing rough uneven surfaces. That's how it was done and historic tool marks will confirm that.
It goes; axe, saw, scrub, jack, jointer / smoother and it has always been like that in England. Your modern North American ways may differ, but that's history like it or not.
The small scrub/fore plane has been around for yonks, ask Follansbee, even though he's so 17th. century.
You're trying to jam me into a corner and trying prove me wrong.
I've been studying this shiz for 25 years to MSc level and I practice what I preach, daily. I can fling around a small scrub plane all day long and it's a superbly powerful tool for removing rough uneven surfaces. That's how it was done and historic tool marks will confirm that.
It goes; axe, saw, scrub, jack, jointer / smoother and it has always been like that in England. Your modern North American ways may differ, but that's history like it or not.
The small scrub/fore plane has been around for yonks, ask Follansbee, even though he's so 17th. century.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
And your comment that sawn timber is better than riven timber for planes is rubbish, as a sawyer will never take as much care as a bodger would over the selection of a stem.
Never.
Ever.
Never.
Ever.
I have no idea what a degree has to do with planing. Planing has to do with planing. counting time and results has to do with planing (if it matters - time may not matter to some).
My point was I asked if you work wet timber, and your response was an answer that just created another question. If you do 99% of your work in dry hardwoods, then you're wasting your time. You may not know it.
But if you've worked the volume you have, I seriously doubt you'd make that error - that was the point. Something instructive in response would've been "X% is wet wood, riven" or sawn or whatever. Axes don't get much use when lumber preparation is commercial (including commercial 200 years ago), except for oddball items like shoes, or for carvers. The reason being that it's cheaper to pay an experienced sawyer to do the sawing close to size and do the air drying so that you can make things with it rather than processing timber.
Even in the very early 1800s, Chapin settled (large commercial planemaker) in an area where processors had already sawn and dried (more than a year) an adequate supply of beech.
If you're operating "before peter's time", then the average person on here taking your advice and applying it to rough K/D hardwoods is going to waste their time on certain things.
Believe me, I'm looking for context only. It took a long time to get Jacob to drop the info that he only worked mostly by hand many decades ago, but I suspected that was the case. It only takes a couple of hundred board feet to find out what's easiest in the context of what you're doing, especially if you do it sometimes for several hours in a day.
My point was I asked if you work wet timber, and your response was an answer that just created another question. If you do 99% of your work in dry hardwoods, then you're wasting your time. You may not know it.
But if you've worked the volume you have, I seriously doubt you'd make that error - that was the point. Something instructive in response would've been "X% is wet wood, riven" or sawn or whatever. Axes don't get much use when lumber preparation is commercial (including commercial 200 years ago), except for oddball items like shoes, or for carvers. The reason being that it's cheaper to pay an experienced sawyer to do the sawing close to size and do the air drying so that you can make things with it rather than processing timber.
Even in the very early 1800s, Chapin settled (large commercial planemaker) in an area where processors had already sawn and dried (more than a year) an adequate supply of beech.
If you're operating "before peter's time", then the average person on here taking your advice and applying it to rough K/D hardwoods is going to waste their time on certain things.
Believe me, I'm looking for context only. It took a long time to get Jacob to drop the info that he only worked mostly by hand many decades ago, but I suspected that was the case. It only takes a couple of hundred board feet to find out what's easiest in the context of what you're doing, especially if you do it sometimes for several hours in a day.
you see what you want to see. I said horizon's sawn timber is better than most riven timber would be. Horizon's beech billets are also $14 a board foot - what you get is the product of huge amounts of waste sawn to get true QS lumber. Most of the wood you'd find wouldn't be good enough to make their stock (most was felled by a sawyer in southern ohio who specialized in it, but he wasn't able to saw and dry 16/4). We aren't talking about commercial lumber, we're talking about a custom sawyer who gets double open market rate for their specialty sawing - for a reason.
Again, context is important. When you buy lumber from horizon, they send you pictures of each piece of wood. I've been further down this road than you have (finding wood for planes). Their sawn lumber is at least as anything you'd rive because even the faller has been supplying a professional planemaker here for decades. You'd struggle to find timber good enough to rive to match it. I would, too, and I live where beech trees grow.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Who on earth is Horizon ?
You may struggle to find good riven timber and that's about it. If you know where to find it, it's easy to get.
Really, you talk about hand planing, but you're mixing up historic and modern woodworking. If you do modern, then get a planer thicknesser or a festool 4" electric planer and a belt sander and have done with it.
And please don't try to patronise me, I don't like it.
You may struggle to find good riven timber and that's about it. If you know where to find it, it's easy to get.
Really, you talk about hand planing, but you're mixing up historic and modern woodworking. If you do modern, then get a planer thicknesser or a festool 4" electric planer and a belt sander and have done with it.
And please don't try to patronise me, I don't like it.
I'm not a re-enactor. I make planes. I use planes. I make planes generally with early 1800s aspects because they are the best planes ever made for dried hardwoods (FAS grade in the US) that we get now.
I also made a mistake after you talked about how much woodworking that you do that you'd flatly give answers that weren't angling for something.
Horizon is a large custom sawyer here that doesn't just run market grade logs through, they do specialty sawing for higher paying customers. If you're making planes, you would go to someone who starts at the faller, not just a guy riving. You could get good billets riving, but you'd have to be willing to throw away the stuff that starts straight but move seasonally (this isn't furniture, twisting half a hundredth on a try plane with seasonal moisture changes would be a problem).
If you popped your head up, you'd have some exposure to specialty retailers who sell to luthiers. They generally only sell wood that's both sawn pin straight and that doesn't move in drying. You wouldn't know who Horizon was from England, and all that matters is they'll saw anything as well as you can rive it if you're willing to pay, but they'll do better on timber selection because instead of just getting what was riven, the sawn wood like I pictured in another thread will be a small subset of the stock. Anything less than perfect will be sold for close to market to other customers - they cater to a couple of professional planemakers and their stock that's sold for planemaking reflects that. The faller they used has retired, and unless something changes, there won't be more (they import ideally sawn billets from europe now - not interested - and remove anything that's not pin straight in both directions and sell it for FAS price).
Could you cull a portion of your riven wood and match it? probably. Would you? no. The fact that the saw is doing most of the work for them allows them to go through far more footage to pull the most ideal stuff. It's not a matter of riving or sawing making better results, it's that they have the efficiency to do it with a saw. You assumed something about commercial lumber without knowing what I was talking about. You asserted rather than checking why it didn't make sense to you. Maybe because I don't have a masters in wood college, you thought I wouldn't know what I was talking about (after all, I just judge the quality on results rather than 16th century ideals).
There's a little more you might learn from in this picture. In the front is a plane that I made - horizon sawed the billet. On the right in the back is beech that I bought from someone who split and then rough planed the split lumber. It's straight, of course. Fine. The wood isn't that great. The color is poor, the density is less and it just looks kind of common. I guess he saw what people were paying for horizon's sawn lumber and figured it looked like a good opportunity. Thankfully, I didn't buy much from him. It's OK, but once the wood is straight from both sources, other judgement that starts at the log is more important and the person doing the sawing needs to know what planemakers want, not just how to make it straight.
In this case, the sawn lumber is better. Not because it's sawn, but because it's better.
I also made a mistake after you talked about how much woodworking that you do that you'd flatly give answers that weren't angling for something.
Horizon is a large custom sawyer here that doesn't just run market grade logs through, they do specialty sawing for higher paying customers. If you're making planes, you would go to someone who starts at the faller, not just a guy riving. You could get good billets riving, but you'd have to be willing to throw away the stuff that starts straight but move seasonally (this isn't furniture, twisting half a hundredth on a try plane with seasonal moisture changes would be a problem).
If you popped your head up, you'd have some exposure to specialty retailers who sell to luthiers. They generally only sell wood that's both sawn pin straight and that doesn't move in drying. You wouldn't know who Horizon was from England, and all that matters is they'll saw anything as well as you can rive it if you're willing to pay, but they'll do better on timber selection because instead of just getting what was riven, the sawn wood like I pictured in another thread will be a small subset of the stock. Anything less than perfect will be sold for close to market to other customers - they cater to a couple of professional planemakers and their stock that's sold for planemaking reflects that. The faller they used has retired, and unless something changes, there won't be more (they import ideally sawn billets from europe now - not interested - and remove anything that's not pin straight in both directions and sell it for FAS price).
Could you cull a portion of your riven wood and match it? probably. Would you? no. The fact that the saw is doing most of the work for them allows them to go through far more footage to pull the most ideal stuff. It's not a matter of riving or sawing making better results, it's that they have the efficiency to do it with a saw. You assumed something about commercial lumber without knowing what I was talking about. You asserted rather than checking why it didn't make sense to you. Maybe because I don't have a masters in wood college, you thought I wouldn't know what I was talking about (after all, I just judge the quality on results rather than 16th century ideals).
There's a little more you might learn from in this picture. In the front is a plane that I made - horizon sawed the billet. On the right in the back is beech that I bought from someone who split and then rough planed the split lumber. It's straight, of course. Fine. The wood isn't that great. The color is poor, the density is less and it just looks kind of common. I guess he saw what people were paying for horizon's sawn lumber and figured it looked like a good opportunity. Thankfully, I didn't buy much from him. It's OK, but once the wood is straight from both sources, other judgement that starts at the log is more important and the person doing the sawing needs to know what planemakers want, not just how to make it straight.
In this case, the sawn lumber is better. Not because it's sawn, but because it's better.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
You've obviously not chosen or riven timber to use yourself. Once you have, we'll talk about it.
And, let's face it, telling me to "pop my head up" is a Sh1£ty thing to do, as it make's you look like a fool.
And, let's face it, telling me to "pop my head up" is a Sh1£ty thing to do, as it make's you look like a fool.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
I'll end it there, as we're getting too far off the topic of scrub planes.
why, did they cover lumber buying when you got your masters? I'll wait for you to show me better beech than I showed you. And, yes, I've riven lumber. It's the only practical way to process a log for someone without a sawmill. I mostly build tools and guitars now and then, but a couple of furniture bits each year. The wood for the two former are in a different dimension, the latter is just common FAS, but from a local sawyer (who has access to bigger trees than I do). Riving more than just a little for play is a waste of time unless you're re-enacting it or making something specific like chairs or baskets.
interestingly enough, the plane that I showed a picture of is far better for processing rough hardwoods than a scrub plane, and my whole point in the first place was just to get a flat answer out of you as to why that isn't the case. I've stated flatly and accurately what I do - I show pictures of stuff I make. It seems difficult to extract from people what they're doing and why - what is there to be afraid of?
I pointed out your comment on the other plane thread was off the mark because riven or sawn has nothing to do with why the plane shrinks to the iron - grain orientation does. You're lacking familiarity with making planes, I'm lacking familiarity with doing large volumes of working with wet wood. I'm not lacking with experience buying lumber as good as any riven lumber, but I can say for sure I can't find it for FAS market price.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
You assume too much, and that's your problem.
I guess if you can show me the riven fagus grandofolia, rosewood and honduran mahogany that you've got, we'd be on the same page.
But let's start over - this is fruitless, and I"m hoping to learn things from people. I'd love to know what # of your initial rough work is with wet wood, not for a "HA!" but because someone may actually learn something from it.
I don't much care for large footprint planes on wet wood roughing = wood sole and small plane is nice.
But let's start over - this is fruitless, and I"m hoping to learn things from people. I'd love to know what # of your initial rough work is with wet wood, not for a "HA!" but because someone may actually learn something from it.
I don't much care for large footprint planes on wet wood roughing = wood sole and small plane is nice.
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
No biggie on missing my comment. I like to think I don't do much 'woo' when it comes to timber tech, and no doubt there is plenty of information you may not want, need or use.
CW I assume refers to Colonial Williamsburg.
I'm not going to get between you and Adam on the subject of scrub planes, billet selection, or whatever this thread has morphed into. As I said earlier in this thread, if I need to hog a bunch off some rough lumpy stuff, the chances are I'll dig out my hand held power plane rather than my modified old dog of a smoothing plane that's now a sort of half-baked scrub plane: I suspect I have nothing else relevant to say in this thread, ha, ha. Slainte.
Richard, you're on good company. You know I think highly of George Wilson - he would say the same. First stationary tools, then power planer and with a nod toward the fact that he did plenty of hand work earlier in life. Like you, his bread and butter work (for him, it's absurd restoration work of 18th century goods, including aging bits of stuff like ivory and gold, or fixing metal bits on period telescopes for the well to do) has nothing to do with hand planing, but also like you, evidence of his work is easy to find.
If I were newer to things with less specificity, I"d buy your wood book in a second. I may still at some point for leisure reading. Sometimes you learn things when you're not expecting to.
(yes, CW is colonial williamsburg - one of the few places subsidizing period work at a high level and keeping their workers in the loop of what's legitimate and what's not).
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Adam W.
A Major Clanger
It would be nice to know who you were replying too to get some context...
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
See the post above that one.
What post above it? All I see is a string of posts from You.
Oh hang on it must be DW. He is on my ignore list, the only person in fact.
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