How to store Handplanes?
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woodbrains
Established Member
Hello,
There are definitely more than one way to skin this particular cat. I have made and seen others make, (we made an exercise of doing it) planes that could plane directly against the grain without tear out utilising no cap iron effect and all narrowness of aperture. It is plain daft not recognising the fact. One of the best planes I ever encountered was a Steve Knight smoother, copy so a non adjuster Norris. No other plane in the workshop could match it for tear free finish, and it did so entirely with narrow mouth, as the user did not raise the importance of cap iron effect. In fact the aperture was so small, the cap iron probably could not be set close enough to gain much in the way of cap iron effect. Smoothers are for smoothing, we never need them to take more than 2 thou anyhow.
Mike.
There are definitely more than one way to skin this particular cat. I have made and seen others make, (we made an exercise of doing it) planes that could plane directly against the grain without tear out utilising no cap iron effect and all narrowness of aperture. It is plain daft not recognising the fact. One of the best planes I ever encountered was a Steve Knight smoother, copy so a non adjuster Norris. No other plane in the workshop could match it for tear free finish, and it did so entirely with narrow mouth, as the user did not raise the importance of cap iron effect. In fact the aperture was so small, the cap iron probably could not be set close enough to gain much in the way of cap iron effect. Smoothers are for smoothing, we never need them to take more than 2 thou anyhow.
Mike.
there seems to be a lack of diligence here if anyone sees my saying that it is not as fast or as quick as using a cap iron to mean that it doesn't work to make a narrow mouth.
The first fine plane I ever made has a mouth of 4 thousandths of an inch. It's pretty good planing almost anything. It's just a slower process than using the cap iron correctly, because what you can get through it is limited.
If you proceed upward to 1/100th of an inch, though, you are no longer able to plane against the grain without tearout. The aperture has to be tiny, and it limits your ability to do anything other than take many small shavings. The two infills I've made that are full size (I have made smaller) are 4 one thousandths and 1/100th at the mouth, respectively. it's very easy to see the difference between the two.
If you have good wood, then all of it's moot - you just plane with any plane with the grain.
The fact that you can get away without learning to use the cap iron properly is probably why so few people are able to do it properly, but it's to your detriment if you do much more than taking tiny thin shavings all the time, because the close aperture isn't as good as that, and it thus takes longer to get to the same point.
What's missed in this discussion is that it would've been cheaper and easier with a wooden plane to just slip something into the sole (an insert, etc) if that was a better answer when people actually used planes for more than smoothing. Almost nobody did that, the double iron showed up in droves with a mouth aperture much larger than what is needed to control tearout.
Why does anyone think that might have occurred? To buy a more expensive plane, almost universally instead of sticking with a single iron and closing the mouth? It occurred due to economics, the thing that drove people to eventually abandon hand tools. Probably even labor costs - a relatively new user who learns the double iron can become more productive than someone who is working with mouth aperture, probably in a couple of weeks. A person who is feeding wood into a planing machine can do that more cheaply than either of the two former.
When the economic decision is a much more expensive plane, it should suggest something to us now, but it seems like it's over the head of everyone except for a select few who expect to get a little bit more out of a plane than the ability to sandwich a 2 thousandth shaving through.
As you say, you can't have a four thousandth mouth and a cap iron set sub 100th of an inch. It's incompatible. What won out in practical use was the double iron. Decisively.
Now we're crediting surface ground or hand scraped planes, incessant filing of the mouth of a stanley plane to try to make it so that we could even have clean support at the front of the mouth and all of these other "improvements" that only have the effect of forcing us to work more slowly than we would work if we just learn to use the double iron.
They all work. They don't all work equally well when you examine them more closely.
The first fine plane I ever made has a mouth of 4 thousandths of an inch. It's pretty good planing almost anything. It's just a slower process than using the cap iron correctly, because what you can get through it is limited.
If you proceed upward to 1/100th of an inch, though, you are no longer able to plane against the grain without tearout. The aperture has to be tiny, and it limits your ability to do anything other than take many small shavings. The two infills I've made that are full size (I have made smaller) are 4 one thousandths and 1/100th at the mouth, respectively. it's very easy to see the difference between the two.
If you have good wood, then all of it's moot - you just plane with any plane with the grain.
The fact that you can get away without learning to use the cap iron properly is probably why so few people are able to do it properly, but it's to your detriment if you do much more than taking tiny thin shavings all the time, because the close aperture isn't as good as that, and it thus takes longer to get to the same point.
What's missed in this discussion is that it would've been cheaper and easier with a wooden plane to just slip something into the sole (an insert, etc) if that was a better answer when people actually used planes for more than smoothing. Almost nobody did that, the double iron showed up in droves with a mouth aperture much larger than what is needed to control tearout.
Why does anyone think that might have occurred? To buy a more expensive plane, almost universally instead of sticking with a single iron and closing the mouth? It occurred due to economics, the thing that drove people to eventually abandon hand tools. Probably even labor costs - a relatively new user who learns the double iron can become more productive than someone who is working with mouth aperture, probably in a couple of weeks. A person who is feeding wood into a planing machine can do that more cheaply than either of the two former.
When the economic decision is a much more expensive plane, it should suggest something to us now, but it seems like it's over the head of everyone except for a select few who expect to get a little bit more out of a plane than the ability to sandwich a 2 thousandth shaving through.
As you say, you can't have a four thousandth mouth and a cap iron set sub 100th of an inch. It's incompatible. What won out in practical use was the double iron. Decisively.
Now we're crediting surface ground or hand scraped planes, incessant filing of the mouth of a stanley plane to try to make it so that we could even have clean support at the front of the mouth and all of these other "improvements" that only have the effect of forcing us to work more slowly than we would work if we just learn to use the double iron.
They all work. They don't all work equally well when you examine them more closely.
D_W":1uhi3k33 said:
Like I said David, I see tearout and I see tearout gone. And then I read narrative from an experienced woodworking telling me how he accomplished it. It's information worth digesting. I'm not sure what in your mind constitutes 'going down a road' but I have a feeling it differs vastly from most people's definition.
Charlie, I guess you're skipping words. That's fine. Been down that road means I've done exactly that already. If it was better, I'd still be doing it. It's not, definitively, so I'm not.
"someone experienced" doesn't amount to much if the statements are incorrect already in the article (implication that you see cap iron work at 30 thousandths but not 3). It's sort of like saying "David C is certain that the hock iron is one of the greatest improvements in the last half century. George Wilson tells me that an iron works best when it can just barely be filed".
Two very different things. You're forced to actually try the various options and decide for yourself. Or just pick one, but you can't very well make a definitive statement about which is better if you don't actually try both in earnest.
I believed the small mouth aperture was better for about two years. What sent me looking for more was the fact that it was pretty crappy at the try plane stage of things. That translated, as Jacob described, to things that improved the speed - and for the unfortunate shelving of my expensive-to-make smoother - the results, too. The results were fine with the aperture when smoothing, the speed was not that great.
There may be two or three people who actually learn to use the cap iron properly and see some light. For the rest of the folks, over and out.
"someone experienced" doesn't amount to much if the statements are incorrect already in the article (implication that you see cap iron work at 30 thousandths but not 3). It's sort of like saying "David C is certain that the hock iron is one of the greatest improvements in the last half century. George Wilson tells me that an iron works best when it can just barely be filed".
Two very different things. You're forced to actually try the various options and decide for yourself. Or just pick one, but you can't very well make a definitive statement about which is better if you don't actually try both in earnest.
I believed the small mouth aperture was better for about two years. What sent me looking for more was the fact that it was pretty crappy at the try plane stage of things. That translated, as Jacob described, to things that improved the speed - and for the unfortunate shelving of my expensive-to-make smoother - the results, too. The results were fine with the aperture when smoothing, the speed was not that great.
There may be two or three people who actually learn to use the cap iron properly and see some light. For the rest of the folks, over and out.
Maybe it would be helpful if you could put your comments about 'speed' into some sort of context. None of this makes any sense to me given the relatively mild wood we work. Unless you are just butchering the wood with jack and jointer you shouldn't need more than a few passes with a smoother. You should be more or less at the gauged line with long plane and then remove just a bare little bit with the smoother and then you're done. A lot of time the surface from the jointer plane should be just fine and maybe all the smoother is doing is barely nipping a little hair.
Sump'n ain't gee-hawing out here in TV land....
Sump'n ain't gee-hawing out here in TV land....
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I just sharpened two blades - a Hock (made in France) and Clifton.
The Hock took a very long time to do and I had to resort to a coarser stone to get to a burr (then back to finer). I'd say this renders it unusable for a free hand sharpener working hard* who doesn't resort to a bench grinder every time.
I don't know what the Clifton blade is made from but it sharpened a lot easier.
*nb confession - I wasn't working hard - just fiddling about in the workshop.
The Hock took a very long time to do and I had to resort to a coarser stone to get to a burr (then back to finer). I'd say this renders it unusable for a free hand sharpener working hard* who doesn't resort to a bench grinder every time.
I don't know what the Clifton blade is made from but it sharpened a lot easier.
*nb confession - I wasn't working hard - just fiddling about in the workshop.
CStanford":1ly23yx2 said:
That's accurate.
The try plane does relatively more, and is where the greatest speed benefit is. If you're working wood like the picture you showed with rhe planer damage, it won't be 2 or 3 thin passes.
Still, the try plane loses the most if you forgo setting the cap in favor of a tight mouth.
Speed context is of more importance on a case than a music box, too (speaking in volume of work and not the finished item)
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Be OK as long as you have no incontinence problems and there is a damp proof membrane between your sleeping body and the drawer.n0legs":2ouh6paf said:
I once spent a hard winter in a caravan. Spring arrived - I lifted the mattress off the bed there was a damp profile of a weird old tramp on the hardboard over the drawer beneath! It'd be a miracle if it had done my planes any good - might as well keep them in a pond.
Kalimna
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Hmmm, Jacob the Carpenter? JC? Good grief man, you're the second coming! 
Adam S
Adam S
D_W":2gwx5hjx said:
You see I'm usually more worried about being able to remove defects (twist, cup, etc.) within the material I have available to go from say 4/4 rough to 13/16 or 7/8. More times than not I wish I had a little more breathing room, so the last thing I'm worried about is each plane in the series taking as big a bite as it otherwise physically might be capable of taking. I don't really get your methods of work as they appear to be so different from what I've experienced whether by hand, machine, or a combination of both. It may very well be that the ability of a smoother to take a greedy shaving and produce no tearout is evidence of a superbly tuned (or superbly manufactured) plane, but, still, at that point in the process I'm not looking to take a greedy shaving. There's no room. Insasmuch that an inch is an inch I'm doubtful that hand tool woodworkers of the past were looking to use a smoother to take comparatively rank shavings, either.
Removing an eighth of an inch of material (or so), in total, more or less distributed equally both sides is more ticklish than it is anything else, assuming the goal is a board out of wind and close to or at planned thickness. A tight(er) mouth certainly doesn't disrupt the flow or process in any way that I can tell - especially at the jointer/smoother stage if you've let the jack do its work.
I'm not sure that we can pick and choose the information we glean from the past. The old guys remouthed their planes, even ones with double-irons. I have a Marples wooden smoother with a double iron that has been remouthed (probably several times). It was used so much it has the impression of the craftsman's fore and middle finger on the right hand side of the plane, and thumb on the left side of the plane. I don't use this plane. My intention was to use it but when I saw the finger impressions I set it on a shelf.
Charlie, I've got a lot of used planes that haven't been remouthed. I wouldn't normally buy them (the planes) in that volume, but I figured if I bought them right and I was going to try to make my own planes, one of the dumbest things I could do is go cheap on the subject tools and end up making a plane that wasn't better than what I could buy. I've been down that road in the past, too.
Of all of the planes I bought, one was remouthed, two were opened (very sloppily, almost as if they were done with a rasp and then filed smooth), but most were left alone. One of the things larry talks about is slowly conditioning the soles to keep the mouth in order. On a double iron plane, you don't have to work the sole unless there is twist in the plane that occurs over time, so all but the most abused of double iron planes I've bought and seen have been with original mouth - some of them so lazily made that they abutments were cut all the way through to the mouth (later ones), which creates a very ugly plane.
Anyway, I doubt that we work that differently. If I have a board that has twist, I remove the high corners first (not by planing the entire board, but just by removing the high spots). I hope that by the time I've jacked the corners away (or used the try plane if the board doesn't need a jack plane), that I've got a board that's already flat and clean and that the try plane and then smoother don't have to do much. I would be surprised if that was more than 1/8th inch on many boards. Hidden in there is the ability to use the try plane to take quite a lot at a time without tearing out. I try to work after the jack at 80% of what I could do, which is often shavings of 7 or 8 thousandths (in stuff like cherry, a couple less than that if maple/beech/ash), and not that many until a board if flat to the bench top.
The point is that all of this is easier if there is *no* or nearly no tearout. Whatever small amount the try plane might leave is literally removed in one or two heavy smoother shavings, never more, or you threaten flatness or if working to a mark, thickness.
It just isn't quite as fast with a small aperture because you have to work a thinner shaving and you're dealing with a little bit more tearout until the final stroke.
I don't leave the mouths on any of my planes really wide open, but when I make one - especially a jack, if I can feel resistance after I make it, I will open the mouth until I don't. It does provide some protection at the jack step, but not really routine tearout protection, more disaster avoidance.
if I had to pull a number off of the top of my head, I'd say the cap iron doesn't really reduce anything at the jack step, that's more a matter of reading the board, but over the process if the wood is anything less than perfect, it's probably a labor saver of 20-30%. You can smooth with a good surface until clearance of the iron is gone, same with the try plane - it will stay in the cut much longer (more volume of wood removed) than a similar plane type of single iron. It's true the single iron is a little faster to resharpen, but when that happens twice as often because the plane doesn't stay in the cut, it's a net loss.
I provided a couple of planes to brian holcombe and suggested all of this stuff. I'll see what he says, he's working entirely by hand. He already made the remark to me several times that with the try plane set, he can tell that it's getting dull but still get it to begin a cut cleanly and stay in the cut and leave a surface that doesn't have nick lines in it. These kinds of subtleties are a pain to discuss on the forum, because everything becomes a straw man. I'd be able to prove what I say in person pretty easily, but to address something that derek asks, what exactly am I trying to sell? Nothing, so i'm certainly not going to put together a huckster wagon to go prove a point. Anyone ever in my area is welcome to stop by.
Of all of the planes I bought, one was remouthed, two were opened (very sloppily, almost as if they were done with a rasp and then filed smooth), but most were left alone. One of the things larry talks about is slowly conditioning the soles to keep the mouth in order. On a double iron plane, you don't have to work the sole unless there is twist in the plane that occurs over time, so all but the most abused of double iron planes I've bought and seen have been with original mouth - some of them so lazily made that they abutments were cut all the way through to the mouth (later ones), which creates a very ugly plane.
Anyway, I doubt that we work that differently. If I have a board that has twist, I remove the high corners first (not by planing the entire board, but just by removing the high spots). I hope that by the time I've jacked the corners away (or used the try plane if the board doesn't need a jack plane), that I've got a board that's already flat and clean and that the try plane and then smoother don't have to do much. I would be surprised if that was more than 1/8th inch on many boards. Hidden in there is the ability to use the try plane to take quite a lot at a time without tearing out. I try to work after the jack at 80% of what I could do, which is often shavings of 7 or 8 thousandths (in stuff like cherry, a couple less than that if maple/beech/ash), and not that many until a board if flat to the bench top.
The point is that all of this is easier if there is *no* or nearly no tearout. Whatever small amount the try plane might leave is literally removed in one or two heavy smoother shavings, never more, or you threaten flatness or if working to a mark, thickness.
It just isn't quite as fast with a small aperture because you have to work a thinner shaving and you're dealing with a little bit more tearout until the final stroke.
I don't leave the mouths on any of my planes really wide open, but when I make one - especially a jack, if I can feel resistance after I make it, I will open the mouth until I don't. It does provide some protection at the jack step, but not really routine tearout protection, more disaster avoidance.
if I had to pull a number off of the top of my head, I'd say the cap iron doesn't really reduce anything at the jack step, that's more a matter of reading the board, but over the process if the wood is anything less than perfect, it's probably a labor saver of 20-30%. You can smooth with a good surface until clearance of the iron is gone, same with the try plane - it will stay in the cut much longer (more volume of wood removed) than a similar plane type of single iron. It's true the single iron is a little faster to resharpen, but when that happens twice as often because the plane doesn't stay in the cut, it's a net loss.
I provided a couple of planes to brian holcombe and suggested all of this stuff. I'll see what he says, he's working entirely by hand. He already made the remark to me several times that with the try plane set, he can tell that it's getting dull but still get it to begin a cut cleanly and stay in the cut and leave a surface that doesn't have nick lines in it. These kinds of subtleties are a pain to discuss on the forum, because everything becomes a straw man. I'd be able to prove what I say in person pretty easily, but to address something that derek asks, what exactly am I trying to sell? Nothing, so i'm certainly not going to put together a huckster wagon to go prove a point. Anyone ever in my area is welcome to stop by.
I've become lost about what point(s) you're trying to make.
CStanford":1b1pgoue said:
Plane design and method of use that actually gets the most work done with the least effort.
It's not much of a discussion when the "experts" do nothing but smooth wood and are certain that they know more about plane design than people who actually used them for a living. Thus, as they say in shark tank, I'm out.
iNewbie
Established Member
And not a mention of a LN or Veritas sock.
