Jointer planes with skewed irons?

[swagman]

the cap iron set should be slightly larger than the thickest shaving you'll take with a given set.

In acknowledging DWs as sound advise; I see no real benefit in cambering the CB.

Stewie;

 

[Eric The Viking]

BB,

I am one of those who chooses to have very slight camber on my smoothing irons.

My c/bs have been similarly cambered for years, and I can confirm everything works just fine.

Not suggesting that it should be done, just that it can be done. I suspect there are very few people who share the camber fetish.....

best wishes,
David

I suspect most of us find out sooner or later that simply rounding off the corners of an otherwise straight blade doesn't do much to prevent it digging in. Cambering has to be the better approach, but only very slightly, as you say.

 

[D_W]

BB,

I am one of those who chooses to have very slight camber on my smoothing irons.

My c/bs have been similarly cambered for years, and I can confirm everything works just fine.

Not suggesting that it should be done, just that it can be done. I suspect there are very few people who share the camber fetish.....

best wishes,
David

I share the camber fetish for the iron, just not for the cap.

There is no better way to get a consistent finish off of a plane (one that has no line) than to have a gradual camber on the smoothing iron, and I'm somewhat shocked to see that some don't develop that preference.

There are so many advantages to it and how it tolerates minor lateral adjustment issues, etc. You may have a distaste for me at this point, David, that's fine (that is, I really don't care about that above the subject matter). I did learn that technique from your video - I was loaned it and the sharpening video as a rank beginner - and every time I have strayed from it at all (clipping corners, whatever), I have wondered why anyone would do anything else.

It's not even inconvenient to sharpen that way, even freehand - it's probably at least as easy to sharpen a gradual camber freehand as it is to do anything else, certainly more natural than clipping corners and the wood shows it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc02mxDhX6A (5 minutes in this video for a perfectly uniform surface and at time 8 minutes to the method of sharpening using a single stone - that can be ignored, I usually go on about it because I have several times been accused of using substandard edges due to use of the washita).

 

[D_W]

the cap iron set should be slightly larger than the thickest shaving you'll take with a given set.

In acknowledging DWs as sound advise; I see no real benefit in cambering the CB.

Stewie;

Thank you Stewie, that is precisely it. There's no benefit, but there is the potential to cause a problem. As the edges of a cambered shaving thin out, it's sub optimal to have the cap iron progressing back from the edge at the same distance as the thicker middle of the shaving/iron.

I suspect it would be monstrously difficult to find a piece of wood that tore out on one and not the other, though.

The bigger probably is the potential for having corners that come up from the iron, depending on the type of cap.

 

[swagman]

the cap iron set should be slightly larger than the thickest shaving you'll take with a given set.

In acknowledging DWs as sound advise; I see no real benefit in cambering the CB.

Stewie;

Thank you Stewie, that is precisely it. There's no benefit, but there is the potential to cause a problem. As the edges of a cambered shaving thin out, it's sub optimal to have the cap iron progressing back from the edge at the same distance as the thicker middle of the shaving/iron.

I suspect it would be monstrously difficult to find a piece of wood that tore out on one and not the other, though.

The bigger probably is the potential for having corners that come up from the iron, depending on the type of cap.

Hi DW. The following recent blog entry from Paul Sellers might be of interest to you.

regards Stewie;

The cap iron (you may know this as the chip breaker for some unknown reason) should be set to 2mm or thereabouts. You do not want to set it more as there is no point and the cap iron diverts the shaving upwards and separates the shaving away from the throat. Setting it nearer is only necessary for very isolated situations and rarely necessary because this then restricts you from taking the heavy cuts that reduces wear on the cutting edge and on your body too https://paulsellers.com/2015/11/edge-pl ... -337925241

 

[D_W]

Thanks for that, Stewie.

I suspect that with folks like Sellers, Chris Schwarz, Rob Cosman and even a few here, that it's almost not worth the trouble to describe the use any longer. All of these folks talk about hand tool use and then do their heavy work by machine.

I think you have done me a great favor by pasting my comment on SMC, because it is is really all there is to think of when starting with a cap iron - set the cap just beyond the thickest shaving one wants to take. I've seen sellers demonstrating dimensioning on his videos, and he works at a fraction of the speed that I do, and that should not be so, but it is and it will probably always be. I am by no means an impressive physical specimen, either.

There is a tiny group of people who will do work like I'm talking about. It was easy for me to place planes in the hands of people like Brian Holcombe and they will run with them, but that's probably about all the further I'll go from this point.

 

[AndyT]

I've never seen a skewed iron on a jointer and I don't think they exist.
Cambered irons and chipbreakers exist but I think it would be helpful to discuss them in a fresh thread, with a subject line to match.

 

[richarnold]

this is the nearest plane I can find that fits the bill It's a short jack plane by an 18th century maker John Kendal of Bristol. It has a single uncut iron which is skewed. I can only presume it was perhaps made to be used on a shooting board. I can't see any other use for the skew

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I'm not sure whether it makes any difference, but I should point out that David W is referring to the use of a Stanley chipbreaker, and David C uses a LN chipbreaker. They are constructed differently and have a different profile at their leading edges. The Stanley is essentially a hollow round, while the LN (and LV) is a solid wedge.

If cambered, the already-high leading edge of the Stanley chipbreaker would require more steel to come off to retain the angle. The LN/LV chipbreakers are much easier to camber since the leading edge is low and requires a secondary bevel to reach the desired angle at the leading edge. A camber can be added along with the secondary bevel.

Personally, for smoothers, I prefer a slight camber on both blade and chipbreaker as I seek to take as wide a clean shaving as possible (i.e. removing any possible tendency to accordions at the sides of the cut).

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[swagman]

This thread will never end. Thanks Derek. #-o