Probably as good as I've seen, and perhaps unlike those who have worked entirely by hand reading nicholson and others first, I learned by hand trialing (experimenting) and then a couple of years ago, someone who works mostly by hand referred me to nicholson and said "everything looks OK, except you're taking long strokes with the jack plane".
Notice in everything nicholson talks about, there's a lack of discussion of constant checking of work mid process (you can do it as part of the process while you're working), there's no prescription for X's or high angles or any of that stuff. The language is a little funny.
What I learned from the text when referenced to it was experimenting with what Nicholson says (working sectionally with a jack) is a little less effort. So just learning by trial and error, everything otherwise matches.
For anyone new to planing, this kind of simplicity is important, because it's really all there is to planing (not cross grain, then X's then this or that).
Jack plane in sections, long plane (equivalent in metal planes maybe to a #6) with through shavings until there are continuous shavings end to end and left to right, and then do the same thing smoothing.
(Jack planing in sections means you step to an area plane it, and then no moving of feet until that area is done, then move back or forward and get what's in arm's reach:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=_XYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA94&printsec=frontcover
The text is here -start on page 94.
There's a brief other part where nicholson mentions setting the cap iron based on the needs of the wood (so it's more or less set the plane properly, sharpen it and then do the same thing as above every time only varying whether or not the jointer is used based on a need for very straight or long work).
As much as everyone loves a big long wooden jointer plane in theory, the second double iron plane that I built was a 28" jointer. I don't think I've used it in at least four years as the need for anything very straight is usually match planing a long edge (the try plane will match plane almost anything fine without getting a metal or wooden jointer out). The 28" planes are nose heavy and they make your forearm tired.
The fact that someone can work in a garage, resolve to work mostly by hand and end up on almost the same process is a good indicator that varying much from what nicholson says is likely to put you through pointless work.
Notice also when you read the text on the prior page, nicholson talks about honing the iron with two stones and using a grind stone occasionally when it's needed. A grind stone back then wouldn't have been a bench stone- it would've been a very large and very coarse sandstone (like the size of a microwave but not as thick as a microwave is tall). I didn't track down the rub stone, but a turkey stone at the time would probably have been the turkish oilstone (which is essentially nonexistent at a reasonable price now). A good quality turkish stone is about as fine as an 8k grit waterstone, or similar to a trans/black arkansas, but more friable. In 15 years of being a stone pig, I've only found one at a reasonable price (and still have it).
I've never read this section before about sharpening (I'll figure that out on my own) but it's literally identical (two stones and a grinder - not grinding every time, not a bunch of diamond stones) except that the grinder used occasionally is a huge sandstone or a sandstone wheel instead of a modern grinder.
This is all there is to planing anything that I've ever found and when a non-jacob person (like a professional guitar maker here in the states or anyone else starting to work by hand) has ever asked why they're having trouble, the reference to what they're doing is no more complicated than above (no weird tricks, toothed irons, rounding bevels, special stones). The only thing that seems to get objection is the idea that a sole has to actually be flat if you want to use the plane sole to plane something flat without having to check it. That's an immediate indication that someone isn't doing much work by hand (to object to that).
I don't think many people actually work entirely by hand on much. The lack of a scrub plane is a good example here - why no scrub plane? It's such a pleasurable plane for a beginner to chunk off wood. The reason is simple -the jack plane removes a volume of wood just as quickly, but it does so without leaving nearly as uneven of a surface, and when you're not feeding a board to a power jointer or power thicknesser, you notice how much effort is required to follow up the rough work with the try plane (as in, you start to become very accurate with a jack plane so that the next steps are less and you do as much work as you can with the jack). Splitting the jack plane up into scrub and jack plane also makes no sense. If there's a want to really take huge chunks of wood out of a board, then just set two jack planes - one more coarse than the other.
Notice in everything nicholson talks about, there's a lack of discussion of constant checking of work mid process (you can do it as part of the process while you're working), there's no prescription for X's or high angles or any of that stuff. The language is a little funny.
What I learned from the text when referenced to it was experimenting with what Nicholson says (working sectionally with a jack) is a little less effort. So just learning by trial and error, everything otherwise matches.
For anyone new to planing, this kind of simplicity is important, because it's really all there is to planing (not cross grain, then X's then this or that).
Jack plane in sections, long plane (equivalent in metal planes maybe to a #6) with through shavings until there are continuous shavings end to end and left to right, and then do the same thing smoothing.
(Jack planing in sections means you step to an area plane it, and then no moving of feet until that area is done, then move back or forward and get what's in arm's reach:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=_XYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA94&printsec=frontcover
The text is here -start on page 94.
There's a brief other part where nicholson mentions setting the cap iron based on the needs of the wood (so it's more or less set the plane properly, sharpen it and then do the same thing as above every time only varying whether or not the jointer is used based on a need for very straight or long work).
As much as everyone loves a big long wooden jointer plane in theory, the second double iron plane that I built was a 28" jointer. I don't think I've used it in at least four years as the need for anything very straight is usually match planing a long edge (the try plane will match plane almost anything fine without getting a metal or wooden jointer out). The 28" planes are nose heavy and they make your forearm tired.
The fact that someone can work in a garage, resolve to work mostly by hand and end up on almost the same process is a good indicator that varying much from what nicholson says is likely to put you through pointless work.
Notice also when you read the text on the prior page, nicholson talks about honing the iron with two stones and using a grind stone occasionally when it's needed. A grind stone back then wouldn't have been a bench stone- it would've been a very large and very coarse sandstone (like the size of a microwave but not as thick as a microwave is tall). I didn't track down the rub stone, but a turkey stone at the time would probably have been the turkish oilstone (which is essentially nonexistent at a reasonable price now). A good quality turkish stone is about as fine as an 8k grit waterstone, or similar to a trans/black arkansas, but more friable. In 15 years of being a stone pig, I've only found one at a reasonable price (and still have it).
I've never read this section before about sharpening (I'll figure that out on my own) but it's literally identical (two stones and a grinder - not grinding every time, not a bunch of diamond stones) except that the grinder used occasionally is a huge sandstone or a sandstone wheel instead of a modern grinder.
This is all there is to planing anything that I've ever found and when a non-jacob person (like a professional guitar maker here in the states or anyone else starting to work by hand) has ever asked why they're having trouble, the reference to what they're doing is no more complicated than above (no weird tricks, toothed irons, rounding bevels, special stones). The only thing that seems to get objection is the idea that a sole has to actually be flat if you want to use the plane sole to plane something flat without having to check it. That's an immediate indication that someone isn't doing much work by hand (to object to that).
I don't think many people actually work entirely by hand on much. The lack of a scrub plane is a good example here - why no scrub plane? It's such a pleasurable plane for a beginner to chunk off wood. The reason is simple -the jack plane removes a volume of wood just as quickly, but it does so without leaving nearly as uneven of a surface, and when you're not feeding a board to a power jointer or power thicknesser, you notice how much effort is required to follow up the rough work with the try plane (as in, you start to become very accurate with a jack plane so that the next steps are less and you do as much work as you can with the jack). Splitting the jack plane up into scrub and jack plane also makes no sense. If there's a want to really take huge chunks of wood out of a board, then just set two jack planes - one more coarse than the other.
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