Plane squareness to sole

[Zag73]

Hi all, long time reader but first time poster. Hoping to pick your brains. I’d like to use my jack plane on a shooting board. The sole is flat to within 0.05mm. But when laid on the side, it’s square to within 0.05mm to 0.10mm. I don’t have feeler gauges within this range so can’t give a more precise figure. Is this acceptable for use on a shooting board.
Thanks in advance for any help / advice.

 

[Ttrees]

Hello Zag73
I suppose you might have been reading the thread below,
as it would be easy to screw up the side of a plane due to the shape.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/thread...-sharpening-stones.132181/page-2#post-1497615
It might well depend on what you are planing and the results you are after.
I want the best possible, and work difficult grain, thus use the cap iron
(very little camber)
so it's not possible for me to jump straight to shooting long grain with my jack/try plane, although I did make sure my Stanley's were thick enough to lap someday for the job.
If that makes sense.
Tom

 

[Argus]

I must confess that I find it hard to equate engineering tolerances to woodwork.

If a piece of wood is 0.05 mm out, I'm sure that it will move as much, if not more than that over a damp weekend.

It's perfectly possible, in my thinking to compensate for any slight discrepancy with the bed and side of your plane on the bed of the shooting board together with the blade adjustment so that the actual cutting angle of the actual blade with the piece of wood being shot is true...... that's how I do it.
It's mostly trial and error on a bit of scrap until you get it right - then lock the blade in place.

P.S. - Sorry that I omitted to welcome you to the forum. I didn't notice until now that it's the first post. Welcome!

 

[Zag73]

I must confess that I find it hard to equate engineering tolerances to woodwork.

If a piece of wood is 0.05 mm out, I'm sure that it will move as much, if not more than that over a damp weekend.

It's perfectly possible, in my thinking to compensate for any slight discrepancy with the bed and side of your plane on the bed of the shooting board together with the blade adjustment so that the actual cutting angle of the actual blade with the piece of wood being shot is true...... that's how I do it.
It's mostly trial and error on a bit of scrap until you get it right - then lock the blade in place.

P.S. - Sorry that I omitted to welcome you to the forum. I didn't notice until now that it's the first post. Welcome!

Hi Argus
Many thanks for the response. I have to agree regarding engineering tolerances and wood. I’ve just started with woodworking recently and have watched one too many youtubers My gut feel is that any discrepancy, can as you point out, be taken care of by tilting the blade one way or another. For info, it’s a woodriver jack plane. Very happy with it and even happier with the price

 

[Zag73]

Hello Zag73
I suppose you might have been reading the thread below,
as it would be easy to screw up the side of a plane due to the shape.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/thread...-sharpening-stones.132181/page-2#post-1497615
It might well depend on what you are planing and the results you are after.
I want the best possible, and work difficult grain, thus use the cap iron
(very little camber)
so it's not possible for me to jump straight to shooting long grain with my jack/try plane, although I did make sure my Stanley's were thick enough to lap someday for the job.
If that makes sense.
Tom

Hi Tom
Apologies, you’ve lost me a bit. I can be dense towards the end of the week Do you adjust the blade to make it square to the wood?

 

[pe2dave]

Yes. More than good. Enjoy

 

[D_W]

Put it on its side on a shooting board, adjust the iron until the result of the cut is square and see if it's tolerable to use.

If the result is good and the use is pleasant, no problem. Too much lateral adjustment to make up for poor squareness and a plane can be a pain to use, but the use test (even better if comparing to something known to be pleasant to use and square) is the only legitimate test.

 

[Zag73]

Put it on its side on a shooting board, adjust the iron until the result of the cut is square and see if it's tolerable to use.

If the result is good and the use is pleasant, no problem. Too much lateral adjustment to make up for poor squareness and a plane can be a pain to use, but the use test (even better if comparing to something known to be pleasant to use and square) is the only legitimate test.

Hi
Thanks for the response. The points you make all seem very sensible. But, would you class my plane , based purely on the figures , as out of square for the purposes of shooting?

 

[Zag73]

Yes. More than good. Enjoy

Cheers

 

[Droogs]

It's fine just use it , if it is wooden bodied it will move more than than with a change of humidity of just a degree and If it's a metal bodied plane it will move with a change of temp of a degree. Also if metal you can compensate with the lateral adjuster - that is what is is for and if wooden then tap the iron with a hammer

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Even if the body of the plane is 100% square you cannot guarantee the iron is ground dead square or that it is set dead square in the plane. Try it on a test piece and adjust til the test piece is square, and do it again if you remove the iron to sharpen it. They body of the plane would have to be quite well out of square before it couldn't be compensated for in the adjustment.

 

[D_W]

metal planes will expand. I've never noticed them to change straightness or squareness.

The use test rules, though, and measurements only matter to understand or avoid issues with use. Trouble with them is there are places thousandths count, and many where they don't matter at all (it matters very little if anything more than the first half inch or so of a chisel back is in plane with the edge, for example).

 

[Jacob]

Tilt the blade if necessary. Or tilt the workpiece, but I doubt you'd need to do either. Not a good idea to aim for engineering tolerances where woodwork is involved, that way madness lies.
PS I've never really seen why people are so interested in shooting boards - I've never really found a use for one. I made one years ago but hardly ever used it, ended up in the bin. Nothing you can do with a shooting board which you can't do just as well with a bench hook, or without even that.

 

[Zag73]

All
Many thanks for the responses. As I suspected, I’ve been overthinking the issue! in my defence , I’m a newbie.

 

[D_W]

At the same time, don't blindly listen to folks who tell you everything works and nothing ever needs adjusting. People send me a lot of tools. When they say they're hard to use, there's something wrong with the way they're fitted, or in the case of getting irons that "just don't hold an edge", when I get them, they don't. Some of them still don't after rehardening.

Nothing needs to be that difficult (well, I can't make complex glue - ups simple - that's always a pain).

If you run into a more accurate plane that's got less gappage around the mouth, try it. If it works better, then you can either just use it or see if you're curious as to why.

My shooter works better than any shooter I"ve ever used.


This one - looks great - doesn't work as well (it's got two things against it, three if there's nothing retaining it against the side of the shooting board).



I'd work better with a steel side and sole plate and a lever cap instead of a wedge. and I don't love lever caps on planes like this, but for this plane, that's the case).

 

[Ttrees]

If I had a ductile iron plane, I would plan on squaring up the plane for long grain someday, I use another 5 1/2 as I got sick of fussing, though I don't shoot much long grain as my composite bench will mark and smell if doing this, but as said I can only get away with such little camber with my timbers.
Pain in the area if you're shooting end grain and you hit some silica or whatever, and wipe out the edge.
If that's the case, a wee short block is handy as you can adjust for square beforehand (long grain) without the damage of hitting into minerals.
If you're planing long thinner stock which isn't so easy to plane square accurately, you might want to try the plane on it's side, as the ductile iron plane can be used without any faffing, with just a few boards under the work.
I wouldn't be so eager to lap the side of my regular cast iron plane, as it would be weaker compared to the woodriver.
That part where the cheek meets the mouth is an area where you often can see a hairline crack.
Still might lap one of them, as I originally bought the plane to have two iron profiles for the jack/try for my work, but needed a shooter more so thats that.
It would be a real pain in the bum to have to go messing with the lateral adjuster, as there is no room for error on a near or straight iron.

 

[Cabinetman]

Tilt the blade if necessary. Or tilt the workpiece, but I doubt you'd need to do either. Not a good idea to aim for engineering tolerances where woodwork is involved, that way madness lies.
PS I've never really seen why people are so interested in shooting boards - I've never really found a use for one. I made one years ago but hardly ever used it, ended up in the bin. Nothing you can do with a shooting board which you can't do just as well with a bench hook, or without even that.

Jacob – you’re quite right but I didn’t want to say it, I never ever had a shooting board, with a finely set nr4 I just plane the end in a vice.

 

[Zag73]

By the sounds of things, best approach is to use and adjust accordingly until I get the desired results.

 

[Zag73]

Jacob – you’re quite right but I didn’t want to say it, I never ever had a shooting board, with a finely set nr4 I just plane the end in a vice.

Ha! Best solution…..Ditch the shooting board! Order has been restored to my world.

 

[TheTiddles]

For fine tapers you can skew the blade, so do the same to get it as square as you want. Nothing is actually square, it’s just how far off it is.
There is lot of navel gazing by people who seem to not make a lot about how to sharpen, squareness, flatness etc… almost always without an understanding of why it should matter so much.
I’ve never seen a maker who’s work impressed me that didn’t use a shooting board of some kind.
I’m sure I could plane lengths, angles and widths another way, but I like to get on and build, not practice a technique that’s not required, because I’ve got a shooting board.