Planing knots

[D_W]

One day some bored engineer will invent a screw adjuster for the cap-iron.

It was done at least by french plane makers early on. Screw adjust.

Since a user doesn't generally adjust a cap iron between sharpenings, it was probably deemed unnecessary, but some original western double irons were loose and the screw that holds the irons together was definitely deemed useful despite being expensive to make early on.

 

[alexalexander]

I've just found out how hard knots in old pine can be. I'm recycling some old wall panelling to make some replacement shutters for the chalet and have to put in a moulding to match. One panel had a small knot in just the wrong place - chipped a bit out of the moulding plane iron - twice. I chiseled it down with a gouge before I ended up on the grinder for a third time!

 

[G S Haydon]

DW has beaten me to it. I can't find any images but I recall seeing planes on ebay with the mechanism. It would be interesting to give one a try but it's not so hard to get used to a Stanley or normal Woodie set up.

I know the OP has had good advice thus far but wanted to say that CC gave some good advice about the right tool for the job. We recently had a work experience lad with us. I had saved some reclaimed joist as the timber was quite nice. I had him remove the nails and screws and then clean the surfaces down with a scrub plane. I had never used a scrub plane but had purchased one, a cheap PINIE brand plane. It was a revelation! https://www.instagram.com/p/B8yfhd1l6zf/

The plane iron came properly cambered and only took a moment to sharpen. It was so light and easy to clean up the faces of the wood.

If you are just doing smoothing passes, just make sure the iron is very sharp, correct cap iron setting (straight shavings) and keep and eye out for damage to your cutting edge. As Mike mentioned, 30>35 degrees will provide a strong edge. Anything less than 30 degrees will be likely to chip. Good luck with the planing!

 

[thomashenry]

Bit of an update from me. The discussion about placement of the cap iron was very useful. But I figured out what the main problem was.....

As mentioned, I'm preparing all my stock by hand, so am doing lots of sawing and planing. I've been sharpening my plane irons a fair bit. I've also been trying to learn to sharpen freehand, rather than using the eclipse guide I normally use.

Turns out that I've been doing a bad job of freehand sharpening - I've been getting the blade sharp, but every time I sharpen, I've been putting an increasingly steep angle on the edge. It got to the point where the angle on the blade edge was greater than the angle that the blade sits in the plane.... and hey presto, the cutting edge is now no longer making contact with the wood.

This explains the progressively worse peformance I've been seeing - it got to the point yesterday where I was barely able to take a shaving. So, I went back to the eclipse guide, resharpened at 30 degrees, (to 1000 plus strop), set the cap iron ultra close to the end of the blade, and hey presto, I was was making short work of knots. A good lesson to have learned.

I've been getting some lovely lovely stock out of the rafters. Thanks for all the contrbutions.

 

[D_W]

Excellent conclusion - one of the benefits of using the cap (if the stuff you're planing doesn't blast the end off of the iron right away) is that the plane will stay in the cut for the duration of what you're planing, regardless of the direction the grain goes. You'll get through whatever you're planing faster, it'll feel better to do it that way (no skipping around and hacking off wood) and there will be less work to do.

It's helpful when you start sharpening freehand to find a single medium stone to learn on, grinding at some primary angle and just lifting the iron a little bit to sharpen. Alternate front and back to minimize a wire edge and then strop it off. I've sent quite a few tools to people (some that I've made to play with, and others that I've just sold used) and gotten comments back on tools that weren't really that sharp - quite often - that are of the nature of "what did you use to sharpen this? It's really sharp?". It's not really that sharp, it's just that sharpening was completed.

Something like a washita stone (and compliant iron) makes learning freehand much easier as long as you have a grinder to go with it (or a coarse stone to do the grinding). Just work the back and the very edge.

You'll be killing two birds with one stone here - both the cap iron as well as freehand sharpening. IF it doesn't work, though, no shame in using the guide to get on with it, but keeping the freehand goal in mind will only help more down the road.