Planing the face of a board

[mr]

I think one of the problems faced by beginners is that they are always looking for the perfect plane when there isn't one. You need a range of planes (not necessarily expensive ones) set up to do particular stages of a job. That way the job tends to be quicker and easier and more likely to end in a successful result.
Paul

Chris Schwarz "Coarse Medium Fine" DVD bears mention as well. He demonstrates the concept of working through grades of tooling (not exclusively hand planes). I reckon in lieu of being shown how to do it in the flesh. Chris Schwarz DVD and Rob Cosmans Rough to Ready DVD are a pretty good place for a beginner to start. But then it's where I started so I would say that wouldn't I.
Cheers Mike

 

[Paul Chapman]

Chris Schwarz DVD and Rob Cosmans Rough to Ready DVD are a pretty good place for a beginner to start.

I agree. I've seen the Rob Cosman one but not the one by Chris Schwarz. The Kingshott one is similar as it takes you through the whole process.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[bobscarle]

I think one of the most interesting things to come out of this excersise is that I am now starting to look at wood again. Now this may seem an odd thing to say but I feel that wood can be appreciated more when you work it by hand as opposed to working it by machine.

I thank you all for your help and support and I will certainly be look at buying another Rob Cosman DVD. As for buying another plane, well maybe. When I sharpened the jack earlier it performed well. Now I will not say that it performed as well as a Clifton or LN jack, but it did do well. Rushing in to buy a tool is all very well if it solves the problem. If I buy a Clifton, will I instantly be able to plane like Rob Cosman, I very much doubt it.

I am going to lock myself in the shed with several offcuts and practice. Practice planing diagonally, or even across the grain, against the grain and over reversing grain. That my weekend sorted then.

Bob

 

[Anonymous]

I am reasonably happy with both my Stanley number 4 and my Groz number 5 when I plane the edge of a board. OK, I still need to practice and very rarely get it right first time, but I am improving. The problem comes when I have glued up boards to make, for example, a top and I need to plane this flat. Most of the time the plane just slides over the surface without taking a shaving, other times it digs in gouging the surface. It seems to be better planing with the grain, as you would expect. The problem then comes when planing the joint between two boards where the grain could be running in different directions.

I am not sure if the problem lies with me (more than likely), with the planes (possibly) or with the sharpening. Should I be looking to have the grain running in the same direction for each board in a glue up? This is not something that I look for at the moment but maybe I could. Do better planes with really sharp blades cut with and against the grain equally as well?

I am planning a trip to Axminster this weekend and a Clifton or an LN number 4 may just creep onto the shopping list (especially as its my birthday).

I would be very interested in hearing anybodys thoughts on this.

Bob

Haven't read the whole thread but I'd say stick with one plane (probably the no.5) until you can get it working well for you. If you buy a new tool everytime you hit a snag you won't necessarily get any better at doing it infact it could hinder your development.
I do almost everything with a Record 5 1/2 and infact have never really discovered why I bought a 4 1/2, though I use a long jointer for board edges very ocasionally.

cheers
Jacob

 

[woodbloke]

I am not sure if the problem lies with me (more than likely), with the planes (possibly) or with the sharpening. Should I be looking to have the grain running in the same direction for each board in a glue up? This is not something that I look for at the moment but maybe I could.

Hi Bob, when you are working on a piece of wood, I think it's important to mark not only the face side and face edge, but also other useful information such as grain direction. This will save you a lot of problems later on. On some pieces, it's obvious which way the grain is running but on others it can be quite deceptive. And then there are pieces in which the grain runs in several directions.

I scribble all over my workpieces with a soft pencil (2B or softer so as not to dent the wood) and include various bits of information.

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For example , on this pile of wood I've marked which board the pieces came from, which way up they were and which direction the grain is going. I've also written on some of them so that I know whether they are in wind or not.

I find all this useful if I have to leave the workpieces for a couple of weeks and come back to them, and also when it comes to deciding which piece is to go where, and to glueing up so that I can keep the grain running the same way and prevent problems with tear-out when cleaning up the surfaces.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Paul's bang on the money here, I also scribble all over timber in the course of making something, face side/edge, high and low spots, cabinet makers triangle, grain direction, etc all done with a softish or thick carpenters chisel tipped pencil - Rob

 

[engineer one]

feeling quite proud, checked the thickness of some of the work i had recently done by hand plane, with a digi caliper.

managed to get various pieces to 3 different thickness ranges,
36 mm 17mm and 12mm, about 12 items in total, and ended up with them all being no different from each other than about 0.1-0.2 of a mm, in each thickness, without doing anything other than feeling by hand. :roll:

so although it takes time,there is something to be said for continuing with the process.
:lol:
paul :wink:

 

[mr]

feeling quite proud, checked the thickness of some of the work i had recently done by hand plane, with a digi caliper.

managed to get various pieces to 3 different thickness ranges,
36 mm 17mm and 12mm, about 12 items in total, and ended up with them all being no different from each other than about 0.1-0.2 of a mm, in each thickness, without doing anything other than feeling by hand. :roll:

so although it takes time,there is something to be said for continuing with the process.
:lol:
paul :wink:

 

[Nick W]

...by skewing the plane you are lowering the pitch. ..

While skewing the plane does indeed lower the pitch if you continue to push it along the grain direction you get more of a slicing cut, a trick which I believe is used a lot by carvers. This does of course require your blades to be well sharp.

 

[Harbo]

You could try a Karl Holtey 11 -SA with attack angles of 59 or 89 degrees? :wink:

Rod

 

[ivan]

You've probably done this check - but are the soles of the planes truly flat? A concave sole, especially on the longer Groz, will produce just the effect you describe. Because the warp in the sole is raising the cutter off the wood, you have to keep turning the adjuster to get a cut, and then you hit a raised area and it digs in stopping the plane, making a mess. Unfortunately warped castings are usual nowadays, the de Luxe end of the market is much better in this regard, but even these will benefit from occasional lapping.