Please teach me about planes

[G S Haydon]

For those interested about George Wilson, there is a four part video series on YouTube

I don't wish to be involved in a war on who did what. It's just nice to add some context to who the George chap is.

 

[G S Haydon]

There's also a bit of a bio here. Featured Builder - George Wilson

Last from me here aside as I don't want to derail any further.

 

[D_W]

For those interested about George Wilson, there is a four part video series on YouTube

I don't wish to be involved in a war on who did what. It's just nice to add some context to who the George chap is.

he is slightly known because he spent a few years on one of the forums in the US, but all people really wanted on that forum that I could tell is just to have him show pictures of what he made. I think he was hoping to find people who wanted to make things and learn about design, but it wasn't to be.

When he said something about making stuff for presidents, etc, it was something he hadn't said before - only because someone said "you're no paul sellers and here's why". Which led to the question about why he never opened a school if he was so good -I think he considered it only at a cursory level because you can have something like a shop rate of $75 as a fine maker if you want to stay fully subscribed without becoming an "it" maker or job shop where you take on the jobs that pay the most rather than just fine maker.

His response was that he never really had the time, and a couple of his comments about take-on students (apprentices) that he had probably clued him in further. If you're an extreme maker and you get half hearted apprentices, it can be discouraging. He's fond of really fine makers or people who became them, though. I've talked to him a lot, and I can make a few fine things -at this point, I can make fine planes and I can make fine chisels, and OK guitars and functional everything else. That's probably realistic for a hobbyist. George does everything finely and doesn't bog the discussion in talks about methods vs. talks about results and standards. And everything is a wide swath (from diemaking to instrument making to toolmaking to whatever else), and he works fast, too.

I mentioned the scraper in that video to him at one point and said "do you have pictures of that scraper being used on spruce as I'd like to make something like that". It's brass, infilled, and more or less squashed tube into an oval shape with an infill made to fit in it and a sole sweated on.

It took him an hour to make it. I have no idea how - I could make it. It would take me at least 10. some part of that is the difference between pro and amateur.

 

[D_W]

I'll do a treatise on planing at some point, one organized. Maybe later this fall or in the winter.

I'd rather do that than constantly discuss the same thing over and over. I have no qualms about showing real time work on a project to go along with it, and not in pine or something selected to make a video.

 

[D_W]

Here is the scraper I'd mentioned. Slick. One hour. When I did say "1 hour Wt_!!!" George explained how he made it, and then said "you need to buy a mill" (squash brass tube, make the infill to fit whatever you get and then assemble). That scraper is still in use as george didn't take it with him when he left (not sure if he would've been allowed to).



I'm a hobbyist, I don't want to find the space or the time to learn to use one, but he said something else about more or less needing to make the scraper, not needing to make a fine one.

I thought it was a guitar top, but it's the soundboard of the spinet. I only remember guitar because I was thinking of getting one to thickness spruce guitar tops - something normally done with a drum sander, but like the mill, I've got no interest in it. And thicknessing very thin things by hand isn't quite as easy as regular wood for different reasons than one might guess. It's not the workholding that's a problem.

 

[Jacob]

Probably covered somewhere above but forgot to say - it's much easier and more practical to have a blade with a slight camber. Two reasons - you don't get tramlines but more importantly it's much more adjustable. As you withdraw the blade for a finer cut it also effectively gets narrower and the cut is easier. Really useful on difficult wood. With a dead straight cutting edge it's always all or nothing. It's like the difference between a gouge and a straight chisel.
You get a slight camber anyway if you freehand sharpen, whether you want it or not. A lot of the probs of jig sharpening planes is down to the dead straight cutting edge produced.

 

[D_W]

Probably covered somewhere above but forgot to say - it's much easier and more practical to have a blade with a slight camber. Two reasons - you don't get tramlines but more importantly it's much more adjustable. As you withdraw the blade for a finer cut it also effectively gets narrower and the cut is easier. Really useful on difficult wood. With a dead straight cutting edge it's always all or nothing. It's like the difference between a gouge and a straight chisel.

on this we agree. I can't think of a single situation in woodworking where the blade has to be dead straight and maintaining a gradual camber of several thousandths pretty much occurs via the natural process when setting the bevel after grinding and refreshing same.

There is a method to deal with difficult wood (especially too hard for the plane set) and a straight iron that works fine, or that also works fine with a mildly cambered iron when someone is getting more resistance than they want, but I don't want to set the whole thread on fire. It's only practical on faces prior to smoothing, so the kind of thing 100 people argue about and only 1 actually does with regularity.

 

[stuckinthemud]

Thank you for your input, I’ve learned lots, including that I do some things correctly. My flat blades have the corners knocked back, one of my jack planes has a cambered blade. It seems I’m mounting the blade wrong though, I leave the cutting edge a couple of mm ahead of the cap iron. That tip about shimming the iron more upright is something I will try as most of my timber is uncooperative.

All my planes are inherited. I have never heard of a scrub plane but when I googled it, it turns out what I thought was my cheap Stanley knock-off might be a scrub plane, I’ll dig it out from under my bench (I do have a sturdy bench) and have a proper look.

 

[D_W]

Thank you for your input, I’ve learned lots, including that I do some things correctly. My flat blades have the corners knocked back, one of my jack planes has a cambered blade. It seems I’m mounting the blade wrong though, I leave the cutting edge a couple of mm ahead of the cap iron. That tip about shimming the iron more upright is something I will try as most of my timber is uncooperative.

All my planes are inherited. I have never heard of a scrub plane but when I googled it, it turns out what I thought was my cheap Stanley knock-off might be a scrub plane, I’ll dig it out from under my bench (I do have a sturdy bench) and have a proper look.

scrub is just a term - it's a very short radius single iron short sole jack, so to speak. They have application in wet wood and in construction, but not so much if you're trying to make things at the bench.

you can set the cap iron close to the end on the jack (curved blade, straight cap iron edge, no problem) until there is resistance if needed. Some of the old texts describe using the cap iron even in rough planing. i've done it occasionally, but try to find other ways to plane wood on the jack plane before resorting to it as jack shavings are very thick and they don't bend easily - you get to do the work to bend them a little as they're held in place.

Sometimes, it's the way to go, though, especially if you're jack planing curly wood or wood with grain running out into the surface in various directions.

 

[Adam W.]

"at the bench" LOL!

Is that some kind of hallowed ground in USAnia where you can only stand after a day at the office whilst wearing a tuxedo and fiddling with a Holtley?

I prefer to put the wood on a bench and not grovel on the ground just because it isn't seasoned. I also use my scrub plane on seasoned riven timber on a bench too, would you believe.

 

[D_W]

At the bench - woodworking in a stationary shop. Not site work, not working on sawhorses, not riving and bodgering in the woods.

I've never heard of a "Holtley", but I do remember you saying 1800 was 200 years too late for your work. I would be less likely to be the one wearing a costume, but maybe it's required for classes?

 

[George of the Wood]

I'll do a treatise on planing at some point, one organized. Maybe later this fall or in the winter.

I'd rather do that than constantly discuss the same thing over and over. I have no qualms about showing real time work on a project to go along with it, and not in pine or something selected to make a video.

I, for one, am looking forward to this. There is way too much animus in these "discussions" on planes and planing to follow any cogent nugget that is dropped amongst the vitriol.

 

[mudman]

I can't think of a single situation in woodworking where the blade has to be dead straight and maintaining a gradual camber of several thousandths pretty much occurs via the natural process when setting the bevel after grinding and refreshing same.

How about when using a shooting board?

 

[WideningGyre]

I, for one, am looking forward to this. There is way too much animus in these "discussions" on planes and planing to follow any cogent nugget that is dropped amongst the vitriol.

Strong preference to seeing it on video, in real time, little to no editing, with whatever voiceover narrative just needed to get points across. I'm certainly open to breakthrough technique being demonstrated and described, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it from print. Maybe foursquare and plane to thickness a typical rough board with a little cup and twist, say a meter or so long, 150mm wide, 25mm+ thick to start, planed down to around 19mm or so? A honing video to follow which shouldn't take more than a few minutes if what I've read in the thread represents how it actually works in real time. I'm very anxious to SEE what it is I'm doing differently, incorrectly, and too slowly.

 

[Jacob]

Strong preference to seeing it on video, in real time, little to no editing, with whatever voiceover narrative just needed to get points across. I'm certainly open to breakthrough technique being demonstrated and described, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it from print. Maybe foursquare and plane to thickness a typical rough board with a little cup and twist, say a meter or so long, 150mm wide, 25mm+ thick to start, planed down to around 19mm or so? A honing video to follow which shouldn't take more than a few minutes if what I've read in the thread represents how it actually works in real time. I'm very anxious to SEE what it is I'm doing differently, incorrectly, and too slowly.

Fairly easy in softwood, could be hard work in many hard woods.
I know - much simpler if you do a video of yourself on the job and we'll tell you what you are doing wrong!

 

[D_W]

I, for one, am looking forward to this. There is way too much animus in these "discussions" on planes and planing to follow any cogent nugget that is dropped amongst the vitriol.

it is, communicating it is difficult. I think dimensioning by hand is easy, but it wasn't easy at the start. It's almost like a separate art, though, and some part of it is feel and another part is doing simple things that work well and not doing simple things that don't. Anyone who does it long enough will find what works well out of laziness and basically end up doing something like nicholson says. I ended there "by chance" almost 100% to a T in everything from sharpening method to plane type and plane setup. But I don't think there's that much chance, it's just where you end up working dry hardwood.

The other part of it is not working in positions that nobody would've in the first place or at paces that nobody would've worked for anything but the last cut.

I haven't got much concern about criticism of what I'm doing, though - I've tried most of the things that people claim "work better", and they don't, or they're risky to clean dimensions of wood.

Organizing how to present it and what to present and avoiding going off track while discussing it is a challenge, though. The actual process is a lot easier than that.

The other pleasant part of it is as soon as everything is working properly, you can do it left handed within a couple of days if you're right handed - which means rough sawing, planing, whatever, and in good positions you can be relatively low stamina (as I am) and work for hours.

The bigger baffle than folks getting confused by how it's done well and without risk to good or interesting stock is why people like sellers and others are so intent on trying to tell people how to use a whole array of planes from rough wood. Cosman does the same - I've suggested things do him, like that telling people to dimension with heavy metallic planes is pretty much a route to failure. It's exhausting. He doesn't agree, but he's teaching beginners and I think it's very important to consider that when someone is teaching beginners who may not ever do what's being demonstrated more than once a year, instant mediocre success is more important than longer term considerations. DC said the same thing to me when I suggested that some of the hand methods are a dead end if they aren't done with an eye toward something entirely different following that's more efficient and less frustrating, and he replied on here that his methods need to be doable for beginners.

 

[WideningGyre]

Fairly easy in softwood, could be hard work in many hard woods.
I know - much simpler if you do a video of yourself on the job and we'll tell you what you are doing wrong!

Ha! I think my cheap phone will let me take a minute and a half of video before its flaccid battery runs out. Hasn't Mr. D_W already made and posted videos on YouTube? I recall reading about them somewhere. He must already own a video camera.

 

[D_W]

Strong preference to seeing it on video, in real time, little to no editing, with whatever voiceover narrative just needed to get points across. I'm certainly open to breakthrough technique being demonstrated and described, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it from print. Maybe foursquare and plane to thickness a typical rough board with a little cup and twist, say a meter or so long, 150mm wide, 25mm+ thick to start, planed down to around 19mm or so? A honing video to follow which shouldn't take more than a few minutes if what I've read in the thread represents how it actually works in real time. I'm very anxious to SEE what it is I'm doing differently, incorrectly, and too slowly.

I'll add these to the list items - being able to get a really fine edge quickly is important to the process to not break flow. Keeping the edge and getting the most out of it is also part of it.

As dumb as it might sound, I was talking to George W a couple of months ago. We don't talk that much about making unless either of us or someone is making something interesting. George's depth is miles beyond mine for anything, so when he's making or fixing something, it's not like dimensioning wood or making a knife or something, it's like making something for an 18th century telescope or aging something made out of ivory and gold, but I like to learn about it and understand the considerations. More or less, we spend more time telling each other stupid jokes.

But something came up about sharpening, which he hates to talk about (because it is always a discussion of method rather than result or standard). To do it to the level that I do it he sees as just being a given for fine work. And he said something about the number of potential fine workers that he's come across who just refuse to learn to sharpen their tools well and keep them sharp, and that without it, fine work isn't even possible.

I relayed to him the constant nonsense that comes about on forums about fine sharpening being complicated, expensive or taking longer. It's nonsense.

There is one person I know of in the US who is actually working entirely by hand for gainful employment. He dimensions wood almost identically with the same planes that I do, except he has been doing it since perhaps the mid 1970s. I should say, I've learned to do it the way he's already been doing it. Someone asked him about wasting time sharpening jack planes to a fine edge and he said the same thing - that there's no reason not to if you're using them properly. It all fits together, none of it's hard, none of it is expensive or physically punishing or requires special tools, and when I post it, there won't be any mystery about it.

but I won't kid myself that fanboys and folks who have nothing to stand on will try to find anything they can, or claim that something in the video (it'll be unedited) is misleading. It's still the internet.

 

[D_W]

Ha! I think my cheap phone will let me take a minute and a half of video before its flaccid battery runs out. Hasn't Mr. D_W already made and posted videos on YouTube? I recall reading about them somewhere. He must already own a video camera.

I usually have a relatively new (0-4 years) phone capable of taking a good clear half hour video. The phones are so good now that I don't know if many cameras can match them, and you can just boost them up to YT without ever doing anything if you're OK with not editing....

I have put videos up, but admittedly, they are rambling, unrehearsed and they're not in an order where if you're thinking about really using planes and sawing for everything that you'll grasp all of it. They could be whittled down to a 5th and put in order, and I will do that.

The videos already up other than a very long one about making this type of plane (this isn't a super difficult project, but it's not for beginners), etc, and others often answering a question which makes them seemingly random order.



I would never use a plane like this as a smoother, but I'm sure whoever I give a plane to will want to, so it needs to work left to right on a very thin shaving without clogging. And it needs to also stop you in your tracks if it's set for a deep cut rather than making a lot of cut noise or chattering. And it does that.

I've maybe given away 15 planes. Only one person has ever asked me to camber the iron before sending it on a jack plane (out of 6?) - or said yes when I asked as I can do it in a couple of minutes and reset the bevel at the same time.

But you can't give things to people and then demand they use them the same way you think they should - that's not very nice. I made this for someone who generously gave me a couple of things that I don't know if I'd have ever made the effort to find.

Back to the point, though - it's easy for me to make a 10 hours of near real time video making a plane like this and talking about all of the little details that are important, but it's less easy to watch the videos and know if or what is important. I couldn't teach beginners - I'd get stuck in the mud asking them what they're going to do.

And I couldn't teach anything to anyone about using power tools and wouldn't try. I know how to use a drill press, grinder and spindle sander.

 

[Jacob]

Right ho leave it to D_W he is the world class expert we are so lucky to have in our midst!
Anybody going for pop corn?

Shooting board no prob with a light camber - if necessary tilt the blade a touch to present the cutting edge square on.
"Washboard" effect a slight exaggeration, but if necessary you trim the highs of the ridges with a finer set, or by attacking at a different angle etc
Imagine levelling the surface of an ice cream tub with a spoon - 1st passes spoon deep furrows, 2nd pass take off the high points with a shallower scrape, 3rd pass take of the new high points with even shallower scrape etc etc. Or use something with straighter edge.