Picking up on the dialogue between Alf and Midnight....For the wood Mike's working, surely he's got the right plane in his hand. But for my needs, Alf's solution works best. So I think they're both right.
The difference is in the wood. The roughsawn I am usually starting with is what we Murricans call 4/4 (four quarter) or 5/4 (five quarter), referring to quarters of an inch. Mike, what does your mill designate the lumber you are buying?
4/4 is usually 1" to 1-1/16" thick rough. 5/4 runs about 1-1/4" rough. After crosscutting to rough project length, the 4/4 planks will dress down to about 13/16", say, 20mm. The 5/4 will dress down to 1", say 25mm). The wood will usually be one of the soft or hard maple species, or cherry--almost always figured. These are quite soft woods in Derek's comparisons.
Whether 4/4 or 5/4, I'll be taking about 1/8" of thickness from each side to get to the face-jointed finished board. A longer plane with a little less camber turns out to be better in this situation, at least in my hands. My metal scrub hasn't been out of the drawer since I acquired a 15" wooden jack with a 5-1/2" radius camber to the blade. In fact, I am thinking about trying the olde English/British solution of a fore plane, as described in Moxon, ca. 1700--Moxon does not mention a scrub plane. Didn't the scrub plane came over from Germany to England in the 19th century.
What I like about the wooden jack is the weight, the length, and the adjustability. Weight--it's really kinda effortless. Length--you're pretty well down the road toward jointing the board by the time you're done with the jack. Adjustability--you can adjust the blade depth quite finely with hammer taps--this will result in very little tearout, even in highly figured wood. So you get the full thickness that the board has to offer.
Question: Has anyone tried doing the initial preparation of roughsawn lumber with a cambered foreplane (I believe 17-18" long) as per Moxon? If so, how did that compare with the alternatives?
Wiley
