Shall I continue lapping this sole ?

[Jacob]

Well, this is a hobby (the woodworking). There's a small minority who would probably like to work entirely by hand, but information from folks like Jacob is going to leave them thinking it's harder than it is. .......

No it's easier if you cut to length first!
Don't worry D_W you are not the first to make this mistake, but the first I've heard of trying to do it by hand!
Amongst other things you get better "yield" if you plane last. This is because you have to remove more stuff from a long piece to remove bends or twists, than you would if you had cut the same piece into shorter lengths. Also if you do it too soon it may have moved and need planing again. This is common with bought PAR - say 25mm sawn ends up PAR at 18mm, then you get it home and have to take more off to take out the twists.

 

[D_W]

I have no clue where you'd get the idea that I'm planing long wood unless the result is needed long at finish.

 

[D_W]

I though about this a little more. It's natural for someone only working with hand tools to work stock only at a certain size and not larger if needed. If I am making small drawers, then I'll size stock maybe large enough for a side and back if it's already close, but not usually something 5 feet long and not whole boards. One of the joys of working by hand is you can saw anything out of anything and the plane it to final working size. That means you can get something like a table slab 12/4 or 16/4 and saw quartered guitar necks out of it without having an overly complicated setup, but more pertinent is that you can saw a bunch of drawer fronts and other bits out of a board without thinking too hard because you don't get stuck over thinking how you'll get 40 pieces out of 4 boards at once, only to have one show a fault after going through power tools.

Mentally, it's much more pleasant. The long stick in another picture I posted here is moulding. Not a great idea to strike that in separate pieces and expect the corners to match.

Maybe some people like milling 200 by at once through their power tools, but I find it pretty unstimulating.

 

[D_W]

Separately, most of then 13/16 pre planed and edged stock here is a bear to work with as it's often cupped or twisted some after it lands at the woodworking store. Retail places catering to beginners also tend to put low quality stock in that.

I will use a power thicknesses sometimes when I'm building something I don't want to build, but that may be once a year.

Making chisel lately has limited my planing of much of anything, though.

 

[Phill05]

Well I guess the OP is thinking "I only asked" come on guy's I guess you are all old enough to know When and How to plane a piece of wood without drawing it out for months or it feels that long.
Now why don't you agree to disagree on each of your points and nudge the OP to wake up and everyone else that nodded off.

 

[JobandKnock]

One of the joys of working by hand is you can saw anything out of anything and the plane it to final working size.

You can do that with many tools, not just hand tools. I still use a handsaw for some cuts, but i find that for 80 to 90% of the cuts I make a cordless circular saw does as well and is quicker (remember, I am driven by project schedules and monetary constraints). To me, and a lot of other carpenters and joiners, the current generation of brushless cordless circular saws are brilliant. They are, in effect, a powered handsaw and can be used freehand to great effect. The hogging away of stock I'd still do with a power planer because I don't have a side axe or a froe in my tool kit any longer (reserved for cutting wedges on site). And like a lot of people I want to get on with actually making stuff, not doing donkey work

Mentally, it's much more pleasant. The long stick in another picture I posted here is moulding. Not a great idea to strike that in separate pieces and expect the corners to match.

I'll give you that. As I think I have previously said, I maintain a modest kit of wooden moulders, but the complex moulders all have built-in fences, whilst for larger architectural mouldings, which need to be worked with hollows and rounds, your accuracy and whether or not mitres line up is down to the ground work you do in setting out and cutting the rebates and grooves you need to form the "fences" for your rounds and hollows. I will also tack temporary fences onto planes or work pieces if needs be. TBH this is only a small part of my work, necessary only when replacing smaller sections of lost or badly damaged mouldings such as cornices, etc and where having a run done on a spindle moulder would be prohibitively costly.

 

[D_W]

I guess the fascination when there's budget is fastest. I'm sure a cordless circular saw is faster, but I don't have or use one. For someone not selling their stuff, you can soon build your house full with only hand tools.

I don't know why a hobbyist would bother worrying about the difference between 4 seconds and 8 for a cut, though. The whole point (I track my time in my day job) is to do stuff that's pleasant and not be burdened by anything that isn't a net positive.

I do keep a lot of cordless tools, but the one that gets used in the shop is just a plain ryobi drill. The "low end" brushless stuff is so good now that I haven't gotten a corded drill out to do anything other than masonry work in the last, probably 5 years. The stuff for the rest of the house is great, though (hand held vacuums, cheap tire pumps that can go twice as fast as you can pump by hand and no burning arms or sore back, leaf blowers, string trimmers, ...).

(I do mow with a reel - or cylinder you guys call it, but it takes less time than the honda rotary that I have - still keep that for mulching).

I don't know many people who take up hobbies and look to see what they should do based on whether or not it's profitable, though.

There's a side benefit of dimensioning by hand - neural development. Everything is sort of done the same way, and you'll get good at cutting dovetails without actually cutting them from the other cutting.

 

[JobandKnock]

I suppose it's easy to forget that the hours of hand sawing you do as an apprentice gives you the "muscle memory" (what you call "neural development"?) that you'll end up using your whole life. What you tend to remember is the blisters and aching arm. Same goes for hand nailing, chopping out many dozens of mortises, hand sanding acres of wood, etc.

Most of the people I know personally who've taken up woodworking as a hobby (not a large group, I admit) have had a goal, such as building their own design of bed, or making a kitchen where mass market units won't fit, or renovating an old building. Learning joinery to them is just a means to an end where mechanised aids just speed the process up. They really don't want to endure the pain of acquiring muscle memory. I wonder just how many people do?

 

[D_W]

Somehow we're still stuck in the whole "I didn't enjoy it so you shouldn't either and I can convince you" thing. It's really odd. I don't recall any serious physical pain that was any different than any other exercise and there wasn't any hazing to learn - just pleasant work and the challenge to figure it out.

 

[JobandKnock]

It's because you just aren't doing enough! At 17 most people aren't that fit, so it can be hard. Even now when I'm off the tools for a while (I am a working foreman) and go back on them I do tend to feel it for a few days. AFAIK that is normal

 

[D_W]

Good lord. Muscle soreness from exercise is now considered pain.

 

[JobandKnock]

It's obvious you don't work that hard!

 

[D_W]

I don't consider muscle soreness a problem. It's gone in 15 or 20 minutes of work the next day. Joint aches and things of the like are a big problem, but a hobbyist woodworking 10 hours a week isn't going to have them. I think you're long on telling and short on asking. Accuracy isn't a result of that.

 

[JobandKnock]

Asking what, exactly?

 

[D_W]

How long do you typically use hand planes. Generally if working on something, about 2 hours in a day. Of course that makes for sore muscles, especially after a layoff. Sore muscles aren't "pain". The follow up comment "you don't work hard enough" is grade school level stuff. No thanks.

I think you should hang out with Jacob. He often posts something that's factually inaccurate based on something that's literally shown in a post of mine on pictures still on the first page, but not thinking too hard about it or learning much beforehand does make it free and easy for him to comment. You guys could ride a tandem bike around town, it seems.

I don't have anything to learn from you about hand tools. I don't have much of anything to learn from you at all, which is fine with me. I have no idea what you make or how you work (and have a great deal of indifference about it), and don't need to assert what you do or don't do.

 

[1275gt]

Update.
I'm just continuing to use the plane. I tried spot removal it worked but was taking a lot longer than planned. I've sent a message to Ray Iles and hopefully I'll just send it off.
Thank you all for your help so far.

 

[mikej460]

Pity, I was just about to open another bag of popcorn...

 

[Jacob]

It's not common because nobody planes stock (long lengths) with a hand plane and nobody ever did.
In a typical woodwork shop, if hand planing, and usually when machine planing, it is always sawn to size for the job first.
On the other hand timber yards may supply stock PAR (planed all round) and PSE (planed square edge) but done by machine plane. It's made for DIY woodworkers and odd jobbers without machines and sometimes bought by builders and others if it suits a job.
But your typical woodworker would only ever buy sawn material for stock, with exceptions, manufactured boards, floor boards, match boards, some mouldings, depending on what they are doing. But non of this would ever have been made by hand for stock.
It crops up a lot as a topic because beginners encounter PAR and assume this is how it's done by everybody. Also there's a little saying "keep it as long as possible for as long as possible" which is good sense for stock control (use all your small stuff first) but only up to the point where you have cut to size for a project. Planing begins after that point!

Forgot to say - there's another useful saying: "keep it as square as possible as long as possible" which means cut all you mortices and tenon cheeks first before doing any mouldings , bevels, rebates etc. Last of all cut tenon shoulders. It's just easier that way, whether you do it by hand or machine

 

[D_W]

Update.
I'm just continuing to use the plane. I tried spot removal it worked but was taking a lot longer than planned. I've sent a message to Ray Iles and hopefully I'll just send it off.
Thank you all for your help so far.

that's too bad - if you lived down the street, I could probably work it over over lunch, but it's definitely the case that even when you get the feel for really getting the paper or file to cut, it's heavy physical work if you have to take more than just a little off of a plane.

But not nearly as much work (or as inaccurate) as trying just to lap long planes that are far away from flat.