Where did the knowledge about the capiron get lost?

[bugbear]

Lacking a "master craftsman" (and who decides on that designation) willling to give 1-on-1 lessons, most people are going to learn from "instructional media" be it magazines, books, DVDs, online video, or web sites.

So, yeah, it matters.

I know that many texts, both older and newer, simply say to set the cap-iron "close", which
is not very helpful at all. I quoted Planecraft because it actually, albeit implicitly, puts
an actual, usable measurement on "close".

Words like "steep", "hard", "close" etc are great when you're describing something
1-on-1, and have the item in front of you, but they're useless in a written description.

BugBear

 

[Droogs]

I would like to take a punt at answering the question posed in the title of this thread.

I've enjoyed reading this thread (I like a good barney :twisted: ), I do however feel that perhaps it has been miss-titled. To me it should be "Where or How did the Average American Woodworker Lose Their Knowledge About the Cap Iron/Chip breaker"
Now for our cousins across the puddle, this is not said with any disdain or arrogance. It does help however to point out what for me is the biggest difference between UK and US working practices with wood (as a generalisation). This being that the US a land of almost limitless space in regard to that available to the average Joe Shmoe is unbelievably massive when compared to the average John Smith. They also have a very large integrated and inexpensive home market for power tools and have had for over 50 years. On the other hand, we Brits have had to make do with spaces akin to the average American's front door mat and retailers (even discounted chains) that charge on average at least double, tool for tool when compared to the US (at least in the perception of UK buyers).

I do feel though that perhaps the greatest influence of all, is one that has not been mentioned at all in this sort of discussion and that's hardly surprising as it's more socio-economic in its basis than craft. That is the 2nd World War. The US was able to industrialise at such a rapid pace in order to prosecute said war, that it found itself with a very early need to re-jig its education system to accommodate the needs of industry. As a consequence US “shop” classes changed from having an emphasis on pre-industrial techniques to those suited to modern industry with an over-riding focus on using machinery to accomplish every task where possible. The UK on the other hand managed to hang on during the war by the skin of her teeth and found herself in the unenviable position of having “all the ideas but none of the gear” nor the money to get it and so found herself having to continue using outdated equipment and techniques in industry and as a result of this and trade union protectionist practices took another 40 years before she was able to re-define what was taught in schools in any meaningful way with regard to what industry needed.
This therefore has lead to the position that most American woodworkers (hobbyists and pro’s) are more at home using machines to complete a task and find themselves with the space in which to use them and having them at an affordable price, even for the lowest paid worker. The UK on the other hand continued to teach more traditional hand skills in woodwork classes for the first couple of years (with for most students) the use of machinery restricted to those in their 3rd and 4th year at high school, by which time students taking any sort of academic based curriculum would not have any sort of “shop” classes.
As a result in the US the knowledge of hand tool use declined in general where as for us in the UK, most hobbyists returning to woodwork in later years would find that by some form of osmosis the knowledge of how to use a cap iron had seeped into the grey matter and would just do it and assume that everyone else did the same.

Long winded I know but, have been thinking about this. Gentlemen, I open the floor in order for you to shoot me down or prop me up

edit for typos

 

[AndyT]

Droogs, I think that's a valid and useful point to make.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I agree. Well said Droogs.

There may be other conditions that also helped set the information about the chipbreaker aside.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[bugbear]

Does anyone know of an old text (other than Planecraft) where an
actual reproducible distance is given for the capiron/blade-edge gap required
to influence tear-out?

Given that most old texts don't seem keen on any units smaller
than an eighth, it may simply be that "close" did not mean,
to the modern reader, to imply distances that we know need
to measure in thou's, and hence the knowledge was lost in translation.

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

Charles Hayward, Practical Woodwork, 1965:

In the following passage Hayward is discussing planes in light of his advice that the hobbyist needs three bench planes: a jack, smoother, and panel plane (a no. 6). The passage is accompanied by two line drawings one of a single-iron plane planing wood against the grain and tearing out. The next illustration is a 'magnified' line drawing of a cap iron equipped plane planing wood against the grain and showing the shaving being immediately curled over. In the drawing the cap iron is all the way to the end of the cutter. You can't really distinguish any distance at all. Here is the verbiage that accompanied the drawings:

"... replace the back iron setting it about 1/16 in. from the edge [he's talking about the jack at this point], and less for the trying and smoothing planes. For difficult woods with twisted grain it should be as close to the edge as is practicable. Its whole purpose is to break the shaving as it is lifted, so robbing it of its strength and preventing it from tearing out the grain. It will be realized that the reason for this tearing out is that the wood is severed or split up ahead of the actual cutting edge as shown at (A), figure 21. By setting the back iron close the edge the shaving is broken almost immediately as it is raised and there is thus no rigid length of shaving to cause the split."

So he's talking about a 1/16th for the jack, less for try and smooth planes (all three as more or less 'normal' setttings) then even closer for twisted grain.

I imagine a guy like Hayward might roar with laughter if we scolded him for not giving us a measurement like 1/128" of an inch (or so) or its metric equivalent. The drawing that accompanied the text shows an extremely close setting.

Planecraft and Wearing imply such a measurement for anybody with enough sense of math to see the obvious arithmetic progression from 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, to as close as you can get it...

 

[JimB]

In my edition of his Cabinet Making for Beginners (1947) he puts the smoother as 1/32in or less.

 

[Trafalgar]

"Shop" classes existed in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. I had one in the 9th grade. Its focus was completely on rough carpentry (framing) and not furniture, joinery (trim carpentry), or cabinetmaking.

 

[JimB]

It's interesting to note that Hayward recognised the problems facing servicemen coming home to bomb-damaged houses and the Woodworker of the time (he was editor) reflected this. It backs up Droogs points.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi BB

I doubt that there will be texts that offer up a specific distance for a smoother - as this will vary according to different parameters. For example, the distance of the chipbreaker to the edge of the blade is affected by the leading angle of the chipbreaker, and also the depth of the cut. The steeper the leading angle, the further back the chipbreaker can be set (think in terms of 0.1mm units - not hard to get after a while).

If you play around with different settings, it quickly becomes apparent when the chipbreaker is too close ( the shavings crinkle up like an accordion or, worse still, the plane will not cut) or too far back (the shavings are still very curly). Just right means that the shavings straighten up.

In short, eyeball the distance, take a test shaving, and adjust where needed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[MIGNAL]

Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.

Hi Mignal

Actually it is a "Big deal".

There is documentation of the "double iron" back to at least the early 1800, perhaps earlier. There has been much discussion in this regard. No one here is attempting to lay claim to discovering the chipbreaker and how it is used. Quite the opposite - it is acknowledged as information missed by most (and in that was "lost"). What is important to recognise is that most woodworkers these days did not get their grounding in handplane use from apprenticeships or training, but from books, magazines, videos and the Internet gurus. How to set a chipbreaker was absent in the recent decades in these media.

We are what we are taught, and many of the teachers we followed (myself included) appear to have had no awareness of the chipbreaker to tune a plane. Teachers such as David Charlesworth (who, to his great credit, acknowledged this publicly), Rob Cosman (many, many DVDs - and he still disavows the use of the chipbreaker), Paul Sellers (ditto), Chris Schwarz (late to the game, but also willing to accept something "new"), just to name a few. There are plenty of modern planemakers who support the single iron/high bed angle design, indicating that they, too, did not grasp the significance of the double iron: Old Street (formerly Clark and Williams), HNT Gordon, Philly Planes, Karl Holtey, and Sauer and Steiner, again just to name a few.

So ingrained was the perception that the chipbreaker just supported the blade, that many refused to acknowledge that it could do anything else - which is probably why Graham Blackburn made no impression at WIA in 2011.

So it may be just a small item to you, but it is a big deal to some. Others will just happily ignore that it exits. For myself, it is one of several methods of working, all important, but I do feel empowered by mastering the technique.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I had no formal training in woodwork. Pretty much everything I know was gleaned from either books, magazines or trial and error. I read of the chipbreaker effect around 1977. It was an article (or a book) in which a guitar maker stated that he set the chipbreaker very close to the blades edge to reduce tearout. I know for a fact that he was self taught too, so presumably he learnt it from someone else or from some literature. I did not mean to imply that using the chipbreaker wasn't a big deal. Perhaps some of us have been using the technique for decades and just assumed that it was common knowledge. It's obvious that some people were not aware of the effect but learnt of it through the internet. I'm not sure anyone can state that it was lost knowledge.
A single iron plane is still a useful tool. For a lot of work the chipbreaker is irrelevant, not really needed. I've even planed highly figured Maple with a single iron, planing with the figure rather than planing with the grain.

 

[Trafalgar]

I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
.

On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.

Paddy

Best post in the thread.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

A single iron plane is still a useful tool. For a lot of work the chipbreaker is irrelevant, not really needed. I've even planed highly figured Maple with a single iron, planing with the figure rather than planing with the grain.

Hi Mignal

That is important. The "advent" of the chipbreaker does not invalidate other planes or other methods. I am not getting rid of my HNT Gordon planes (single iron, 60 degree bed).

However, there are essentially two ways to get a single iron plane to smooth interlocked wood: either the bed angle is increased, or the shaving taken is very thin. Or both. I could add the mouth must be small, but I know that a high bed reduces the importance of the mouth, and the higher it goes, the less important the mouth size. These methods are less efficient than using a chipbreaker with a low bed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[MIGNAL]

Sometimes I use a single iron plane to remove wood, quickly.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Mignal

Ditto. I have been referring to the use of a double iron in a smoother or jointer. My jack is either a single-iron woodie or a #5, also with an 8" cambered iron (with chipbreaker pulled back out of the way). No need for a chipbreaker here.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

The vast majority of woodworkers will have all cap iron equipped planes, said iron should be adjusted as classic and reliable sources recommend - a sixteenth or so (not much more) for jack planes and getting smaller from there. The time to worry about tearing and blowouts around knots and other swirly grain is during thicknessing with a jack. This is when it can easily go below planned thickness and therefore not fixable by any method.

One still can do no better than Planecraft, Wearing, Hayward, Jones, manufacturers' brochures, Audel's guides (U.S.) etc. It's all there. Just because one's favorite blogist, magazine polemicist, internet fanboy, etc. haven't gotten 'round to reading them matters little.

 

[bugbear]

One still can do no better than Planecraft, Wearing, Hayward, Jones, manufacturers' brochures, Audel's guides (U.S.) etc. It's all there. Just because one's favorite blogist, magazine polemicist, internet fanboy, etc. haven't gotten 'round to reading them matters little.

I saw someone recommend a list of books in a post on the internet. Should I trust him?

:lol:

BugBear (this forum needs an irony Emoticon)

 

[Trafalgar]

If the books were published after 1975, probably not! Wearing being a notable exception.

 

[swagman]

I must say I've enjoyed this thread. Sixty years ago setting the chip-breaker was one of the first lessons I had in woodwork, and it wasn't by a guru or mentor or whatever; we called them woodwork teachers.
Journalists have a good deal to answer for with headings like, 'best kept secrets of...', 'the secret of...' etc., as if finishing wood, cooking, tourism requires some arcane knowledge on a par with the elixir of life or the holy grail.
All tools have limitations which become less the more you become used to them but there is no perfect tool for all woods. There'd be no pleasure if there were.

Well said Jim. =D>

 

[swagman]

If the books were published after 1975, probably not! Wearing being a notable exception.

Hi Charles. I would bring that date back to pre 1960.