Where did the knowledge about the capiron get lost?

[D_W]

A tight mouth and a light cut will tame tear out as well, as can be seen here where very deep tear out after machining is completely removed by the hand plane:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html

Fabulous results of course, but very relevant quote from that I feel:

As far as thin shavings are concerned, I think it is a mistake (though a very popular one) to say that the cap-iron to edge distance has much effect on the tearing.

It's clear that the guy writing on that webpage doesn't actually know much about using a cap iron (which is fine). He's discussing smoothing a small section of wood, but if you make a case out of difficult wood, all of the sudden the whole idea of using a "sharp iron and small mouth" seems pretty deficient - especially if you have to remove any appreciable amount of machine tearout.

If the single iron and tight mouth was remotely close to as good as the cap iron, we'd see more wooden planes with mouth inserts or steel soles and single irons, but we don't see many of those.

It's not as if other methods don't work, they just don't work nearly as well, they require having more planes or equipment, and they rely more on sharpness whereas a plane with a cap iron just needs to have some clearance left (and less than a plane with a single iron).

Todd Hughes was the only other person, as Kees mentions, who said the same thing as warren, except Todd was a blacksmith and not a woodworker. He beat the drum of labor - that it was enough extra labor to hand forge a cap iron that there's no reason that they would've taken over unless they were demonstrably superior to everything else. And they are.

 

[D_W]

I rather remember Chr. Schwarz as being very dismissive and ignorant about the cap iron pre-2012:

http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/

Cheers
Jürgen

Me, too. A couple of months after the cap iron discussions took place on the forums, then he was "teaching it" all of the sudden.

One of the things that generated so much static at the time was after I figured out how to actually use the cap iron successfully, I blasted him and all of the bloggers who just repeat things they hear from other people. He has a lot of fanboys.

I shouldn't have had to figure it out myself, which is the whole point in general. On the US forums, literally nobody else even suggested anything like planecraft, or anything else. Not a single person, except for sparse comments here and there from Bob Strawn (Bob was experimenting with all sorts of odd things, like diamonds on very thin pieces of steel to sharpen, it was hard to tell what was experimentation and what was practiced and proven over a while). And those comments from Todd and Warren, but Todd is not a woodworker, and warren is fairly vague.

We didn't, unfortunately, have the exposure that the English side has to the trades and instruction on them.

A lot of very dumb things were being taught about the cap iron as soon as the topic gained steam, like making jigs to set it or putting together piles of shims. People ran away with the uneducated idea that whatever the K&K video had on it for settings, that was then dogma for hand planes, but it is not. I experimented with all of my planes (japanese, western, etc), and found the machine setting to be one of the worst for hand planes, and the fascination with arguing about how many thousandths the cap should be set was pretty dumb, too. It's *easy* to do it by eye and watch the results.

So, Bill Tindall somehow got a hold of Bob Lang (or maybe it was the other way around) and Bob Lang asked if I would write an article for PWW (somewhere mid 2012) and I said no, it should be written by a professional. I told Bill that I would write one that could be posted online because of the disease of subpotimal suggestions that were being supposed in public by people who clearly hadn't used a cap iron or experimented with as much as I had (and kees was experimenting in large amounts at the same time, but he was also interested in more historical stuff, and I didn't read much, I wanted function). I also wanted it to be posted online in case my opinion on settings changed (but they haven't) and because I'd have control over content. Ellis Wallentine edited the article and did a super job of making it easier to read, and others provided pictures (Steve Elliot and Ellis, I think), which to my dismay at the time included a little bit of tearout, but sometimes you have to compromise!

I also told Bill that as soon as I wrote an article about it, people would probably dig up books or historical reference and claim they knew it all the time. I mentioned one of the posters in this thread as being a likely person to do that, and of course that came to light. I'm sure I could find the emails from that. I figured either that would happen, or people would dismiss it because it wasn't coming from a popular blogger.

None of the above should've happened to begin with, it should've been common knowledge in the US, too, but it wasn't.

I believe David Charlesworth learned to use the cap iron based on what I wrote on sawmill creek and wood central. I couldn't confirm it, but the timing makes me suspect it. I'm more than willing to be corrected on that, too. No clue where Chris Schwarz learned it, probably the forums, also, or from someone bringing it to him after reading the forums. He developed a distaste for forums over time because of our recognition that he was not remotely in a class with people like George Wilson, and George's advice is free and he's available to talk any time. Chris is an excellent writer and publisher, but I'll seek woodworking advice elsewhere.

A little harsh, all of the above maybe might seem that way, but it's just a statement of what went on.

In the states, I'm willing to believe Bob Strawn and Kees were on to the whole thing (well, and Warren), but not many other people were on our side of the ocean, and for some reason, the information didn't make it from there to this side of the water. That's the only people I can remember talking about cap iron stuff *before* any japanese video was ever posted by the university that did the study work in Japan. Bill Tindall and Steve Elliot did a lot of work to find out where that came from and then to get the university to make the videos publicly available. I've seen a lot of misinformation that they just found a link online - before those two guys found university who did the study work and communicated with them, those videos were not available, and it took a while for Bill and Steve to get the university to post the information because they own it and they weren't sure how it was going to be used.

Also, the biggest gain using the cap iron is in working a lot of difficult wood and having to do more than smooth it, or a lot of any wood if you're doing a lot of work by hand. I recognize that most people who have very good machinery will have no appreciation for how or why the cap iron took over so completely and quickly, but if you work by hand and have the good sense to learn to use it - especially for the trying step of the work - it becomes instantly understood.

 

[Beau]

Then came the "handtool renaissance", somewhere in the 1980's - 1990's. At the same time the Internet was develloped and enthusiasts gathered together on usenet and later on various forums. The first users of the internet were university people, software engineers came first, then the others. Overall, there were very few real trades people on these forums in the beginning. The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed, so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth. See the rising popularity of the bevel up planes and see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons and see the high angle frogs from Lie Nielsen. On the forums I can only find two names argueing in favor of using the capiron to combat teraout, Warren Mickley who works in the restauration business, and Todd Hughes who was tool tinckerer and trader.

Haha this thread is most amusing. Suspect everyday tradesman don't bother with the latest fad on the internet just do what works. Never knew the capiron had ever gone out of fashion.

All sounds like a good reason to not trust what you read on the internet.

 

[PAC1]

For the historians; Modern Practical joinery, George Ellis published 1902, page 7 talking about the cover or back iron "For instance if the cover is set 'fine' (i.e. very close to the edge), and the combined 'iron' is also set fine in the stock, the surface produced will be the finest possible with that particular specimen; if the two are set 'course' the shaving will be thick and the wrought surface irregular;" He also argues that a fine mouth set helps prevent tearout.

 

[Trafalgar]

I've posted the Graham Blackburn link a few times on this forum and on other forums as well.

The self-congratulatory bozos, to a man, ignore it.

Poor Blackburn, toiling in the relative obscurity of the largest woodworking event in North America and can't get any love. It's my understanding that the 2011 event, for which he stood in for David Charlesworth, was not the first time he presented the information at WIA.

 

[D_W]

Well, Charlie. You didn't post anything about blackburn until after someone else mentioned it on another forum. Long after the topic came up and got discussed in volume.

I had you pegged when I wrote an email to bill guessing you'd be one of the people who would dig up a bunch of information and repeat it after the fact, or be in the crowd of people who say that it doesn't work that well.

You're predictable. The only part that's missing is that before 2012, you never mentioned the cap iron once, and 99% of your posts were heckling anyone who bought new tools (I'll give you credit for being accurate on CS, but I think George led that charge). You couldn't have been bothered at that time to give anyone productive advice, and it eventually got you banned from another forum. Well, that was interspersed among tinfoil hat theories that Lee Valley was following you around forums and pulling levers to make your life difficult.

So here we are again, you're repeating things you read elsewhere after the fact, posting tangents to forums to redirect discussions, and it appears maybe offering helpful posts about 33% of the time instead of 1%.

I'm unlikely to argue about any of this further, it's just worth a chuckle that you work almost on a specific algorithm, but it's always after the fact repeating something else someone said, never firsthand advice like someone would get from George. I recall the first time you tried to do it to George, as usual, you argue with someone by posting a web page of someone else's work. It was material fit for a comedy routine that you attempted to heckle george posting someone else's work. His worst work is better than my best, and the same is true for you. The difference is I'm willing to admit it at the outset, and I'd never heckle someone like that running on a broken record player loop. I'd be afraid I'd look like a fool....most people would.

It's too bad nobody could understand the significance of blackburn's presentation, but one thing is for sure, it was never discussed on the forum by anyone until after the fact (after 2012), and it was brought up by someone who went to a blackburn presentation. All you're doing is repeating something someone else said about an event you didn't attend. Not a single person ever said "try using the cap iron on your common pitch plane" when someone asked the question "what plane should I buy to plane difficult wood". Most often that comes up for curly maple, which isn't even difficult to plane. That includes you. "buy an infill", "buy a high angle plane", "buy a terry gordon plane", ...those things came up and with all of your post history online, there isn't a single post where you said anything other than "buy a primus plane". But you're certainly chief at the head of the pack of calling the shots afterwords. Congratulations.

 

[D_W]

For the historians; Modern Practical joinery, George Ellis published 1902, page 7 talking about the cover or back iron "For instance if the cover is set 'fine' (i.e. very close to the edge), and the combined 'iron' is also set fine in the stock, the surface produced will be the finest possible with that particular specimen; if the two are set 'course' the shaving will be thick and the wrought surface irregular;" He also argues that a fine mouth set helps prevent tearout.

I think the excerpts to be found go back as far as the late 1700s or early 1800s - printed for public consumption. They were included in the arguments in the late 2000s where Warren Mickley and Todd Hughes were heckled for suggesting that the cap iron was definitively superior and must've been for people living on a shoestring to pay a significantly greater amount for it. The trouble is, nobody else ever made that assertion.

I wasn't reading this forum at the time, and neither, it seems, was anyone else who could relay information.

As a side comment, I doubt that the mid to late 1700s planes were the first planes that were ever used with a double iron to break chips, but it's pretty difficult to find specimens that are thousands of years old. I'd bet the same principle was applied back then, and lost. It's too practical and discoverable to have been practiced only in the last couple of hundred years.

I'd issue one other request, and that would be for someone to dig up a half dozen posts on this forum where someone asked how to plane difficult wood (especially in the context of dimensioning, but that's not totally necessary) where someone answered with specific instructions on setting the cap close. Let's say, before 2010. A half dozen of them.

 

[condeesteso]

I'm not sure where the knowledge got lost (or when) but it did and it is good that it is back. I too recall CS in Pop Wood around 2006 basically saying he sets it back, out of the way (implied). But to be fair to CS he didn't come back later and say he had invented or discovered anything.
If anyone saw Richard Maguire make a smoother in under an hour using an old Stanley double iron, well I got to try that plane on some nasty ash - it was actually a shock how it completely tamed it. Big mouth, good edge, well prepped cap close down. That little plane puts a mighty case for close cap tuning.
My view is try all these things and see what. Then get on with what works. I know what I think works but we're not here to argue

 

[PAC1]

For my experience as an apprentice trained joiner in the 1970's and 80's it was and remained common knowledge. In addition to Ellis, look at Earnest Joyce "The Technique of Furniture Making" published between 1970 to 1995 or Tage Frid "Joinery" published 1993 or any of Wearings books. They all cite the ease of adjustment of mouth and cap iron in order to deal with difficult wood as an advantage of Stanley/Record planes. Even Fine Woodworking in the 1980's has the occasional article stating the need to set the cap iron close to the edge to deal with curly or difficult wood.
The point is it is not new nor forgotten and talk of post 2012 is simply not supported by the facts
As for Forums in the UK they only really came into their own in the second half of 2000's so I am not sure what the number of posts would prove.

 

[Corneel]

A list of modern plane makers who got into the single iron or high cutting angle.

- Lie Nielsen (high angle frogs)
- Lee Valley (advocating to use a large back bevel, seriously!)
- HNT Gordon planes
- Philly planes
- Old street tools
- Holtey (when he started to make his own designs)
- Brese planes
- Sauer and Steiner (also when he deviated from the old designs)
- Garibaldi planes
- Steve Knight planes

So, when you were unaware of the capabilities of the capiron a few years ago, you weren't alone.
Another name: Paul Sellers who claims to be traditionally educated is unaware about it too.

 

[JohnPW]

It hasn't been lost!

Well, one or two writers might not know or didn't know about the use of a closely set cap iron to reduce tearout, but the rest of us know about it and use it. I only started woodwork less than 3 years ago but just about every book or article I've read about planes and planing said set the cap iron close to reduce tearouts.

Plane makers might offer high pitch single iron planes but that doesn't mean they don't know about cap irons!

 

[pedder]

I don't think it was ever lost. I remember a thread on woodnet in 2008 (?): Does Chipbreaker break chips?
I'm pretty sure, I saw the japanese video at that time. Wasn't the link since ever on the plan iron angle page? Brent Be...???

At that time CS was in the corner "you don't need them" and wrote quite a lot about it.
IIRC using the chipbreaker wasn't one of his 7 tricks to avoid tear out.

But He changed his mind and the video made another round throught the net.

Cheers
Pedder

 

[Corneel]

The video was available earlier but links went dead after a while. And the take home message at that time was: it must be set at 0.1 mm and that is impossible / impractable.

 

[PAC1]

The video was available earlier but links went dead after a while. And the take home message at that time was: it must be set at 0.1 mm and that is impossible / impractable.

The thing about woodwork is it more art than science or engineering. So if someone says it has to be 0.1mm I loose interest as that is not practical. However as close as possible without wrecking the edge can be done and has been consistently recommended by writers over the last 120 years at least.

 

[Corneel]

Yes! I set it closer and closer. But I also had the mouth super tight because all the books told me a smoother needed a tight mouth. Somehow one + two made a clogged mess. No wonder the art was lost.

 

[PAC1]

It was not lost

 

[bugbear]

I don't know about close-fitted cap-irons, but I'm detecting a few old axes being ground in this thread.

BugBear

 

[custard]

I don't think it was ever lost. I remember a thread on woodnet in 2008 (?): Does Chipbreaker break chips?
I'm pretty sure, I saw the japanese video at that time. Wasn't the link since ever on the plan iron angle page? Brent Be...???

At that time CS was in the corner "you don't need them" and wrote quite a lot about it.
IIRC using the chipbreaker wasn't one of his 7 tricks to avoid tear out.

But He changed his mind and the video made another round throught the net.

Cheers
Pedder

One thing I find a bit weird in this media driven age is the way that commentators are often confused with practitioners and their opinions are given a weight which simply isn't justified..

Christopher Schwarz is an entertaining journalist with a clever turn of phrase, but at best he's a middling furniture maker. I've never met him in person but I've seen him on camera a few times and I'm always struck at how uncomfortable he looks with a tool in his hand, a million miles away from the quiet confidence a time served craftsman would display.

Don't misunderstand me, he's an engaging and likeable chap, and he has the gift of weaving an engrossing story around a woodworking related theme. But the basic fact is that he earns his living as a writer not as a maker, so I'd listen carefully to his advice about how to structure a magazine article, but setting up a plane? Not so much.

 

[Bm101]

Been trying to learn woodworking off the internet just long enough to realise.
If you're easily offended its probably best you click on the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-isGzfYUZ4

:wink:

 

[custard]

As a side comment, I doubt that the mid to late 1700s planes were the first planes that were ever used with a double iron to break chips, but it's pretty difficult to find specimens that are thousands of years old. I'd bet the same principle was applied back then, and lost. It's too practical and discoverable to have been practiced only in the last couple of hundred years.

Maybe. Maybe not.

I've seen a few planes that pre-date 1700; salvaged from the Mary Rose, a Roman plane, planes in the Chinese National Museum, and they all had single irons. However I haven't seen all the planes from before 1700 so I couldn't say for sure.

What I do know however is that working wood with higher moisture content is a very different experience compared to working thoroughly dried timber. Anything above about 15% and it's more like cutting a very crisp carrot than the relatively intractable material we're all more used to. And as well as being much easier to work, tear out is far, far less of a problem. I suspect that before the mid to late 1700's date you gave, craftsmen were much more likely to confine their efforts to timber that would be considered still too wet to work by later generations.

I know a fair few craftsmen engaged in traditional Oak framed construction and I've worked alongside them on occasions. They work with Oak that might only have been felled a few weeks or months previously, and from a moisture content of 50% (or higher) right down to about 15% the working properties vary hardly at all, it's pliable and tractable, you don't get greatly agitated about sharpening your tools because it matters far less than it does with thoroughly air dried let alone kilned timber. Indeed in Northern Europe the driest you can naturally take timber to is about 14%, maybe 12% for thinner boards after an exceptionally dry summer. So it would have been common practise to be working with wood that was only marginally dry at best, and in consequence they were stressing their tools significantly less than we do.

The workshop where I apprenticed didn't even have an electricity supply until the 1960's, and I've spoken at length to some of the craftsmen who worked there in that era. When I asked them how they turned out sizeable Oak and Chestnut pieces of furniture, day after day, using only muscle power, they'd repeatedly make reference to completing as much dimensioning as possible with the wood as wet as they could get away with.

The other thing we need to consider is how troubled a pre-industrial craftsman would have been by a little tear out? My guess is very little. There were no industrially produced surfaces, so there were few reference points in people's lives as to just how smooth a wooden surface could be. I'd suggest that as long as a piece of furniture was noticeably smoother and shinier than a roughly hewn and weathered agricultural implement, then that would have been judged good enough. And even the very highest quality work would have been considered in the round, so the odd little blemish here or there wouldn't have been taken account of.

So, to summarise, even though I don't know for sure I wouldn't be surprised to learn that cap irons were never used before 1750. Firstly because the raw material didn't require it and secondly because the market didn't request it.