Wood That Only BU Plane Can Deal With

[woodbloke66]

@woodbloke66 I know wood selection is very important, but this is all I have at the moment.

Moi, personally, I would kick that pine stuff you're using at the moment into the long grass, jump in the motor and go and find some decent stuff. Pine is awkward because it's so soft, but working with good quality pine is a revelation. Night n'day! - Rob

 

[woodbloke66]

Just been out to the 'shop and picked board of pine at random:

This is the sort of stuff you ought to be looking for. It may be the oldest, muckiest bit of pine in the yard but it should be virtually knot free and have tight growth rings (which means relatively slow growth). I bought this locally and after a bit of haggling it cost me approx £1.50. There were lots of other less desirable bits of pine loafing around but it's really a question of just trawling through it and pulling out board after board until you find something decent. If it's a bit wet, just leave it in the 'shop for a while as it dries out pretty quickly - Rob

 

[Mr_Pea]

Osvaldd,

Get yourself one of these

Eclipse no.36 honing guide

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ECLIPSE-No36 ... 7675.l2557

I've seen far superior woodworkers than I using them

 

[thetyreman]

@woodbloke66 I know wood selection is very important, but this is all I have at the moment.

Moi, personally, I would kick that pine stuff you're using at the moment into the long grass, jump in the motor and go and find some decent stuff. Pine is awkward because it's so soft, but working with good quality pine is a revelation. Night n'day! - Rob

this +1 good pine vs bad, there is no comparison, I started off using terrible quality pine and spruce thinking it was me, but it was definitely the wood, didn't realise until I got some quality redwood pine what I'd been missing out on.

 

[marcros]

Just been out to the 'shop and picked board of pine at random:



This is the sort of stuff you ought to be looking for. It may be the oldest, muckiest bit of pine in the yard but it should be virtually knot free and have tight growth rings (which means relatively slow growth). I bought this locally and after a bit of haggling it cost me approx £1.50. There were lots of other less desirable bits of pine loafing around but it's really a question of just trawling through it and pulling out board after board until you find something decent. If it's a bit wet, just leave it in the 'shop for a while as it dries out pretty quickly - Rob

Off topic, Rob but what did you buy that as? Around me, the timber merchants selling softwood (Arnold laver and the likes) are selling it for roofing, construction etc. "Unsorted" is available, but I think it is ungraded rather than premium grade. Did you go to a specialist or just search through for a good board or two.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Just been out to the 'shop and picked board of pine at random:



This is the sort of stuff you ought to be looking for. It may be the oldest, muckiest bit of pine in the yard but it should be virtually knot free and have tight growth rings (which means relatively slow growth). I bought this locally and after a bit of haggling it cost me approx £1.50. There were lots of other less desirable bits of pine loafing around but it's really a question of just trawling through it and pulling out board after board until you find something decent. If it's a bit wet, just leave it in the 'shop for a while as it dries out pretty quickly - Rob

Off topic, Rob but what did you buy that as? Around me, the timber merchants selling softwood (Arnold laver and the likes) are selling it for roofing, construction etc. "Unsorted" is available, but I think it is ungraded rather than premium grade. Did you go to a specialist or just search through for a good board or two.

Nearly all timber sold for construction purposes (and much of it will be treated with preservatives) in the UK is "whitewood" - spruce (usually being a commercial hybrid of 'Norway' spruce) or silver fir. It's OK to work with, but can be knotty and the grain around a knot can be all over the place. Usually such stuff is relatively fast-grown (with large gaps between the annual growth rings) and often comes from plantations in the UK (mostly Scotland).
https://www.trada.co.uk/wood-species/wh ... -european/

What is sold as "redwood" in the UK is Scots Pine - usually untreated - kiln-dried, and destined to joinery such as windows/doors, internal trim mouldings etc. Ideally, the best stuff is grown slowly in a cold climate e.g. baltic states. so has a much tighter grain structure. The name comes from the fact that the heart wood has a noticeable salmon pink tinge.
https://www.lathamtimber.co.uk/products ... c-reg-pefc
https://www.trada.co.uk/wood-species/redwood-european/

"Unsorted" is usually the best grade followed by then "1sts" through "5ths" with "Russian 5ths" coming in last of all!

https://www.lathamtimber.co.uk/products ... s/european

Cheers, W2S

 

[Trevanion]

I've noticed lately there's a lot of really nice high-grade Larch kicking around, very fine growth rings and very straight stuff with the ocassional knot. Never tried to work it with hand tools though.

 

[woodbloke66]

Off topic, Rob but what did you buy that as? Around me, the timber merchants selling softwood (Arnold laver and the likes) are selling it for roofing, construction etc. "Unsorted" is available, but I think it is ungraded rather than premium grade. Did you go to a specialist or just search through for a good board or two.

Not a scoobies! I buy my pine dirt cheap from In-Excess just down the road from me. They have a largish covered shed where they throw all sorts of left overs bought from who knows where. It literally contains all sorts pine; some excellent (which I trawl for) some more or less passable and some just fit for Nov 5th. Most of the time I can usually come away with a few boards of very decent (though dirty) pine which may or may not have defects in it, the slightest of which will render the whole board at a knock down price (and it's cheap enough already! ) - Rob

 

[custard]

using a scraper to tackle knots for fear of damaging your planer iron, well that's just nuts mate!

:lol: why? These sprouts are as hard as a rock, planing one fricking board I had to resharpen several times, If I scrape the knots first so the plane iron doesnt touch them I can extend the life of the cutting edge a fair bit, plus when scraping theres less chance of cracking the knots too.

p.s. I didn’t write the word sprout, what is going on here?

Because you're avoiding tackling a more fundamental problem with this sticking plaster of a scraper solution.

It's like a motorist who's windscreen wipers don't work, but instead of fixing them they stop the car every hundred yards and get out to clear the raindrops with a chamois leather!

It's blindingly obvious that there's something wrong with your sharpening or your planing technique!

If there's a hard knot, especially a softwood knot full of hard, dried resin, then I'd usually skew the plane as I cut through it. Do you?

But I also suspect you've cocked something else up, like your cut is too aggressive (possibly because your camber is too aggressive?), or you've drawn the temper of your iron on a power grinder, or you've sharpened at too fine an angle, or you've not actually sharpened at all because you never checked that a wire edge had formed from corner to corner, or one of the many other perfectly normal newbie mistakes.

I sympathise, I really do, when I was climbing this same learning curve I had an experienced man at my elbow who put me straight. But today tyro woodworkers are left trying to get answers from the internet, where half the people offering advice are even less experienced than you!

PS, I've met your type before, scribbling "sprouts" all over your posts then denying any knowledge

 

[Osvaldd]

I learned a lot since I started this thread. And I’m not a complete novice but this was genuinely very frustrating experience. I made two mostly oak tables with dovetailed drawers recently with the same tools and it was a pleasure to work when the wood was behaving.

I wish someone more experience could come and take a look at my situation but alas all I have is my internet friends.

p.s. I noticed after planing this type of white-wood I get a burr on the back of the irons.

 

[Nelsun]

You're not alone Osvaldd. I don't know where you are to not have good access to good woodyards but I do sympathise. If I want to drive to one I have to take a 200 mile ferry ride first The "redwood" sold up here looks very much like your knotty stuff and it's a PITA to work with. For those interested, 15.6m of 44x44 PAR rang in at £35. We also get the added bonus of paying for freight up to Shetland thrown in to the bargain.
One tip I picked up on here was to look at wider boards of the thickness you're after. Sifting through them you can find ones with fewer knots than what ends up in smaller dimensions. You do need to sift through them.
Skewing the plane does help (slicing proud knots with a chisel before you get going does too) but be prepared to forget... and kick yourself all the way to your sharpening kit.
I may be about to ruffle a few feathers, but, if you love sharpening as much as I do, machines can ease the pain. I'll get the two nicest adjacent faces flat and square to each other with my trusty #5. One then goes face down through a thicknesser to get the top face done. Flip that over and do the original reference face. The router table then comes in to play. The second hand planed reference face then gets run through against the fence with the infeed fence retracted a tiny amount (like a mini planer). The newly routed face is then sent face down through the thicknesser to do the remaining untouched face. The main limitation of this is the height of the router bit limits the thickness you can work but 40mm+ can be done. Router cutters seam to survive ok but thicknesser blades do ding... but little sanding quickly hides that
Or learn to love MDF (and painting)

 

[Trevanion]

All I can really recommend is to look up any local joiners in your area and pop in and see if they're willing to part with some offcuts or material in exchange for a few notes. It's a good place to look as the joiners will tend to buy from the timber wholesalers such as Lathams, Timbmet or International Timber which will be far cheaper than the inflated prices you will find at the few and far between yards. Even if they haven't got what you want in stock I'm sure if you asked nicely and paid a little up front they could get whatever you wanted on the next lorry load, Usually VAT free too if you asked really nicely... "Oh we had to chop that timber up for firewood, it was no good!" :wink:

 

[Osvaldd]

I never thought a blade itself could be the problem. I received a new(old) blade and there is a massive difference. I am ashamed to say but almost all of the blades I have received a belt sander treatment at some point(not anymore). I guess some lost their temper. The one I was struggling with the most, the 5 1/2 jack, I noticed when taking it apart for sharpening, there is sort of like a burr. I experienced this edge rolling with some old chisels as well, they just would not stay sharp.

I guess its time for a BBQ.

 

[transatlantic]

Where I am, my local timber merchant supplies the stuff you're refering to as white wood pine. Large growth rings, very soft, and PLENTY of knots.

Yet my local Ridgeons has really nice pine. Much tighter growth rings, and only a few knots. But is ridiculously expensive.
https://www.ridgeons.co.uk/planed-timbe ... -218mm-fin
(It doesn't look like the picture)

 

[D_W]

Custard's replies are right on. If a stanley 4 or any of the copies of it with stock parts isn't satisfying, then whatever you're planing probably shouldn't be planed.

Clearance is more of an issue than sharpness once you can reliably get something sharp. The only issue you'll have with knots is when they're loose and they actually break (but any plane will cause that). It's better to avoid having them, but if you can't, you don't want to spend $75 worth of time trying to codding a $3 board.

What custard is saying about just learning to do it the right way is also relevant - you can find a million work arounds, but none work as well as someone would've solved the issue 200 years ago - just using the cap iron. When you solve that, you'll wish you'd done it earlier because all of the talk about wondersteel, wonderstone, super special modern bevel up orientation, etc...it all goes away. It's all slower, and less practical.

 

[J-G]

Yet my local Ridgeons has really nice pine. Much tighter growth rings, and only a few knots. But is ridiculously expensive.
https://www.ridgeons.co.uk/planed-timbe ... -218mm-fin
(It doesn't look like the picture)

That is because the 'Image' is a composite photo-shopped falsehood!!
It shows no 'endgrain' - which it should - on the leading edge.
Having looked again, the two edges are simple copies of each other, you can see identical markings in both the side and end of the board - see attachment.
There might even be a case for a complaint to the advertizing authority for false representation

 

[transatlantic]

Yet my local Ridgeons has really nice pine. Much tighter growth rings, and only a few knots. But is ridiculously expensive.
https://www.ridgeons.co.uk/planed-timbe ... -218mm-fin
(It doesn't look like the picture)

That is because the 'Image' is a composite photo-shopped falsehood!!
It shows no 'endgrain' - which it should - on the leading edge.
Having looked again, the two edges are simple copies of each other, you can see identical markings in both the side and end of the board - see attachment.
There might even be a case for a complaint to the advertizing authority for false representation

I assume you're joking ..

But my comment was based on me actually visiting the store and looking at the timber in person.

 

[J-G]

I assume you're joking ..

Only marginally about the complaint.