Thread: Kakuri Kanna, any good?

Both are excellent for their price point. And the price is very nice for either... As a matter of fact Tsunesaburo planes are almost a bargain at tfj. For hardwoods -remeber, Japan has their hardwoos allright. You can plane maple, white oak without a problem. If you have concerns qbout tougjer woods, just get a Tsunesaburo with a higher plane bed angle: it is in the options ...

Good luck - you will not be sorry whatever you choose...

Originally Posted by rmihai

Both are excellent for their price point. And the price is very nice for either... As a matter of fact Tsunesaburo planes are almost a bargain at tfj. For hardwoods -remeber, Japan has their hardwoos allright. You can plane maple, white oak without a problem. If you have concerns qbout tougjer woods, just get a Tsunesaburo with a higher plane bed angle: it is in the options ...

Good luck - you will not be sorry whatever you choose...

If you increase the blade angle for hardwoods, how well would it work on softwood?

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Just fine... Westerners are planing softwoods with 45 degrees for ages...you worry too much... Did you check tfj?

Originally Posted by rmihai

Westerners are planing softwoods with 45 degrees for ages...

We do get some extremely hard 'hardwoods' here in Australia. Have a read of what Terry Gordon has to say on blade angles. He works with some of our hardest woods.... http://www.hntgordon.com.au/faqs/18-faqs.html


Neil

Originally Posted by rmihai

Just fine... Westerners are planing softwoods with 45 degrees for ages...you worry too much... Did you check tfj?

Yes, and I also sent an email to the proprietor which he responded to today. He felt the 38.6 blade angle was actually good for most woods but suggested I get a second Dai with a higher bed angle. The second Dai is not a lot more so it makes a lot of sense. He also helped a lot with narrowing down which Tsunesaboro I should consider if I do down that route. There really is far too much selection on the site for my small magpie mind.

Originally Posted by NeilS

We do get some extremely hard 'hardwoods' here in Australia. Have a read of what Terry Gordon has to say on blade angles. He works with some of our hardest woods.... http://www.hntgordon.com.au/faqs/18-faqs.html


Neil

That site is a wealth of information. Very interesting what he says about the bed angle particularly in the questions at the bottom. This is however, confusing me even more. I was under the impression that 42 degrees was really considered a steep angle for a Kanna but HTN appears to justify angles higher than 45.

Okay, so what bed angle would you recommend for hardwoods on a kanna? From the reading I have been doing, it sounds like very few go beyond 45 degrees and those that do, feel the kanna becomes too difficult to pull. So, should I get a second dai at 42 or go as high as 45. Does anyone have experience with these sorts of blade angles on a kanna?

I planed black locust with 45 degrees with absolutely no problem - and that is a tough wood. I also planed Hickory, White Oak with regular 38.x degrees Japanese Plane with no problem. I am not familiar with the Australian hardwoods ... but you can check here their strength characteristics. http://www.wood-database.com/ . Most hardwoods like (cherry, walnut, birch, beach, red oak, etc) do not need more than 41 degrees.

If I would be you - I will get just one dai for now - 39-41 degrees. Why? Because that will cover most of the hardwoods that you are going to work with AND will leave room for making your own dai in the future ... as you gain trust ... it is easier than you think now.

Good luck in choosing the blade - that is more important! And I think Stuart already help you ... (btw, I have NO connections with Stuart...)

Thanks rmihai. I haven't heard back from Stuart since the first email. Not really surprised as he did say he was very busy at the moment.

Sounds like the Black Locust is about as hard as the stuff we get down here. So, probably a good comparison.

I find your suggestion of getting only a single dai interesting. From the reading I have been doing, that seems to be the consensus due to movement of the wood and a dai being stored without a blade in it, is going to be a problem. So, although it would give me another dai with a higher bed angle, it may be completely useless in a few months due to the movement of the wood. Where I am, we do get fairly wide swings in humidity, winters get quite dry and summers get really really wet. So I would expect some effect on the dai. Our humidity changes (and particularly our temperature changes) aren't nearly as much as you get in Toronto. I am actually from Toronto originally so quite familiar with the climate. Grew up in Riverdale, went to school downtown at Jesse Ketchum.
Thanks

Ok. You are wellcome...i dont have the time now....my wife bday...i will pm you morrow...

I'm going to make some general comments even though I missed the boat, it appears.

All of the japanese steels will plane all of the woods, no problem. If you're using something inexpensive with white 2 or yellow steel, which is a better steel than most diemaking steel that entry level western tools are made of, then it would make no sense that the japanese steel would not be able to handle something that those steels can. I brought this up with stu, and I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of "of course, it's just suggestions from the manufacturer".

I bought plane irons made of togo inukubi, super blue, special blue cutting, white 1 and white 2 and swedish white, and I like the plainer steels better. What I liked the least is the complex steels wanting a greater amount of total bevel, something that's not easy to come by on a plane bedded bevel down at 38 degrees and some change.

The entry level japanese tools that have mill produced laminated steel (and many of the mid range tools that are several hundred dollars are made of material that's rolled together at the mill and not hammered together by a blacksmith) are very good tools. That includes the $60 funjii planes that JWW used to sell in the US. Sometimes, they have defects (and you exchange those, no reason to do anything else) and sometimes the dais are made a bit quick and need more fitting work. But they leave you with very good tools that you can work with.

Your challenges with any of the japanese tools is going to be more with using them and sharpening in the context of work and not spending forever or getting too cute and making a shallow bevel that takes damage. I still have a $60 fuunji plane (or however it's spelled) that I've set to coarse work, and it would perform fine work just fine if I hadn't reset it.

(long story short, I'm sure the kakuri plane would be capable of the best work you can do if you spend the time to figure out how it likes to be set up).

A quote from Terry Gordon above (I sure hope it's out of date and antiquated - as the consumer base gets more acquainted with using a cap iron, I can't imagine that many would prefer to work with a 65 degree cutting angle over a common pitch plane with a cap iron. The user would have to sharpen four times as much in a project and expend twice as much effort to do the planing):

"Also, the more I get to know about planes the more I think a chip breaker does little to prevent tearout."