Thread: Dimensioning Wood Using a Jack Plane

Cheers Paul

Do I need to open an account with fine woodworking to view the articles?

I can read PDFs with my computer.

Btw, read on the wikipedia website that Jack planes can be used as a jointer on smaller pieces. I wonder if anyone has any comments on this?

Ok, how about you get some lessons. Learn the basics, some of which are complex, from a teacher. Asking random people will give you random answers.

Originally Posted by Russell Cook

Thanks for the ideas guys.

I just tried vimeo, no luck this time. I'll do some research into a Google drive, that's the first I've heard of it! (I'm a bit of a behind with this kind of thing...)

Tomorrow I want to plane a piece of wood 300mm long and 85mm wide. The middle is very slightly higher than ends. Using my 400mm plane, how would I best go about flattening it? Unfortunately I have no jointer at the moment.

I'm especially interested in HOW to target the high points. I had previously thought planing was just pushing the plane the whole length of the board every time! Efforts to come at the wood across the grain have caused bad tear-out.

I also tried what I would call "taking gentle swipes" at the high points, traveling along the grain, which did manage to help get one board flat.

Any thoughts/tips would be great, crude and refined both welcome

Hi Russell

Use a straight edge to detrmine where the high spots are and mark them with a pencil. Use winding sticks to determine the amount of twist.

If the high spot is in the centre of he board, the first thing to remove it. If it is significantly high, use a jack plane with a cambered blade. If it is mild, use a jointer (but only plane the high area).

You are better off removing a little too much off the centre, creating a slight hollow. It is then easy to plane along the whole length and flatten the board. By contrast, if you tried to plane a board with a rise, you will simply follow the curve and retain it.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by pmcgee

Can you see the video on this site?

RWW 30: Thicknessing Stock the Old Fashioned Way | The Renaissance Woodworker

Wow, I needed a rest after watching that video

Originally Posted by mrmoon

Ok, how about you get some lessons. Learn the basics, some of which are complex, from a teacher. Asking random people will give you random answers.

not sure you realise the OP is in China?

Here is a much better video ...

How to make rough sawn wood straight, smooth and four square (part 1) - with Paul Sellers - YouTube

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks everyone.

Regarding classes, there's not really much going on in Shanghai. The guys at my club taught me how to adjust a Chinese plane, and let me have a go at some Western and Japanese planes too, but they do their dimensioning by machine.

I may have to find someone to help me go around the Internet censors, it seems YouTube is a gold mine for woodworking videos.

I've got lots of info now, inc. some nice PDFs from Paul, so reckon I just need to get back to having a go, getting a feel for the wood and the tools.

Look up Virtual Private Network (VPN) ... like Tunnelbear ... see if that can help you.

It helped me .. I need to write that up actually.

How's your download capacity? can you download 50-200meg video if it was available?

Cheers,
Paul

Hi Paul,

Download capacity shouldn't be a problem. Restricted access the only difficulty

Cool. Hopefully you got an email link to download the three videos (30Mb, 30Mb, 140Mb)

Cheers,
Paul