Thread: Planes vs Sandpaper

Originally Posted by NZStu

So, where do people here sit on the spectrum? Does sandpaper still play a major role? or do you find you can save yourself a whole lot of dust by using planes?

Stu - this should generate a good debate.

I sit on the part of the spectrum that says 'get there by the most convenient & reliable means possible'.

I believe you can get a finished surface ready to polish off a plane or scraper, with many woods, but for me, it is not an efficient route. I prefer to use edge tools as much as possible, but end up using a touch of paper at the end to remove the few fine blade-lines that inevitably remain. Depending on the wood, I rarely start coarser than 240 grit, and have never seen the need to go beyond 400, (there are undoubtedly woods that can benefit from finer grits, I just don't use them in my stuff). I often follow the finest paper with 0000 steel wool, particularly if I intend to French polish, because it helps me to find any remaining defects as well as adding a bit of sheen to the surface. I do it this way 'cos it's the easiest & most reliable way for me to get where I want to be.

Originally Posted by NZStu

I suspect wood type plays a huge part in this - straight-grained softwood is one thing, cranky grained hardwood is another matter entirely.

Abso-bleedin-lutely! And it's not just cranky grain that affects how difficult or easy it is to get the surface I desire. Some woods (both hard & soft) plane easily, despite somewhat wild grain, while others pick-out no matter what I do (& I've got a choice of several blade angles between 45 & 60!). Hard woods tend to scrape well whereas soft ones usually cannot be scraped at all (but there are exceptions I've struck). Some woods are just plain easy to kick into shape. For reasons I don't understand, you can move really quickly through the grits when sanding some woods (both hard & soft),while others need every darned increment manufactured, & it take twice as long to remove the scratches from each preceding grit!

And the mystery doesn't stop even when you have produced the finest posible surface on your wood. You start to rub the polish on, and some woods fill easily & begin to develop a satisfying sheen after a few coats, despite having relatively coarse pores (Aust. Cedar), while Cherry, which has very fine pores, takes me 3 times as long to polish.

There are so many things I don't understand in this world.....

Cheers,

PS. Forgot to add that much also depends on what is to be applied to the surface. Stains will instantly reveal scratches and imperfections, as will smooth clear finishes. Problem with the latter is that you sometimes don't notice a small mark until you are well into the polishing process...

I bought a bevel up smoothing plane instead of a drum sander in the hope of eliminating as much sanding as possible. So far I have only planned silky oak, two types of pine and some horribly hard Jarah. Now I have not changed the blade angle on the plane from the factory set 38 degrees. On the soft woods the finish is like glass and using sand paper would not only be a waste of time but would probably add scratches to an already perfect finish. On the Jarah the effect was mixed. When the grain was well behaved the finish off the plane was perfect. But in a few places where the grain could not decide which way was up I got some tear out with the current blade angle on the smoother. I am told that tweaking this would fix the problem but since my love of working with rock hard Jarah is over I will not bother. I was initially getting some lines where the edges of the blade cut the timber but I put a very slight radius on the corners and this went away immediately.

Personally I hate having to sand things . I recently built my wife a Grandfather clock, made of English oak, for Xmas, and I spent a total of less than 1/2 an hour sanding the entire thing. A Knightwooks 24" wooden jointer, a HNT Gordon wooden jack plane, A #3 Stanleyy bedrock with a IBC replacement A2 blade, & a large Veritas scraper plane were all I needed to use. Apart from a small amount of use of my random orbital sander on a few cranky grain spots, I didn't need goggles, ear muffs, or dust mask, for any of the finishing . In fact sanding could not have given me a better finish . Planes for me any day.

I only use sandpaper, planes are over rated. And IMHO an orbi is the best way to use sandpaper, rounds off all the sharp edges and makes it feel real nice to the touch

Originally Posted by devils wood

Personally I hate having to sand things . I recently built my wife a Grandfather clock, made of English oak, for Xmas, and I spent a total of less than 1/2 an hour sanding the entire thing. A Knightwooks 24" wooden jointer, a HNT Gordon wooden jack plane, A #3 Stanleyy bedrock with a IBC replacement A2 blade, & a large Veritas scraper plane were all I needed to use. Apart from a small amount of use of my random orbital sander on a few cranky grain spots, I didn't need goggles, ear muffs, or dust mask, for any of the finishing . In fact sanding could not have given me a better finish . Planes for me any day.

Amen to that!

IanW - I tend to agree with that. There seems to be a sweet spot where transitioning from plane to sandpaper gives the most efficient use of both, and on the current project that was 240-400 grit

And don't get me started on timber that looks perfect until you apply the finish and see all of the scratches you missed

Originally Posted by NZStu

......And don't get me started on timber that looks perfect until you apply the finish and see all of the scratches you missed

Yup, anyone who has used stains has probably had that experience at least once!

How you work any wood depends on so many factors, not the least being what sort of final surface will satisfy you, & the use to which it is put. I certainly finished my work-bench off-plane!

I hate sandpaper too, & the toxic, permeating dust it creates, so try to minimise my use of it. And as I said, it's not just the wood, the finish you plan to use has a big bearing on how perfect the surface needs to be, because some are a bit more forgiving than others. I think my planes are fettled & sharpened at least average or better, though by no means in the very top echelon, but I don't see it as an efficient use of time to try to get all the way to the final surface I need with planes alone, if I am going to French polish, for e.g. The law of diminishing returns cuts in, and to me there is a point where it is simply easier & faster to switch to paper to get the result I want.

Although this will be fiercely contested, I think many woods can be surfaced as well, and sometimes better, by sanding than any other way. The essential thing is to have a perfectly flat surface, that does not show any scratches or imperfections when the finish is applied. How 'perfect' the surface needs to be depends to a great extent on what finish is applied....

Cheers,

i reserve the right to revisit this (b/c) and i kinda agree with everyones comments! (hows that for sitting on the fence)

on one hand i've pumped out more furniture than i could count via machine plane and sanders and hand machine sanders, many firms just sand to about 240 grit of the stuff you see in the shops, some more (believe it or not some less), i used to sand to 400 and occasionally 800 if i was working on it personally (400 is usually enough though, i go over the top perhaps)

other times i hand planned either from rough sawn to finish or just to get rid of machine marks and the finish is as good as 400 or more (more i reckon in many circumstances), no need to sand and no need to spend time blowing all the dust off and out of every crevice

sanding is fool proof though, mostly (no offence intended to anyone that prefers sanding), its pretty hard to muck up, planning can cause all sorts of problems at the best of times and if you have ppl working in your stead its a risk to leave them to hand plane, if there competent/good though it can save some abrasive material! (love to save money-but on wages it probably works out a wash).

so i'm a bit each way, i have no problem with planning to finish (save running a bit over the sharp edges) in many situations but there are times when sanding is just more practical use of time and for some timber just the only way to go if you want to get to sleep that night..however in the spirit of a 'handtool' use and forum, easier and faster dont really factor in to me, if it did (use that logic) then i would machine mortise instead of hand, rip with the table saw and cross cut with the drop saw, mitre saw or radial arm instead of hand tools and before you knew it the thicknesser is employed as well as a spindal moulder and sanding machine, their easier and/or quicker (sometimes)!

handtool use can be quicker in many instances but lets face it if machines are out they are generally quicker. hand tool use is a lot to do with getting personal with the wood or piece you are working on and for whatever reason enjoying that process

sanding is easier, planning is harder and has more risk


cheers
chippy

Stuff like drawer linings that don't receive any stain or finish, I'll just plane, but anything that's chemically- or dye-stained (the show wood on virtually everything I make), is sanded.

Depending on the wood, I will take to it with 180 or 220 and I seldom go past 220.

Originally Posted by ch!ppy

handtool use can be quicker in many instances but lets face it if machines are out they are generally quicker.
hand tool use is a lot to do with getting personal with the wood or piece you are working on and for whatever reason enjoying that process

cheers
chippy

I think you said it right there Chippy!


[or Ch!ppyi ]

Originally Posted by ch!ppy

i reserve the right to revisit this (b/c) and i kinda agree with everyones comments! (hows that for sitting on the fence)

Careful Chips, sitting on fences is bad for the haemorrhoids..

I think you've made your points very well, and they are more or less what I was trying to say, that there are a number of ways to get to the destination, and we choose the way that suits the occasion and our own needs. If making a living or getting the job done yesterday is the priority, efficiency matters, but how much machinery gets used depends on what you're making, your skill, the equipment available, the wood itself, and what sort of surface is required/desired, so it would be very hard to make rules about when to switch between hand & power tools. If acquiring Zen points and being close to the soul of the tree is the prime goal, then you're coming at it from a quite different angle, so you are going to stick with tools that give you some feeback as to what's going on down at the wood surface. As a weekend wood-warrior (or 'worrier' might be more accurate ), I was into efficiency as much as the therapeutic value of woodworking, so I was more likely to feed bits of wood to machines. Now I've got the time, I'm able to enjoy making more shavings & less dust, but I haven't tried to eliminate sanding altogether, yet.

WW, even my fanciest pieces of furniture have some hand plane marks on the internal bits. Drawer sides and the visible surface of the bottoms get taken to smoother level, so you would have to look closely to find the odd line (usually!), but you wouldn't have any trouble seeing the marks of the jack plane on the under sides of the drawer bottoms or carcase. It's only people like those reading this thread that are ever likely to look, and if you did, your reaction would probably be something like "Hmm, the blade was a wee bit dull on this last drawer - lazy b*gg*r was trying to get it finished in a hurry & too impatient to stop & sharpen".

Something that puzzles me a little, from reading the various posts above, is the minimum grit sizes people say they use. I take it that WW is talking about 'real' hand sanding when he says he stops at 220, i.e. a piece of sandpaper wrapped round a cork or softwood block, while the ones going to 800 plus are using one of those buzzy round 'n' roundy thingies?? If that is correct, it makes some sense to me, because the cross-grain scratches you get from circular sanding can show even at 400, so I presume you have to go very fine to be sure to eliminate these? When hand-sanding with a block & paper, you don't get any cross-grain scratches (or shouldn't). I'm blowed if I can see any useful improvement beyond 400 in any of the cabinet woods I work with, and 220 would certainly do for many applications, depending on wood & proposed finish. I think I'm pretty fussy, but perhaps not.....?

And Chippy, you say sanding is the safer option in less-skilled hands but it ain't foolproof, is it? You can quite easily over-sand softer woods that have alternating hard & soft areas like Cedar, & especialy some of the softwoods like radiata and western red cedar. I've seen quite a few grossly-over-sanded surfaces around the traps. At least they tried, unlike on some of the (commercial) furniture I've seen with surfaces untouched after the rotary planer, and its marks made even more obvious by the stain finish applied!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I take it that WW is talking about 'real' hand sanding when he says he stops at 220, i.e. a piece of sandpaper wrapped round a cork or softwood block...

Sometimes I do use a cork block, but more often I litterally hand sand.

Originally Posted by Woodwould

.....more often I litterally hand sand.

Oh dear! I suppose it's that horrible Melbourne clime that gives you such rough hands, WW. Can I recommend a good lanolin-based hand cream, or are you saving on the cost of paper?

I guess it says something about the softer woods I have been using of late, but I rarely sand without a block. We got so beaten about the head & body parts for using folded paper & no block as a school boy that I still wince a little on the occasions I do it.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I suppose it's that horrible Melbourne clime that gives you such rough hands, WW.

Not too far from the truth!

Originally Posted by IanW

I guess it says something about the softer woods I have been using of late, but I rarely sand without a block. We got so beaten about the head & body parts for using folded paper & no block as a school boy that I still wince a little on the occasions I do it.

Cheers,

I really only give the wood a swipe to remove raised fibres as a result of wetting/staining. If heavier sanding is required, as at the 180 paper stage, then that's when I use a block for the reason you cite.

I cannot let all this pass without one more plug for the smoothing plane. If I was in the habit of shaving (which I am not) and if I did not have a mirror, then I would get out into the shed and find a piece of timber and put a smoothing plane over it. The resulting surface will do as a mirror most days. There are 3 problems with sanding
1. sanding dust
2. sanding works by creating little scratches which are removed by subsequent sanding. But the scratches only get smaller. They never go away.
3. it is not fun
4. you have to keep on buying the stuff