Thread: I like the scraped planes less

Originally Posted by D.W.

If anything, your description would leave the toe of my board high as the hands on the back are probably in the last 5 inches.

Don't understand this sentence

Originally Posted by mic-d

Don't understand this sentence

The entire board is flat until the last four or five inches. Flat to a starrett edge.

You mention of changing cut thicknesses aren't there, the board is just flat but falls off as the toe of the plane goes off of the board. This remains true when I have both hands on the back of the plane even behind the handle (which makes it fairly difficult to push the plane through the end of the board).

You can tell if there is a change in cut thickness based on whether or not stopping the cut and then moving hands and starting the cut again leaves a step - it doesn't.

the bottom of the plane is flat both to the reference surface and a starrett straight edge.

this isn't an issue of me planing, and as I mentioned above, it may not be a concern in work that's not significant like this - as in someone who takes small shavings off of work only is never going to encounter this. It's a significant issue when dimensioning (which many people don't do).

At this point, i can't continue explaining it if nobody else is doing the actual physical act i'm describing with something like a stanley 6. I believe the problem is also exacerbated by the fact that the norris 13 panel plane is 15 1/2 inches long and 8.5 pounds, so the nose has greater weight than something like a stanley 6 and the balance may be different.

I think we all assume that a perfectly flat plane has the greatest chance in all work of getting a perfectly flat result, but nobody has ever actually proven that. it's definitely at this point, not the case for a serious user (there are very few serious plane users). if work is all light work, then I can't really speak for that case.

Originally Posted by D.W.

The entire board is flat until the last four or five inches. Flat to a starrett edge.

You mention of changing cut thicknesses aren't there, the board is just flat but falls off as the toe of the plane goes off of the board. This remains true when I have both hands on the back of the plane even behind the handle (which makes it fairly difficult to push the plane through the end of the board).

You can tell if there is a change in cut thickness based on whether or not stopping the cut and then moving hands and starting the cut again leaves a step - it doesn't.

the bottom of the plane is flat both to the reference surface and a starrett straight edge.

this isn't an issue of me planing, and as I mentioned above, it may not be a concern in work that's not significant like this - as in someone who takes small shavings off of work only is never going to encounter this. It's a significant issue when dimensioning (which many people don't do).

At this point, i can't continue explaining it if nobody else is doing the actual physical act i'm describing with something like a stanley 6. I believe the problem is also exacerbated by the fact that the norris 13 panel plane is 15 1/2 inches long and 8.5 pounds, so the nose has greater weight than something like a stanley 6 and the balance may be different.

I think we all assume that a perfectly flat plane has the greatest chance in all work of getting a perfectly flat result, but nobody has ever actually proven that. it's definitely at this point, not the case for a serious user (there are very few serious plane users). if work is all light work, then I can't really speak for that case.

I doesn't matter the weight, if you're holding the heel down, the indexing surface the heel of the sole provides can't let the toe drop, and since the toe bears until the front of mouth drops off, the blade is indexed by the toe as well until the last lets be generous here 1/25".
I'll get some wider timber out as you asked, how long is the piece you are using? My #6 is quite flat, not dead flat because it is lapped, so I will have to scrape it. I'll also be scraping my wartime #7 so there may be some delay. In the mean time can you do as I have done and offer some physical mechanism with reference to the arrangement of the sole and blade to explain this? I have explained why I think the geometry of the flat sole and the blade registered thus cannot take a heavier shaving up to 5" from the end by any means except an inadvertent lighter shaving through the middle, the blade can be made to ride a little shallower, not so much as to be a stopped shaving, but it can't really be made to go any deeper than the sole allows. Have you measured the thickness of some full shaving along their length?

Originally Posted by mic-d

I doesn't matter the weight, if you're holding the heel down, the indexing surface the heel of the sole provides can't let the toe drop, and since the toe bears until the front of mouth drops off, the blade is indexed by the toe as well until the last lets be generous here 1/25".
I'll get some wider timber out as you asked, how long is the piece you are using? My #6 is quite flat, not dead flat because it is lapped, so I will have to scrape it. I'll also be scraping my wartime #7 so there may be some delay. In the mean time can you do as I have done and offer some physical mechanism with reference to the arrangement of the sole and blade to explain this? I have explained why I think the geometry of the flat sole and the blade registered thus cannot take a heavier shaving up to 5" from the end by any means except an inadvertent lighter shaving through the middle, the blade can be made to ride a little shallower, not so much as to be a stopped shaving, but it can't really be made to go any deeper than the sole allows. Have you measured the thickness of some full shaving along their length?

40 inches long for the board. Edge 2" wide. The shavings are even thickness end to end. I'll have to make a few more to get the thickness as I have already cleaned up the last group with a leaf shredder/vacuum.

Originally Posted by mic-d

I doesn't matter the weight, if you're holding the heel down, the indexing surface the heel of the sole provides can't let the toe drop, and since the toe bears until the front of mouth drops off, the blade is indexed by the toe as well until the last lets be generous here 1/25".
I'll get some wider timber out as you asked, how long is the piece you are using? My #6 is quite flat, not dead flat because it is lapped, so I will have to scrape it. I'll also be scraping my wartime #7 so there may be some delay. In the mean time can you do as I have done and offer some physical mechanism with reference to the arrangement of the sole and blade to explain this? I have explained why I think the geometry of the flat sole and the blade registered thus cannot take a heavier shaving up to 5" from the end by any means except an inadvertent lighter shaving through the middle, the blade can be made to ride a little shallower, not so much as to be a stopped shaving, but it can't really be made to go any deeper than the sole allows. Have you measured the thickness of some full shaving along their length?

What you're attempting to explain is how a plane will plane a flat piece of wood and keep it flat.

What we're doing dimensioning is planing a piece of wood that's not flat to flat. whatever does it faster with less physical effort is better, especially if the outcome of the finished process generally has nothing or a bias that we prefer vs. nothing or a bias that we don't. It's important to actually do the process and measure the outcome (volume work, weight of shavings, whatever) rather than relying on simplified cases to explain something that doesn't really have a regular identical starting point.

Originally Posted by D.W.

What you're attempting to explain is how a plane will plane a flat piece of wood and keep it flat.

What we're doing dimensioning is planing a piece of wood that's not flat to flat. whatever does it faster with less physical effort is better, especially if the outcome of the finished process generally has nothing or a bias that we prefer vs. nothing or a bias that we don't. It's important to actually do the process and measure the outcome (volume work, weight of shavings, whatever) rather than relying on simplified cases to explain something that doesn't really have a regular identical starting point.

Now we're getting somewhere. In post #10 and again in post #13 I asked what the state of the rough sawn wood was, was it a bit convex or a bit concave overall. It's important. In post #16 you said whether it starts convex or concave doesn't matter, it's not important. Now in your last post you say the starting point does matter because it's irregular. So we're coming to a consensus.

The blade can only 'see' what the sole allows it to. If you start with a board with spring and you plane the hollow edge, the plane will bring the ends down, until eventually you get a full shaving. If you have maintained correct form doing this, the board will be very very slightly concave. Jim Kingshott in his excellent video eloquently described this with his curved chipboard model. In blog posts lost to history on here, I've diagramed the same and for nerds even done the maths on it.

If you plane the convex edge of a sprung board, you will eventually again arrive at a full shaving, but there is no guarantee that it will not still be slightly convex because the oncoming edge constantly falls away and there's nothing for the toe to register to. It's not that the plane hasn't corrected most of the crown, but it is to a small extent going to follow the curve. This is going to be a very very slight thing, perhaps a matter of only a few shavings higher in the middle. Jim Kingshott again describes this in his video on bench planes, where after initial heavy jointing he eyeballs a slight crown and takes two or three stopped passes, then proceeds to the fine couple of passes to bring the edge to flat. Without those couple of stopped passes, the result with the concluding passes would have been exactly the same as you're experiencing. It's just part of what you have to do if you plane a crowned edge.

The idea of starting with the simplified flat starting point is to remove confounding variables, which is a standard concept in science. It helps get to the bottom of what's going on. It's not an unreasonable assumption, because in the stepwise process of hand dressing RS timber, the initial steps should have got us to pretty flat in preparation for the final jointing where you seem to be having trouble.

Anyway in the last 15 or so years since i've been scraping planes and using scraped planes (yes, i'm a serious user), thinking about them and describing them mathematically I must have written thousands of words on this. I think in this thread I've objectively outlined most of the facts behind my view that anything else from me will just be rehashing things I've already gone over, and with the lack of any mechanical explanation for a contrary argument to agree or refute, anything else I have to say would just be adding to the word salad. So for me it's case closed. I'd just leave the link to old Jim's video (thanks Simplicity!) , a man with more experience than you and me combined plus more to bring it all together.

Uncle Jim - Bench Planes - YouTube

there's a reason it doesn't matter - we plane the top center off of a convex edge. it's not sprung. if the board is convex on the edge, you can feel the plane changing because it cannot maintain the same rear attitude.

if i do exactly the same thing as mentioned here, the falling off end quickly is eliminated because it is not cut. The rest of the board is flat to a starrett edge, the last several inches are not (the first several may not be - i didn't check them because it doesn't matter what they are if the far end is falling off). That is, if I do it with a plane that is slightly convex - the falling off end just as it is in the condition i'm mentioning is gone in one or two shavings. You are continuing to talk about a board that is gradually convex through the middle and not one where the fall off is only occurring around the length of the plane's nose to the iron. But while i have explained the situation several times and we keep talking about a rigid board being sprung - the board is flat, the edge is slightly convex, nothing is moving - you're addressing something else entirely and have not yet done what I described.

With the plane dead, the end falling off does not get eliminated. The plane is not as good for use dead flat if that is the case - it doesn't function as well as the one that is slightly convex on the sole.

the reason I specified you may get the result you're talking about with a board that starts flat is that you're not taking enough shavings to create the bias, or you are taking shavings at the size you've mentioned. Those shavings are not purposeful in preparing a rough board. they are an extra step. It's not out of the ordinary to match plane a joint with a trying plane with shavings as I described - .006" - plane it through, have no gaps, clamp with little pressure and have an invisible glue line. Nobody who is serious about dimensioning wood is going to take 2 thousandth or 1 1/2 thousandth shavings unless tearout on an edge that is to be glued travels into the face of a board as a splinter and will spoil a glue line.

I probably shouldn't have posted this but to say that for someone else who is going to work wood from rough, the usefulness is a step back. I wasn't looking to debate about it, i have enough experience to know what's going on and know that what you're missing is doing the same thing. Logical arguments don't really hold water here, the outcome holds water. We aren't going to have 4 different ways we plane a board depending on what the board is, and that times whatever else for a sprung or twisted board. We plane the board, planing the high spots off effectively , but not progressively with stop shavings - we take off the noticeably high spots and if they affect the feel of the through shaving, we hit the spot that is causing the issue once or twice and through shavings again. it isn't necessary to consider it to be different than a board that is concave at the edge (but rigid) to start but to say we would address the ends if they are that high - separately - because it is a waste of time to take through shavings on a board that is not returning a shaving for a majority of its length.

there is nothing to get used to here, only a matter of choosing a dead flat plane because it seems conceptually nice and then doing more work because of it, even though it doesn't function as well in actual work. It is something I am not going to do. It was an interesting exercise to see that it removes a dimension of control that is useful to have the sole dead flat - I learned it, it answered a question. But there has been no practical gain from scraping the planes, despite being enamored with how easy it is to match a plane to a reference surface doing it. it doesn't result in better use, and it didn't result in any difference in the thinnest shaving I can take.