Wood v Iron Planes.

[code4pay]

People who have had plenty of experience with both wood and iron planes, can the wood planes perform as good as the iron planes? I had bit of a dissapointing run with my wood planes on some. knotty old Oregon this weekend and when I tried my iron plane on the same wood it was a huge difference smoother with a much cleaner cut handiloing the knots much better. Wood plane was a typical mathesion jack plane the iron plane a standard Stanley #5. Blades sharpened the same way wood plane recently had its sole flattened.

[IanW]

I use both metal and wooden planes, though I use the metal tools more, primarily because I have more of them. It's hard for me to compare directly, because I don't have any exact matches between size or function - each of my planes has its own job to do. For example, I have several 'specialist' wooden planes, & have never used their metal counterparts, so no idea how they compare. The nearest thing I have to a direct comparison is a couple of small wooden smoothers, one high angle and the other a 'standard' 45 degrees. These planes are equivalent to a Stanley #3, and both are planes I'd reach for ahead of any #3 I've ever used. With one of these, it's because the high angle gives it an advantage on cranky grain. The other plane, the one with a 45 degree bed is one I've recently made, so I have only had it a couple of months, but it's been a real winner, so far. The body is Bull-oak, which gives it a very solid feel, and it does almost as good a job on wild grain as its lower-angled sibling. Yet I still use an old Stanley #4 a lot, partly because I'm so used to it, partly because there are some jobs it's more convenient for, such as when I need to toggle back & forth between fine & coarse set, as I frequently do. While I don't find woodies all that hard to set to a particular cut, it's undeniably easier to alter the setting on a Bailey, you can do it between strokes without shifting your hands.

I can't see why there should be any difference between the quality of work produced by comparable wooden and metal planes, if both are performing properly, so my thought is that your woodie is not performing at the top of its game if it can't equal a bog-standard #5. I don't want to imply you can't tune your planes, but there are small things that can make a big difference to the performance of a woodie. Given that you said it's falling down with knotty pine, my first suggestion would be to double-check that the cap-iron (if it has one) is fitting properly, since that's the most common source of poor performance under ther conditions you describe. It may look ok when you have the blade out, but is it still mating exactly along the front when wedged in place?

If the cap-iron is fine, I would then check that the blade is seating firmly to the point where the sharpening bevel begins. Even though the bed may look perfectly flat to your eye, there might be a slight convexity toward the bottom of the bed, allowing deflection, particularly when it hits hard dry knots. This convexity seems common in old & well-worn woodies; my guess is that it's caused by compression of the wood where it cops the most force in use.

Other things to check include the fit of the wedge (is it seating perfectly evenly on both sides?). The traditional 'forked' wedge has to be fitted very accurately for planes with cap-irons - it's a bit of an indirect path to transfer the force onto the front of the cap-iron & blade, so you want everything in your favour, here - the last 5mm of those pointy bits matter!

Having said all that, there have been planes, both metal & wood, that have defeated my limited store of knowledge & ability. I just could not get them to work to my expectations, despite spending hours mucking about with them. One was a metal #3, the 'economy' line of a well-known brand, and the way the frog was made gave no support to the lower blade. It was cantilevered about 15mm or more from the bed of the frog & chattered like a talk-show host. That was a simple case of inadequate manufacturing, and a good early lesson to me that you get what you pay for! A woodie with a fine crack in one of the wedge buttresses almost drove me nuts before I figured it out. I couldn't see the crack because it was out of sight, but opened up under pressure, so that side wouldn't hold no matter how much I shaved & shimmed. There were a couple of others that to this day, I don't really understand why they were such poor performers.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your planes should give you similar results on the same wood if they are roughly comparable. The fact that the woodie is giving such a poor account of itself may be due to some fixable flaw, or it may have some subtle but serious defects...

Cheers,

[code4pay]

Thanks Ian, great information. When I say I tuned the wood plane it wasn't more than flattening the sole and sharpening the blade. I'll check those other things you mentioned, certainly something must be going on if it should be able to perform as well as an iron plane. It will annoy the crap out of me know until I sort it out.thanks again.
Mike.

[planemaker]

This may be of interest to you Mike. The principle remains the same for both metal & wooden soled bench planes.

Stewie;

http://paulsellers.com/2013/04/myth-...chisel-bevels/

[JDarvall]

The fact that the woodie is giving such a poor account of itself may be due to some fixable flaw,

mostly this in my opinion. and there so much easier to fix.

This is worth trying ---> grab the plane thats not working so well….clamp it up upside-down in the vise with the mouth of the plane up….. get your eye in close with plenty of light…..push just the blade slowly with increasing weight with a thin piece of wood (uno, instead of your finger)…..see how easily it flexes.

Do it again with a plane thats working well, and you'll soon get a gist of the problem. The blades thats resist movement the best, cut the best. don't chatter etc.

If its moving around too much think about modifying the wedge so it binds down lower, or flattening the bed more so the blade sits better etc….

****
another check….- take the blade out of the plane, and stick it into your fingernail. If it digs in instantly its good….if it skips over the nail, wanting to run into your skin,,,,,you need to sharpen it.

****
last check…… With the blade out of plane, put a straight edge on it so it sits stable…..The straight edge must at the very least touch the front of the mouth…..3 points of contact are best….front of mouth …somewhere at the nose …and somewhere at the end of the sole.

that covers it all really.

If unsure with the flatness of the sole, just take a slow pass through the jointer. Wooden soles are great that way

.. I really like the transitional planes the best. combo of metal and wooden soles. Very Steampunk darling. But they take a bit more work to get going I found.

just an opinion. just 2 cents worth. why it only 2 cents. Why not 5c ?

[IanW]

....... I really like the transitional planes the best. combo of metal and wooden soles. Very Steampunk darling. But they take a bit more work to get going I found....

You're not wrong there, Jake! Many moons ago when I knew even less than I know now about planes, I picked up a couple of transitionals for virtually nothing. I was chortling with glee all the way home, because both seemed in pretty good nick, and I reckoned I had a couple of real winners. But a bitter disappointment was in store - I just couldn't get those damned things to work for me whatever I did. Looking back, I guess I didn't do all that much other than clean them up & sharpen the blades. I'm pretty sure I lightly planed the soles and thought they were pretty flat, but they just would not take a decent shaving off anything. In the end, I gave them away to someone who thought they could do better (never heard back how they went, so p'raps they weren't a raging success). When I read about Patrick Leach saying they have ritual bonfires with transitionals, I thought "well, I'm not the only one....!"

So, if you can make a transitional into a good plane, you go up yet another notch in my estimation!

Cheers,

[JDarvall]

You're not wrong there, Jake! Many moons ago when I knew even less than I know now about planes, I picked up a couple of transitionals for virtually nothing. I was chortling with glee all the way home, because both seemed in pretty good nick, and I reckoned I had a couple of real winners. But a bitter disappointment was in store - I just couldn't get those damned things to work for me whatever I did. Looking back, I guess I didn't do all that much other than clean them up & sharpen the blades. I'm pretty sure I lightly planed the soles and thought they were pretty flat, but they just would not take a decent shaving off anything. In the end, I gave them away to someone who thought they could do better (never heard back how they went, so p'raps they weren't a raging success). When I read about Patrick Leach saying they have ritual bonfires with transitionals, I thought "well, I'm not the only one....!"

So, if you can make a transitional into a good plane, you go up yet another notch in my estimation!

Cheers,

I think the problem with most of them is the blades are particularly thin. And a thin blade on a wooden bed is a bad recipe imo.

Some of them have blades that are thicker for some reason. I got a union one with a thicker blade, that I converted to a rocker bottom plane. It works surprising well for how I use it, which is really only for fitting a curved tenon to its mortise. Crossgrain passes are pretty trouble free.

[code4pay]

Had time to do some test on the suspect woodie

mostly this in my opinion. and there so much easier to fix.

This is worth trying ---> grab the plane thats not working so well….clamp it up upside-down in the vise with the mouth of the plane up….. get your eye in close with plenty of light…..push just the blade slowly with increasing weight with a thin piece of wood (uno, instead of your finger)…..see how easily it flexes.

No flex at all no matter how hard I pushed.


****
another check….- take the blade out of the plane, and stick it into your fingernail. If it digs in instantly its good….if it skips over the nail, wanting to run into your skin,,,,,you need to sharpen it.

Bit into the nail straight away.

****
last check…… With the blade out of plane, put a straight edge on it so it sits stable…..The straight edge must at the very least touch the front of the mouth…..3 points of contact are best….front of mouth …somewhere at the nose …and somewhere at the end of the sole.
that covers it all really.

Air gap from the nose to half way along the body. So.much for my flattening effort, I must confess I probably did rush it and didn't actually test it once I finished.

If unsure with the flatness of the sole, just take a slow pass through the jointer. Wooden soles are great that way

I don't own a jointer so used another plane and more carefully this time worked on making it truly flat.

Testing on a peice of the knotty Oregon it was much better. I swapped between the iron plane and a woodie quite a few times and kept adjusting it until I felt it was making a cut as good as the iron plane. In the end I think it was performing equal to the iron plane but my preference was still for the latter I think it is a combination of the lower profile of the iron plane and its shorter length not so much the material it is made from.
Thanks for every ones help and suggestions.
Mike

[IanW]

......In the end I think it was performing equal to the iron plane but my preference was still for the latter I think it is a combination of the lower profile of the iron plane and its shorter length not so much the material it is made from....

Don't feel bad about having a preference for the metal plane, Mike, it's all about having tools you're comfortable with, I reckon! When it comes to planes in the Jack & larger sizes, I much prefer the compactness & lower centre of gravity offered by metal, myself. I find wooden jacks awkward to hold compared with a 5 or 5 1/2 Bailey type. Of course, a good deal of that preference is because that's what I started out with & what I'm used to. All of the woodies I really like using seem to be smaller sizes, and as I said, for several of my woodies I've not tried a metal equivalent (if they exist), so I don't have any preconceived bias.

In any case, I think you have learnt a bit more about plane fettling, so I doubt it's been a waste of time......

Cheers

[JDarvall]

steel ones are easier to adjust I think. A little turn is easier than a little hammer tap here and there.

Got another idea you may like since your into the steel planes (wouldn't do it with wooden planes). Works well if you've got a wide surface to level.

Get an empty spray bottle (like windex, that has a trigger). Wrap a rag around the body of the bottle and hold in place with a rubber band. Fill the spray bottle with vege oil (cheap) and turps to thin it.

When your ready to begin….squirt the the sole from tail to nose with the mix, then wipe the whole sole again in one pass, with the rag attached to the bottle immediately (tail to nose else blade catches).

then start planing……..Its the only way to plane imo. Suddenly you'll have no friction. The plane will feel like its on wheels. You'll have more control and won't tire as quickly. And can take thicker shavings to speed up the process. Your enjoy it.

I make chairs. And some of the seats are quite wide. So wide they can't be faced on my jointer. So I flattern by hand, and I don't think I'd try doing it anymore without the spray bottle.

But someone won't like it I'd say. saying that the oil residue is not good for glue ups. But a lot of faces don't see glue. And most of the oil goes into the shavings. And if you reserve the process mostly for those planes set for scrubbing its not a problem imo. hasn't been a problem for me.

just an opinion. 2cents worth. I'm not an expert.

[planemaker]

If you take the time to watch this full video of Paul Sellers fettling a wooden plane its definitely worthwhile.

Stewie;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2lvF8-nc_Q

[IanW]

Lubricating plane soles is vital for me, or I won't last 5 minutes! There are lots of ways of doing it, Jake' method is similar to the traditional tallow applicators I've seen. My favoured method is a chunk of paraffin wax. I have a lifetime supply from my paid working days in labs...
Cheers,

[JDarvall]

Lubricating plane soles is vital for me, or I won't last 5 minutes! There are lots of ways of doing it, Jake' method is similar to the traditional tallow applicators I've seen. My favoured method is a chunk of paraffin wax. I have a lifetime supply from my paid working days in labs...
Cheers,

Well, my ideas better ! don't like wax on beds. To get enough effect I feel I have to coat so much on that its going to mess with the reference. Yes I know they've been using wax for ever. I don't care, oils better imo.

Ian, did you have a white lab coat ? Pens in the pockets sort of thing.

[IanW]

Ian, did you have a white lab coat ? Pens in the pockets sort of thing.

Occasionally, but more often, bloody overalls, Jake. White coats might have the boffin image, but they aren't much use when you're chopping up a large, messy beast!

I think I know what you mean about wax smearing & building, but paraffin doesn't do that. I tried beeswax, way back, & it wasn't satisfactory at all (smelt good, though). The paraffin wax I'm talking about is used for embedding tissues for slicing into 5u sections, but I've seen other folks recommend what's used when bottling jams & stuff, which is probably much the same (but costs about a tenth as much as it's not 'laboratory' grade) . I got the techs to save me some when they cleaned out the embedding machine, rather than chuck it out. I poured the molten wax into a flat dish & let it set, giving a solid block about 20mm thick which I then I sawed into convenient-sized smaller blocks. This stuff is very clean compared with beeswax, a single wipe along the sole gives a fine smear that lasts for a few minutes of planing, then it needs another wipe. Having done it this way for 40 years or more, it's just part of the rythmn, now. And I make a thin paste by mixing it in warmed gum turps. I scrub a small amount of this onto wooden threads with a toothbrush, and let it dry - makes my clamps & bench screws run very nicely...

The old-timers often used tallow or soap. My old pot always had a cake of 'Sunlight pure washing soap' handy, which he also used on nails before driving them into hard woods. If you've not used anything up til now, you have a pleasant surprise in store.

Cheers,

[code4pay]

If you take the time to watch this full video of Paul Sellers fettling a wooden plane its definitely worthwhile.

Stewie;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2lvF8-nc_Q

Thanks Stewie I had watched it which is why I got the Woodie out in the first place. Just didn't do a very good job at flattening it initially!
Mike