Shapton pro series or ohishi waterstones?

[planemaker]

The direction change from modern toolmakers such as LN and LV does seem to question the popularity of the fixed 45* single plane theory.

[D.W.]

It suggests they're selling planes to beginners, unskilled users, and often people who think no further than "I need to smooth that spot but then I'll sand it, anyway".

When I was a beginner, I was receptive to their message and easily sold on all of their "improvements".

But I was foolish to believe that they were actually making more than superficial "improvements" on tools that were used by professionals.

Keep in mind that the new popular format offered by both as low angle planes as a solve all for those who don't want to learn to much was available for many users to professional woodworkers, but it never got any traction.

The double iron itself here eliminated single iron planes in everything except low cost planes, and the format of the two types of common planes (woodies with double irons, and stanley planes) became universal until a huge pool of unskilled users was injected into the market.

The implication that what's good for beginners on the first stroke is overall good for everyone (that's what you'd gather from catalogs and blogs, etc) is not correct, but the market of the few of us who turn everything inside out and then choose stuff based on actual performance is tiny (and we're not spending much). Beginners will dominate, but the discussion of what the market prefers these days has to be given an asterisk


* decisions are made by unskilled users in general, often based on what they've heard and read rather than what they've learned, and most have no interest in learning much or thinking too hard

That sounds harsh, but it's the truth. Just watch the number of long-time woodworkers who are hanging on the edge of their seat waiting for the next honing guide or new steel.

[IanW]

.....This stuff matters more when you're dimensioning wood by hand. I doubt it matters much when anyone is smoothing wood...

?? If you're referring to tear-out, D.W., I would've thought the other way round? When dimensioning, be it with electron power or potato power, I'm not too fussed about perfection, particularly on edges that are going to be glued together. A few minor imperfections in a large area of glueing surface are neither here nor there, in my view. From some old pieces I've had apart, I'd reckon at least some craftsmen of old were less fussy than I am, and it has not caused any major problems through the life of the piece. For bits that are going to show, I certainly want surfaces that will clean up nicely, and will expend much more care on these, as necessary. What that means most of the time is simply sharpening a bit more often. Wherever you set your cap iron, the sharper the blade & the finer the cut the better the resulting surface, in my experience.

....the garish dimensioning times given by CW's cabinet shop of over an hour a board foot just don't match up with what I see out of double iron tools. They are hamstrung using single iron only, not because the people using the tools have made that decisions, the curators forbid them from using double iron tools. the footage of them that I've seen doing dimensioning and finishing work looks like fiddling, though they do work at the highest level. Maybe dimensioning time isn't that important to them because most of their work is subsidized, I don't know, but it would drive me batty to spec a 50 board foot project to have 75 hours of time to dimension and finish plane the wood....

It sounds pretty excessive to me, too! Mileages will vary at different cabinet shops & in different parts of the world so I guess it's pretty well impossible to ascribe 'typical' times to stock preparation. I have dim memories of watching our local cabinetmaker/coffinmaker in the country town where I grew up, in the early 50s. A few pieces produced in his shop are still kicking around, & I repaired a piece made in the early 20th C., by another joiner who worked in the town. The pieces I'm talking about were all made between about just before or after WW1, to perhaps the early 1950s, and from th residual tool marks, most of the components were dimensioned by hand planes. I can't remember how many double-iron planes he had, if any, but I have a mental image of a few woodies in his workshop, which could have been either double or single. (We kids would peek in whenever we could, only to see if any coffins were being worked-on! ). Whatever he had, and I doubt any would've been very flash, his planes must have done an adequate job, as the finish on the visible parts of the pieces I've seen up close, was impeccable. Not so the bits that were not meant to be seen! Even a generous assessment would be rough! Deep scrub marks on the backs of the back-boards (which were also of quite variable thickness), rough saw-marks left on internal surfaces, and draw runners of variable dimensions (though all fitted precisely where it matters), are some of the features.

Something that should be noted is that there was a good choice of wood available at the time, with a busy local timber industry ripping the very choicest stuff out of the nearby rainforest, & wood was not all that expensive, it would've been a tenth of current prices, in relative terms. These guys seemed to work with only the 'best' (= easily-worked) stuff whether for fancy or utilitarian pieces, e.g. clear pine for kitchen dressers, you won't find a single knot in a 'show' surface. They avoided difficult wood and only used wild-grained stuff rarely, for decorative flourishes (& no doubt charged accordingly!). I got my hands on a pile of 'shorts' from the shop of a then 90 yr old cabinetmaker/carver, who was selling up about 15 years ago, & there were many highly figured bits that had been cut off & put aside, & judging by the apparent age, had been avoided for a very long time! So it seems to me, that at least in our part of the world, even moderately skilled cabinetmakers had little need of super high-performance planes. Most of the stuff used by the people I'm talking abut, can be easily worked with any half-decent plane. Trying to make highly-finished items with some of the less "traditional" Aussie hardwoods, particularly with hand tools, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and largely the preserve of keen amateurs or makers if very high-end stuff. I'll bet the pros still prefer to work with more traditional & easily-managed woods on a day-to-day basis?

Planing all the way to a finishable state, no matter how difficult the wood, is not something I subscribe to! I prefer to get there by the most practical route, and if planes won't take be all the way, I'll use whatever else it requires to get there. I'm afraid I have not been able to make super-close set irons work in any of my planes, yet (I'll keep trying, & maybe the penny will drop some day). However, I get by pretty well with my well-fettled Stanleys and a couple of high-angle planes, in all but the most recalcitrant woods. I use back-sets of around 0.8mm or slightly more on my Stanley-Records & this does a very good job on all but the worst woods. Perhaps I get away with it because I do favour slightly thicker irons - not the absurdly fat things that an adjustor cam won't reach though, but the likes of Hocks & LV blades, which are a bit thicker than the thin irons of the old Stanleys. My preference is probably motivated more by their better edge-holding abilities (a major consideration when you work with tropical hardwoods) than the slightly better dampening effect of the heavier blade, but I'll take the good with the good.....

My advice to anyone who, like me, is struggling to get super close set cap irons/chipbreakers to work, is, take heart - you can get planes to work very, very well on most woods, with a slightly larger setback (well, just 0.4mm wider than 0.4mm ), and maybe, when you've got everything else in place, & the time & patience, you will be able to take that last ultimate leap.......

Cheers,

[D.W.]

Ian, the middle step is the most important when dimensioning, because it is the bulk step where you approach a mark (something you wouldn't do with a jack that is tearing out).

that's the step where tearout mitigation is important and it was the missing link for me when I was using premium planes. Jacks can be found or made out of just about anything, and generally you would only set the cap iron close enough to stabilize the iron, and focus on planing down hill so as to create as little tearout as possible and to be able to keep the thickness up without getting beat up by a plane that's jerking around in wood that's tearing out. Cross grain maybe on some things that are wide enough, but mostly down hill.

The in between step where you are taking a shaving between five thousandths and a hundredth or so you can get near 100% tearout elimination. You want to work that shaving right to a thickness line and literally make a very minimal set of passes with a smoother. And have no risk of overshooting a line chasing out tearout - something that baffled me when I was a beginner.

As far as quality of older work, I just don't know what things were like for the bulk of work, and what standards were like. Cherry, Oak and maple are very common here in old furniture, as is mahogany if the furniture is just a bit nicer. And walnut. Walnut and mahogany plane easily, cherry does as long as it's not quartered or curly. Little of what is 150+ years old around here hasn't been refinished, so it's awfully hard to tell what the original surface was like. There's a fair amount of quartered wood, though. Even good quality wood that's quartered will tear out.

At any rate, it's not hard to avoid tearout with a smoother of any type. It gets difficult to find a middle plane when dimensioning that will work out the jack marks quickly and leave a tearout free surface so that you can work right to a mark. If you have to be cautious on the second step, you can bury a lot of wasted time fiddling around, and most importantly, the experience is unrewarding. I have a beautiful single iron jointer with a tight mouth from the early 1800s that I set up for this step, but it is embarrassed by a common pitch try plane or jointer pretty easily (in the quality of the surface left, how long you can work between sharpenings, and how large of a chip you can take with it).

Same thing happened to me when I put a spiers infill kit together as a middle plane (an 18" panel) and very carefully filed the mouth to a hundredth. It's still a dog when the grain turns. It wasn't until I learned to use the cap iron that all of the sudden it is a fabulous middle plane, too.

You're right about the set. 4 thousandths is bandied about, but I never set one that close...at least I think I don't, I've never measured or used a feeler. I set the cap where I know it will keep me out of trouble - a set that is not that tight.

here's a video where I set the last two planes fairly tight, but still didn't resort to a very thin shaving or a ridiculous level of transient sharpness to mitigate tearout. I wouldn't normally set things quite this tight, but I had a request after making a plane to plane something a bit more challenging than cherry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04iTo9rrfbw

[planemaker]

For those readers unfamiliar with the traditional terms used to identify each type of bench plane, I have included this link.

http://www.planemaker.com/products.html

[planemaker]

I am becoming more accept-ant to Derek's view that Bu does offers another good alternative when working with reverse grain.

I have available some old stock 1 1/4 " width John Herring & Sons single irons that have a 15* makers primary bevel.



Using common pitch (45* bed) that would give me me an effective approach angle of 60*. Closer to 62* if you add in a later fine micro bevel. of 1 to 2*. Some woodie coffin shaped block planes would make an interesting future project. Sure the lack of width on the irons would restrict their use to board widths of say 4 inches and under, but when you add in the block planes suitability for edge work up to 1 inch in width, still a handy planing option for final smoothing work over reverse grain.

Thoughts anyone.

Stewie;

[IanW]

Stewie - I have a little coffin smoother with a 1 1/4" blade & it's a very handy little thing on occasion. But 15 degrees seems like an extreme bevel! On most steels I've ever used, that would be too fragile for anything other than very light cuts. I do put a bevel somewhere between 15 & 20* on my paring chisels, but they have to be used with care. Be interested to know what these blades wee originally intended for?

The idea of a woodie with a parallel blade that can be placed BU or BD to give a high/low cutting angle has precedent, it's one of the advertised features of Terry Gordon's products, of course, but doesn't seem to have been explored exhaustively. Terry's planes start high BD (60*) and go to more of a scraping geometry when the blade is flipped, but if you started with a 45* bed, and more 'standard' blade bevel angles around 20*, that would give you 65* bevel-up, which would be more cutting than a scraping. Dropping the bed angle to 40 or 35 would bring the BU cutting angles back to less extreme angles, and create an interesting combo. I reckon there is lots of room for mucking about - you might come up with a little beauty that is a real two-trick pony....

Cheers,

[section1]

I have received the new chipbreaker installed it and have encountered the same problem that it will not advance the blade. The reason is the threaded screw and adjustment both keep unscrewing out, I peeked inside the screw hole and saw somthing reddish which I believe is some sort of apoxy. I believe when I had issues before with the old chipbreaker I must of snapped broken the glue hold to the threaded screw. I don't know if this is the case but I'm hoping that LN will hold up to their life time warranty deal and just replace it, if they do happy days if not well.....?

[D.W.]

If the cap iron won't reach the end of the iron under normal adjustment, especially after it's been profiled properly, then they need to make it right one way or another. If you can't use the cap iron on a bedrock style bench plane, you only have half or less of the plane's usefulness as a user. Less I'd say.

I'd call them and tell them you can't functionally use the cap iron with the second one and tell them the adjuster runs out of adjustment and comes off the threads and see what they'll do. They can either make you a special cap iron with the dog slot drilled up an eighth or so from where it normally is or just send you a plane where the whole thing works properly.

[IanW]

I have received the new chipbreaker installed it and have encountered the same problem that it will not advance the blade. The reason is the threaded screw and adjustment both keep unscrewing out, I peeked inside the screw hole and saw somthing reddish which I believe is some sort of apoxy.

Just get yourself a teeny bottle of regular Loctite from your friendly big green shed. Make sure the stud & frog threads are as clean as possible. If the metal is nice & clean, all it takes is a drop on the end of the stud that goes into the frog, screw it in, wait 5 minutes, and that problem should be solved. I wouldn't use epoxy! Loctite is designed for this sort of job, & will lock the thread nicely for routine use, but can be undone if necessary.

I'm guessing you will be rather reluctant to mess with the end profile on this cap-iron, so that shouldn't be an issue......

Cheers,

[section1]

Loctite seems like a good option but I will wait to hear what they have to say first. This has been more hassle than it's worth.

[D.W.]

Looks like I misunderstood the issue. If the threaded post that the adjuster wheel is on is coming out, just epoxy it in. There's no great reason that it ever needs to come out again.

[section1]

I've spoken to LN here in Australia they are going to find out from the US how they lock these things down, I cannot use nothing more than finger pressure to tighten it otherwise I will strip the thread. The question is why it happened in the first place and what's the chances of it happening to all my other planes.

[IanW]

..... The question is why it happened in the first place and what's the chances of it happening to all my other planes.....

Not high, S1. On most old planes, the stud is a firm fit & simply screwed in without the necessity of anything further . After a few years & a bit of minor corrosion, it can take a lot of effort to remove one (in the rare cases you need to do so). I noticed the threads were quite a loose fit in the frog, on your plane, so unless you can screw the stud in firmly, backing out when you turn the adjuster to increase depth of cut is a likely consequence. Certainly don't grip the exposed thread with pliers or multigrips to tighten it, or as you said, you will damage the external thread for sure. You could probably wrap the outer stud with duct tape, then use pliers (carefully) to gt it tight enough.

The typical method to lock a stud down without using thread glue, is to put two nuts on the exposed part, and screw them together firmly with two spanners. You can then tighten the stud down, release the locked nuts, and carry on your merry way. Unfortunately, the thread on the stud in question is both an odd pitch, and left hand to boot, so the chances of your finding a couple of matching nuts kicking around the shed is vanishingly small.

Loctite should solve the problem completely, & does no harm. Like hide glue, it's a reversible treatment.....

Cheers,

[derekcohen]

I have received the new chipbreaker installed it and have encountered the same problem that it will not advance the blade. The reason is the threaded screw and adjustment both keep unscrewing out, I peeked inside the screw hole and saw somthing reddish which I believe is some sort of apoxy. I believe when I had issues before with the old chipbreaker I must of snapped broken the glue hold to the threaded screw. I don't know if this is the case but I'm hoping that LN will hold up to their life time warranty deal and just replace it, if they do happy days if not well.....?

Was this the problem with the first chipbreaker - that you could not adjust it because the adjuster would not extend the blade?

Regards from Perth

Derek