Eucalypt Planing Drama

[Luke Maddux]

I've embarked on a sea chest/trunk/blanket box build. I've got the component boards of the four sides of the carcase cut to length, and now I've gotten to the stage of dressing the individual boards before gluing up the panels prior to joinery.

The timber is Eucalyptus regnans (Tassie Oak) and it's got quite a bit of broad quilting/fiddleback figure. There are also some small, stable gum veins.

I've spent about two hours trying to plane one board that's about 50cm long. I first identified that there was a cup. I eliminated that across the grain with the jack plane. That was straightforward. But now I've gotten to the point that I want to remove the very slight twist, take off high points, and then flatten the board... you know... plane it.

This is the photo of how the board looks now, after much head scratching, swearing, and trying of different planes and configurations.

TasOak.jpg

Look over there on the right side of the board. That black, sooty stuff. It keeps appearing and when I plane (with the grain) on those spots, it's like the plane just skates over the high spots. I've got the cambered iron in my #5 protruding so far that it normally wouldn't even start a cut, and it's just riding right over the board and not cutting anything at all. I'll go back and take off the black spots by planing across the grain again, and then when I go back and try to do the last few strokes with the grain to truly flatten the board, it's right there again.

Some things to note (please read these):
- While some may consider me a beginner after a year, I still understand hand planes and have developed adequate technique
- The planes work absolutely fine on a piece of silky oak that is twice as long. Full length, unbroken shavings. Totally flat.
- I have restored and set up more than a couple of planes and understand quite well how they work

Can anyone who has worked with wood similar to this give me any idea as to why I'm having this bizarre problem? I have a LOT of this stuff to plane and I need to get this sorted before I can continue.

Cheers,
Luke

[IanW]

Luke, is the black stuff gum? Clearly, the blade stops cutting, so something like gummy gunk building up between the blade & chipbreaker could be the culprit. If you are using an ultra-fine set-back on your CB, try backing it off to something like a mm, to see if that helps.....

Tassie oak is usually pretty easy stuff to plane compared to most other Eucalypts. I've not had much trouble with it in the past, even quite highly figured stuff has responded well to standard-angle planes. However - wood is infinitely variable....

Cheers,

[FenceFurniture]

Luke, at the risk of asking the bleeding obvious: is that black stuff building up on the sole of the plane, therefore preventing blade contact?

[Glenn.Visca]

Not that I understand the cause of the problem, but it looks like water stains ...

[Kuffy]

I get black marks like you have if I rub steel over wet timber. For example, thicknessing wet timber will have lots of black stuff on the underside of the board that was in contact with the thicknesser table. Since your knife is just riding the surface (i would imagine it would be difficult to plane wet timber, though i have never tried it), it will be slightly compressing the surface of the timber, squeezing out any moisture and then the sole turns it all black. Also, thinking back to one of your recent threads about lapping the plane soles, the black stuff can be leftover crap from the lapping, give the plane sole a good clean with whateva solution you r comfortable with, I use acetone.

[Luke Maddux]

Well, I haven't lapped the #5, so it wouldn't be a buildup of metal/lapping gunk.

Maybe it's gum? Honestly, I have no idea. It's frustration made into a physical form.

I just went down into the shop and made some modifications to the two planes I was using.

On the #5:

I moved the CB closer to the blade. It's a 9.25" camber and I've set it right at the back of the cambered part. I also tightened the lever cap screw a quarter turn and I opened the mouth about a mm. I was thinking that the blade may be chattering back into an unusable position and not cutting, so I thought if I tightened everything up and opened the mouth it might help. At first glance, it appears to have made a difference. I will go back down tomorrow and give it a proper go.

On the #7:

I sharpened, opened the mouth, tightened the frog down (I'm not sure it was loose but the two screws had some turn left in them), and backed off the CB from the edge. Again, it appears to have helped.


Hopefully I've got this under control, but don't be surprised if there is more to this thread at a later date...

Thanks for all the ideas,
Luke

[D.W.]

If I read that right, you've got a 9.25" radius on the blade, and it can be hard to take a chip thick enough for the cap iron to work with a radius, even one that's fairly gradual like that.

I'd go closer to straight across, set the cap iron around a hundredth (just guess, whatever starts to straighten a five thousandth chip) and then plane through shavings again. It should work fine, the chip should become continuous and easier to take.

The two planes where I use the cap iron religiously (which doesn't include the jack, it's there, but not a hundredth from the edge) are smoother and try plane, and the smoother has very light camber of a few thousandths and the try plane maybe double that in camber (freehand sharpening, I don't calculate it, but it will dig at the corners on a hundredth thick shaving).

When in doubt about settings or the ability of wood to be cut, go back to the smoother, set the cap iron so that it will straighten a 3 thousandth or so shaving and become a bully to push at 5, and then go back to the try/jointer with a straighter iron and take that set plus a little more to that plane.

If shavings get under the cap iron, then either the fit is bad/not tight or it's set too close. Probably the latter. The harder the wood, the more apt that is to happen, of course, because it will have the stiffness to get under the iron easier if it's too close.

[Luke Maddux]

If I read that right, you've got a 9.25" radius on the blade, and it can be hard to take a chip thick enough for the cap iron to work with a radius, even one that's fairly gradual like that.

I'd go closer to straight across, set the cap iron around a hundredth (just guess, whatever starts to straighten a five thousandth chip) and then plane through shavings again. It should work fine, the chip should become continuous and easier to take.

The two planes where I use the cap iron religiously (which doesn't include the jack, it's there, but not a hundredth from the edge) are smoother and try plane, and the smoother has very light camber of a few thousandths and the try plane maybe double that in camber (freehand sharpening, I don't calculate it, but it will dig at the corners on a hundredth thick shaving).

When in doubt about settings or the ability of wood to be cut, go back to the smoother, set the cap iron so that it will straighten a 3 thousandth or so shaving and become a bully to push at 5, and then go back to the try/jointer with a straighter iron and take that set plus a little more to that plane.

If shavings get under the cap iron, then either the fit is bad/not tight or it's set too close. Probably the latter. The harder the wood, the more apt that is to happen, of course, because it will have the stiffness to get under the iron easier if it's too close.

Yeah, the funniest thing about all of it was that it was working on other wood. Both the 5 and the 7 were fully functional on a different, less cranky wood. Whether it was something wrong with the settings or something wrong with the wood, it was only giving me problems on THAT wood, and it was repeatable from board to board.

I'm pretty pedantic about my iron/chip breaker contact point after I realized how important it is. I also make sure to really crank down on the cap iron screw.

It APPEARS that the problem has been solved or at least reduced.

I have a question. When you say "Use the cap iron" what do you mean? Does that mean setting it close enough to have a tangible effect on the shaving? Because technically aren't you always using it? My goal with the setting on the jack plane with the camber (yes, 9.25" radius) is not to have the cap iron break the chip, but rather to just be close enough to provide adequate stability to the cutting edge. I believe that may have been the root of this problem.

I keep a straight across blade/breaker combo on hand and set up at, like you say, around a hundredth. I had also been trying to get a shaving with this and was having little luck.

Bottom line: It's something about the wood. Whether I can solve it by tweaking the planes is TBD, but these two planes were working flawlessly on other species as they were.

I'll post updates.

Cheers,
Luke

[D.W.]

Yes, the term "use the cap iron", to me, means affecting the chip, at least on the thickest practical setting you'd have at a particular setting.

By that, I mean, i like to set my smoother to allow a chip up to 4 thousandths or so in hard wood like hard maple or cocobolo on the flatsawn face or a hair more open in cherry, but such that I'll be struggling at any thicker. That way, I can do the initial work with a thin shaving, and then take a pass or two with a backed off setting - like a thousandth or two - and be done and with no tracks.

In the thick shaving, the cap iron is affecting the chip, or "I'm using it", I'd say. In the thin one, I'm still using the cap iron, but it's as a backstop against a fritzy setting where I accidentally set the plane too deep. A safety. With the cap iron set - no tearout, you just can't push the plane. Normally that's trivial and unneeded. when you get into the rare pain in the piece like you're dealing with, it sometimes seems like you're dealing with no cut or a very deep cut.

But, anyway, I use the term "use" to mean the cap iron has potential to help rather than the set off millimeter or two where it really can't do much to affect surface quality.

[Luke Maddux]

Yes, the term "use the cap iron", to me, means affecting the chip, at least on the thickest practical setting you'd have at a particular setting.

By that, I mean, i like to set my smoother to allow a chip up to 4 thousandths or so in hard wood like hard maple or cocobolo on the flatsawn face or a hair more open in cherry, but such that I'll be struggling at any thicker. That way, I can do the initial work with a thin shaving, and then take a pass or two with a backed off setting - like a thousandth or two - and be done and with no tracks.

In the thick shaving, the cap iron is affecting the chip, or "I'm using it", I'd say. In the thin one, I'm still using the cap iron, but it's as a backstop against a fritzy setting where I accidentally set the plane too deep. A safety. With the cap iron set - no tearout, you just can't push the plane. Normally that's trivial and unneeded. when you get into the rare pain in the piece like you're dealing with, it sometimes seems like you're dealing with no cut or a very deep cut.

But, anyway, I use the term "use" to mean the cap iron has potential to help rather than the set off millimeter or two where it really can't do much to affect surface quality.

So if you're going for a setting in which the cap iron is completely out of the picture, i.e. super aggressive, what's the furthest back you would put it before you felt that you were risking the stability of the cutting edge?

Cheers,
Luke

[Luke Maddux]

"Compromising" the stability of the cutting edge would be a better way for me to have phrased that.

[planemaker]

I agree with DW. Put the #5 aside and use the shorter length smoothing plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m231_HKCOWs


Stewie;

[D.W.]

Keeping in mind that we have a plethora of nicely planed woods here (cherry, walnut, soft maple, etc) and a gaggle of other ones that are easily planed, but not quite as soft as those (beech, hard maple, white ash, etc.), I never use the smoother or try plane with the cap iron set off further than.

1) straightening a 5 thousandth shaving on cherry or just under that on ash/maple/beech (I always feel like I set the cap at the same place on the smoother no matter what I'm planing, and i haven't had to set it closer)
2) straightening about a 1 hundredth shaving on cherry or just under that on ash/maple/beech (like 7 to 8 thousandth) on the try plane

So, I never really back it off further than that. If I need to go deeper than a 2 1/2 inch wide 1 hundredth shaving on cherry (which is really trucking), then it's back to a jack. If I need to take off more than 4 or 5 thousandths with a smoother, then it's back to the the try plane.

One thing has happened over the years, and that is that the thickness of shaving I take, even on tight work, has increased a lot. It's less effort in the end. But I never work without the cap iron, because an uninterrupted shaving is always more predictable and easier than one with significant tearout.

Your eucalypt is likely much harder than the latter set of woods I mentioned, so it's probably just down from my ash type setting.

Important to note, I didn't pick those numbers and set the cap iron to achieve them. I set the cap iron where I could still plane thick shavings and not get tearout, and that's just what's occurred. If I'd never measured the shavings, I'd still do the same thing. After learning to set the cap on cherry and quartered beech (the quartered side of beech planes very easily for the hardness of the wood), I thought when I built a bench out of ash, I'd just keep the same shaving thickness and truck right along. That changed quickly, and I found that a 7 thousandth shaving in ash was similar in feel to a hundredth in cherry. It's the maximum I can comfortably plane without having the tool bull me around.

Important point, though, I never set the cap iron off further than that, there's no reason to, and the potential for tearout eliminating the accuracy you gain by having a continuous constant thickness shaving just takes away the incentive to try to get more.

I have no good advice on the jack. I've experimented making beech planes with tight mouths (which makes the plane feel like a car driving with the parking brake on when taking a thick shaving) and open (which invites some tearout). I guess I do set the iron off on that and just try to plane downhill as much as possible. The try plane will always remove the damage the jack does.

I rarely ever plane across the grain on anything. The difficulty of working some things (curly wood, etc) that makes people want to work them across the grain goes away with proper use of the cap iron, and it's more common that the wood is too narrow to do that, anyway.

[Luke Maddux]

I agree with DW. Put the #5 aside and use the shorter length smoothing plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m231_HKCOWs


Stewie;

While the board from the photos is likely short enough to get a good result using just the #4, there are longer boards in this piece which would be far more difficult to flatten with a shorter plane. Yes, Paul Sellers does it, but I'm not him . Alas, I'm still at a point of reliance upon the longer soles of the Jack and Try planes.

This wood is also quite rough. The initial planing with an agressive, cambered iron is pretty valuable to me for initial flattening, at least when it's working and not skating like it was in this (anomalous) instance.

I also don't particularly like to fiddle with my smoother. I've got it at a setting which is extremely effective and I want it to remain there. If I had a second one I would be willing to set it up differently and experiment, but, for now, I'll leave my #4 as is. I'll keep an eye out for a second #4 that I can use more aggressively. This is actually not a bad idea.

D.W.: I agree - I always have the cap iron close on those two planes. On all but the longest of boards, my try plane is primarily used so that I can confirm that I have gotten things how I want them with the jack and, as you said, to clean up. Having that full length try plane shaving is more of an affirmation than a necessity most of the time. I set the cap iron on my smoother at around 1/64" on the smoother and at about 1/16" on my #7. I have phenomenal results with the 4 and, until today, very good results with the 7.

[D.W.]

While the board from the photos is likely short enough to get a good result using just the #4, there are longer boards in this piece which would be far more difficult to flatten with a shorter plane. Yes, Paul Sellers does it, but I'm not him . Alas, I'm still at a point of reliance upon the longer soles of the Jack and Try planes.

This wood is also quite rough. The initial planing with an agressive, cambered iron is pretty valuable to me for initial flattening, at least when it's working and not skating like it was in this (anomalous) instance.

I also don't particularly like to fiddle with my smoother. I've got it at a setting which is extremely effective and I want it to remain there. If I had a second one I would be willing to set it up differently and experiment, but, for now, I'll leave my #4 as is. I'll keep an eye out for a second #4 that I can use more aggressively. This is actually not a bad idea.

D.W.: I agree - I always have the cap iron close on those two planes. On all but the longest of boards, my try plane is primarily used so that I can confirm that I have gotten things how I want them with the jack and, as you said, to clean up. Having that full length try plane shaving is more of an affirmation than a necessity most of the time. I set the cap iron on my smoother at around 1/64" on the smoother and at about 1/16" on my #7. I have phenomenal results with the 4 and, until today, very good results with the 7.

It'll be hard for the jointer to affect anything at 1/16th, and you might like to try closer with the smoother, too. That said, you may already be closer than your estimates, so if your chip is straightening and showing signs of being worked and you're getting no tearout, you can ignore my advice!! Results are better than advice and hypotheticals any day of the week!