Thread: Appropriate wood for hand planing

Tas myrtle, jarrah are two of my favourites. Aus. cedar, silver ash, NG rosewood, pretty well anything with a straight grain.
If your plane is well set up and the iron really sharp, you can plane pretty well anything, but best to get confident on something that's nice to work with first.

Depending on your interpretation of "good " timbers; working with softwoods like pine is easier on the blades.
Spotted gum is very tough and is mostly used for axe handles and other heavy handled tools.

kauri

That SG is pretty tough to work for sure and softwoods are definitely much easier but you could try a little Qld Maple nice and straight grained if you can source it. For a hardwood it is ok to work.

Steve

I hate to state the obvious but a poorly sharpened or badly set-up (fettled) plane is an awful thing to use.

Do you and have you got it working the way it should and able to take wafer thin (translucent) shavings from a bit of softwood?

I look at the edge of the board for a fair bit of runout. If it's consistant I know I'm in for an easy ride.

thanks for all the suggetion so far. is there a particular measure to assess 'workability' , like the janka hardness test. would that be applicable?


Ball Peen - Not sure what you are referring to by run out? I can see in my spotted gum on the sides that the grain does go up and down every couple of inches. If only i knew about this when i started

I'm pretty sure the my planes are working ok. The shavings i get from bunnings pine are translucent and full.

Runout is when the board has been sawn ( by chance ) so the grain isn't continous from end to end. Instead it goes at an angle from one side to the other. Runout isn't an issue with furniture but with Luthiery, a big no no. It affects the strength.

Ok I'll ask.....

What is the size of the timber you are trying to plane....

What planes are you using.....

How much does the timber 'go up and down'....

Are you trying to flatten "smooth" the timber or thickness it as well....

Are you getting unacceptale 'tear out' where the grain changes direction?

Qld. Maple is good to use.

My advice stay away from anything with "CRANKY" Grain and sharpen often.


Cheers

Steve

Hi Bleeder,

Well initially i was trying to hand plane enough for a whole coffee table. So some of the pieces were over a 1 meter long by perhaps 200mm wide. And yes, I'd been trying to thickness them also. I've let the machine do that part but now I'm left with the legs and rails that i need to get ready.

I'm starting out so my hand plane collection consists of-

• Irwin Jack Plane (no 5 i think?)
• Veritas Low Angle Block Plane - I've 'hotted' the block plane up with the optional tote combo to make it more a hand plane (very similar to a smoothing plane I'm told), and then thrown a 50 degree iron in there. This is where I've gotten the best results, with the steeper angle iron. getting much less tear out etc. But then this will take for ever and will be very hard to get flat timber given the size of the plane. A proper size jointer plane isn't on the cards just yet.

I'd say in my timber the grain 'oscillates' maybe 5-10mm and does that maybe twice per 100mm.

I'm thinking of selecting a contrasting timber for the 'undercarriage' of the coffee table (or painting some hardwood) and getting on with it and allowing me to start other non-spotted gum related projects. Beside, the old ikea coffee table legs are starting to give way .......and even worse, my wife is starting to heckle me about if I'll finish this

Spotty can be a shocker for tearout. Another thing to watch is when you glue it up - it doesn't like glue too much. Clean it with acetone immediately before you apply the glue.

I think you may have got the worst pieces of SG ever..The higher the angle the better but then you have fixed that by putting it through the thicknesser.

Now you can do justice to it QLD maple maye be a better bet for the legs, stiles and rails.

I usually use a scrub plane (Stanley No 40) when you get timber like that and go across the grain to remove the high spots. Then a very sharp No 7 to flatten it out.