Thread: Hand Planing

You are embarking on a trip which has thrown up a bloody steep hill to start with!
You are probably not doing anything wrong it is probably that the timber is so hard and may be a little curley. This is a likely place where yo will throw your arms up in despair and never do ant more wood working!
So lets have a closer look at what you are/how you are doing.
How long is the piece you are trying to flatten?
Hopefully it will be less than, say, 600mm long.You should be standing with legs apart comfortably so you can easily and comfortably reach both ends of the timber and be able to deliver the same amount of strength needed to shave from end to end. Your plane should only have a small amount of blade showing (say half of a millimeter) To set the blade hold it upside down supporting it with the front handle and sight down the length of the blade and adjust with the other hand. While you are there check to see that the blade is parallel across the mouth of the plane.
(I know this is elementary stuff so forgive me if I am telling you something you know)
Sit the front of the plane flat on the timber and push with deliberate but controlled force forward.
Pick the high spots on the timber first and concentrate on them first steadily bringing them down to the level of the rest of the timber checking as you go to be sure you are flattening the board. Eventually you will arrive at your goal after copious amounts of juice has gathered on your skin and your arms will ache.
Then..... do the same thing on the other side.
Alternative..... take to someone with a jointer to machine flat on one side followed by a thicknesser to have both sides parallel.
Its so much easier to practice on Meranti or Radiata
Please don't take me for being a smart #### in the above description.

Originally Posted by chambezio

.
.
.
Its so much easier to practice on Meranti or Radiata.
.
.

Alternatively try practicing on 1" wide strips

Starting with Spotted Gum is like trying to run before you can walk.

You will also absolutely have to have a solid bench to tackle spotty.

What an absolute grunt of a job in hardwoods.
Smells to me like curly/interlocked grain. There can't be a worse place to begin.

I cut and split log pieces and roughly plane them for wood carvings. Western Red Cedar.
Stanley Jack Plane, blade is 30 degrees. I sharpen, I'm happy. With other tools, all I need is a surface smooth enough for the rough transfer of drawings.
May I suggest that you try your planing exercises in comparatively soft wood? That might tell you whether it's the wood or the tool. I'll bet the beer that it's the wood.

I have good news and bad news....The good news is that spotted gum is easier to plane than a steel beam. The bad news is....Not much.
OK lets be serious, So your plane blade is sharp and mounted bevel edge down. Now comes the trick for difficult grain, make sure the back iron is very close to the edge of the blade say a mil. Reinstall the blade and back iron into the plane, fit cap iron, turn plane sole up extend blade out just enough to sight and square it to the sole of the plane. Now grab a candle and rub the base along the sole of the plane for lubrication and then rip into it.
If the grain is still tearing out, you have been stuck with a cranky bit of s.....potted gum and the only way to deal with it would be a steep angle plane, scraper or sander.
A close set on the back iron usually helps.

Originally Posted by Robot

I've got some spotted gum rough sawn which I'm trying to flatten out.

Can you please take a photo of the timber rough sawn and another that youve planed?.

With rough sawn slabs sometimes a scrub plane may be useful. A scrub plane has a curved blade. You can set your record up to do this but you would need more than one blade.

thanks for all your advice. it is all much appreciated. It seems it might be more the wood than myself.

I had tuned the plane up and practiced on a few strips of pine with some reasonable shavings. Gotten excited and bought the wood for looks without thinking about workability at all . I'm wanting to make a coffee table so you can imagine the pieces are very big (80cm by 20cm at the moment), but look great.....

It seems I may have bitten off more than I can chew first time around. I do have a router so I knocked up a 'planing sled' this afternoon to see if I can 'power' my way through it even though it wasn't what I really wanted to do. I'll keep you posted on how it works out.

Shame, I was looking forward to planing them up but might need to cut some corners for the moment and go power.

As you have discover there is more then one way to tackle a task. The sled option is one. Take light cuts to ensure that you do not take too much off when flattening and end up with a top a little thinner then you wanted.

Also there is no way you can plane well on a weak flexible bench.
You need to be on a rigid bench with the board against a solid stop .
Clamp another thinner board to the bench that runs all the way to a wall . Then use that board end as the stop . This way the planing pressure will be against the wall .
A bigger shooting plane also know as a Stanley no7C jointing plane would help also on long material as it will ride over humps and hollows and flatten the surface . The shorter plane tends to follow humps and hollows . Also if your aim is to straighten the timber use a straight edge and a sheet of paper to work out the high and low spots . Put the paper under the straight edge and see if it pulls out , where it does is low. Otherwise invest in a good surface jointer . If the aim is to just to smooth the timber then the shorter plane is ok. Then you could use a small electric planer first and finish off by hand .
Spotted gum ? ok for a boat below the water but not much else.