Thread: Re: Finishing Grey Ironbark

<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --> </style> So I am somewhat of a sapling when it comes to wood working. About 6 months ago I purchased a #5 Groz plane from Carba-Tec. I thought I was gonna revolutionise my woodworking. I had a very vague memory of my grandfather using a hand plane to work a piece of wood. My grandfather was an old school carpenter, handsaws, brace&bits, bench-planes and bow saws where his tools of trade.

I jointed a 2.8x1m table top using a reverse-glue bit. This joinery was not perfect and resulted in approx 0.5mm steps in joints across the top. When it came to smoothing this step I pulled out my #5 plane. Since I bought it I realised that it needed some work, I upgraded the plane iron to a (approx)2.6mm iron, this was re-bevelled to 30o, the Groz chip breaker was ground flat to the new iron and re-bevelled to 30o. This was all done using a recently purchased Veritas MkII honing guide.

I tuned the plane so that there was a few hair's breadths between the new blade and the throat opening. I may not have tuned the plane correctly, I admit that, haven't been able to find a decent tutorial that explains it. My grandfather is long past and my father had no interest in tools.

I thought I had done everything well, followed all I had read about setting up/tuning a plane, but I am getting some wicked tear-out on the table top I am trying to smooth. It is VERY old(80 year salt-water seasoned) Grey Ironbark, I am going with the grain and still really bad tear out. I have the blade set to only take a tiny amount, prolly in the thousandths of a millimeter.

I guess the question is, have I tuned/sharpened/re-bevelled things wrong on this cheap plane or am I just expecting more then what can be expected when working with this ridiculously hard/brittle timber.