Thread: Importance of Lapping

Photos, started on the base. The plane was trying for a world record in un-useability. Only touched the 2 or 3mm of the edges at commencement.
Might try scraping , but the 112 is awkward shape for clamps. And only have tile for reference surface.


IMG_6285.jpgIMG_6286.jpg


Cheers

wow...that thing has quite the hollow in the center!! And yes, definitely very hard to deal with something that has everything but the mouth low on the surface of the wood.

Yes, Kunz had a poor reputation for QC 40 years ago - doesn't appear they've lifted their game. That thing would definitely not work for fine sraping!

Let's see how you go with lapping. I think you need to have the sole very close to flat for a scraping plane, you are generally taking shavings in the 1 thou or less range, so it doesn't help if the sole is out by several thousandths. I think you should be able to get it workable by lapping, but time will tell.

A bit of advice when you get to the trying-it-out stage. Go easy on any burr on the blade, in fact it might be better to start with no burr & add one when you have it making some sort of reasonably continuous shavings; that removes one of the variables. It's really easy to over-do burrs on scrapers of any description, something that took me quite a while to learn! I couldn't understand why my scrapers sometimes worked beautifully after preparation & sometimes just wouldn't work well at all, but eventually, the penny dropped.

The 112 (or its clones, I've got the Veritas version), can do a great job on our recalcitrant woods. I used mine a lot when I first got it, but it gets very infrequent use now, I've gotten better at setting up my 'cutting' planes (& learnt to avoid mongrel woods as much as possible! ). They can be a bit fiddly to get working well, especially when you only drag them out occasionally, and the blades need frequent reconditioning on a large job, much more often than a plane blade. I was going to get myself the HSS blade Veritas offer early on, but as time went by & I used it less, I haven't bothered.

The surface they leave can be excellent, but many woods don't scrape well - my rule of thumb is, the harder the wood, the better it scrapes...

Cheers,

My experience was the same with the LV scraper - I had a stanley 112 at the same time as the LV type and my friend had the LN version. In my rosy, optimistic (OK, never had that, even when young) time of life, me and "The Englishman", a foul mouthed friend who got me into woodworking, who is famously liberal here with zero empathy and cancelable things coming from his direction about once every 15 minutes....but also an engineer and interested in plans in autocad to the thousandth....for wood...

....we attempted to get one of each from LN and LV pretty much along the way. he's of means, and I spent on tools like I am (but am not).

I've relayed the story a lot of times - the challenge to get tools to work well was one of my main fascinations early on and then when I got them to work well, I had a "OK...why do I have this one, then? it's not productive when it's working well" ...the big scrapers fit into that. Stanley lists them for veneer, and the laterally handled ones are described as being excellent for scraping glue and paint.

So I learned my lesson - not that these cannot work well - they can. But they pretty much need something already flat and near perfect to be of any purpose.

Learning to use the chipbreaker killed them, but the skill to manipulate a burr size without affecting the angle has served me well in making tools and guitars as I scrape- sometimes large volumes.

This one will work fine if it's lapped and is a bit relieved at the toe and heel. It will have no tolerance for any other variation from flat and it comes onto work with a convex sole about like catching your toe on a concrete parking stop while you're carrying a clothes hamper.

(nothing political intended - just my english friend is a peculiarly entertaining set of characteristics)

I can get my Veritas scraping plane to work quite easily with toothing blades, but to get it scraping well requires a large amount of swearing, they don't mention that in the manual. And then when I've finished swearing and crying, I take it to Ian to get it working for me.

Originally Posted by mic-d

...... I take it to Ian to get it working for me....

That was quite a while back, Michael, I suspect you've long since got it sorted.

IIRC, it was just a case of getting that burr angle right, was it not?. Luckily, I'd had years of experience preparing the blade for my #80 before I bought the 112 type. The 80 is even fussier with its fixed bed, you have to get it right or it will not make shavings on anything. At least you can alter the blade angle over quite a wide range on the 112, so if you over-do the burr (the most common fault in my experience), you can lean the blade forward & with luck it should cut properly.

The trouble with tools that are fussy to set up & only used occasionally is that you never truly master the thing & have to figure it out again almost from scratch every time you pull it out. When working well, my LV 112 clone is quite impressive, but sometimes it takes a bit of swearing and crying for me too!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

That was quite a while back, Michael, I suspect you've long since got it sorted.

IIRC, it was just a case of getting that burr angle right, was it not?. Luckily, I'd had years of experience preparing the blade for my #80 before I bought the 112 type. The 80 is even fussier with its fixed bed, you have to get it right or it will not make shavings on anything. At least you can alter the blade angle over quite a wide range on the 112, so if you over-do the burr (the most common fault in my experience), you can lean the blade forward & with luck it should cut properly.

The trouble with tools that are fussy to set up & only used occasionally is that you never truly master the thing & have to figure it out again almost from scratch every time you pull it out. When working well, my LV 112 clone is quite impressive, but sometimes it takes a bit of swearing and crying for me too!

Cheers,

yes you remade the burr, but I can hardly remember more. I wondered if you’d remember at all ����

Originally Posted by mic-d

yes you remade the burr, but I can hardly remember more. I wondered if you’d remember at all ����

Occasionally, the grey matter still works.

But getting the right burr is far & away the most common problem people have with scrapers of all kinds, so it would have been my first guess......

Cheers,

All that fussing and fettling for a thing used to scrape glue. . I have to admit, my card scrapers became one of my most cherished workshop weapons once I figured them out, but yes, the brain and hands do all the adjustment "Behind the curtain."

card scrapers are wonderful. The array of them in odd shapes becomes really useful for things like tool handles and guitar necks (and arch tops) once economical setting-up and manipulating of burrs is mastered - it no longer matters if they are on a curved or detail shape or on a long straight edge or gradual curve.

it's harder to find a practical long term use for a scraping plane, even after you get them set up to make long flowing shavings.

Ian's comment about the resulting surface is a "that times ten!" kind of thing - the scraper won't make tearout, but with anything but impractically fine shavings for preparing a surface, it can leave behind a lot of fuzz and it's not quick to scrape or sand it out.

Patrick (what's his name?) really drove the craze for scrapers when blood and gore was compiled and he referred to the 112 as something like one of the finest tools stanley ever made. Almost all of us bought some form of the scrapers to try to figure that out, and Hamler puts on a very effective display of scraping and Bill T. has described what he says about creating burrs and that scrapers must be very clean to roll the burr, etc (very true - if there is some wood residue left on an edge, when the edge is drawn out, it will actually be distorted).

But the cap iron really destroys the needs I thought I had for the scrapers - a lowly partially lapped marples smoother in this case planing the same panels that I knew I'd never finish with the veritas scraper plane. the resistance for wood that has moved - you just cannot practically get undulations removed whereas it's easy with planes.

https://i.imgur.com/ohkWSqJ.jpg

I remember around 2008 or so thinking this wood was so difficult to deal with. machine planers tore it up, and I had no chance with it with a stanley, and really steep angle planes were just wrist killers and slow. At the time, we ended up paying $40 for a guy to run 10 of these blanket chest sized panels through a beach triple oscillating drum sander (that thing was a monster!! 52" width capacity and it could sand off 1/10th of an inch on these panels in one pass - all you need is a huge three phase power supply and a whole lot of CFM of dust collection)

Originally Posted by truckjohn

All that fussing and fettling for a thing used to scrape glue. ....... "

It does seem that way from the forgoing posts, I'll admit.

And I'll be the first (second, actually, since DW already said it ), to admit that I will always reach for a bench plane in preference to scraping planes. As you get better at fettling a common-pitch double-iron plane, a scraping plane has less use & appeal for most routine cabinetry. Many of the woods used for cabinetmaking don't scrape well, and even with the best-prepared edges will leave the fuzzy surface DW mentioned. But the vast majority of such woods will plane nicely anyway.

However, there are a few woods down here that refuse to cooperate with the best-fettled planes, but I still like to use for their other qualities, and there are certain situations like marquetry & inlay where some form of scraping is almost inevitable. For small areas, a card scraper is my go-to, but once it gets to a couple of square feet to be worked, the card scraper gets ditched very smartly!

Learning about card scrapers was one of the major revelations in my woodworking life. We learnt about so many other hand tools at school (hand tools were still dominant back in the 1950s, so no surprise), but scrapers were never even mentioned. After I read about them (an article by Tage Frid in a very early FWW), I immediately rushed out & got one. Of course, like so many, I was greatly disappointed at first, all it did for me was make dust! It took me a while to figure it out, but the first time I was able to roll up shavings from end to end of a board, I was hooked (pun intended!).

Over the years I have accumulated a drawer full of scrapers & scratch-stocks. I keep offcuts of saw plate & other suitable material in different gauges that I use for making odd shapes - got dozens of the darn things made for this or that job over the years. There wouldn't be a day go by in the shed that I don't use a 'card' scraper for something or other.

It's all horses for courses, as I keep repeating. The majority of woodworkers would have no need for a scraping plane, or so little it doesn't justify the purchase price or the time spent learning to use it well. The history of hobby woodworking since the 'revival' of the early 70s is littered with "discoveries" like scraping planes, that had a short burst of popularity, then faded from prominence as the next wonder tool or method came along. If you have a genuine need for a scraping plane, or you are a tool tragic who just likes to muck about with oddball tools for the pleasure of it, they can be a fascinating side-track & worth the effort it takes to master. Otherwise, your time is probably more profitably spent getting to grips with sharpening stones & cap-irons....

Cheers,

I must admit Ian, I don’t think I ever used it for scraping again. Toothing yes. Once I worked out I could smooth rowey spotted gum with my stanleys there was really no need for anything else apart from some cabinet scrapers. I’d sell it except the toothing option is valuable.

Hi All

Thanks for the comments. Helps.

Flatten the sole with a tenth 36 grit sandpaper and a degree of smoothing at the end. Still a small recess behind the blade but that does not seem to effect effect purpose.

Grabbed a sample of West Australian grown Blackwood, that has sections I am unable to avoid planing defects, even with fine set chipbreakers, thin shavings and sharp blades.
The 112 clone scrapped the surface without the defects. Alot of thrust involved, but planing this wood is also involves a heavy hand. Finish was duller than what a plane produces, but acceptable.

Happy to have a possible option to avoid dragging out the sander, assuming thew 112 clone can manage other ropey timber

Ian, a question. The tilting of the blade too engage works pretty well, but do you make use of the Stanley 80 style blade bending screw on the Veritas version?
Could probably add this screw to the Kunz version.

Photo with Blackwood "scrapings"
IMG_6289 2.jpg

Cheers!