Thread: A mystery with a handsaw..

Originally Posted by MartinCH

Assuming that for the boxmaker that use of scratching the surface of timber was a common practice, not just once off I did a little experimenting.

Observations - running a saw blade over the surface is good at picking out the high and low points and scraping them flat. It is possible that it will do this without the secure position that planing requires - more like sanding.


A cabinet scraper cleaned up the fine scratches very easily.

I assume a plane would clear up the scrapes as well. But have nor test yet.

Questions

Does anyone use this toothing style method to cleanup tear-out on Australian timber as some sources on the internet suggest toothing planes useful for?


Does this technique have a name?

Martin. The marks you saw were most likely left by the Toothing plane. Cabinet makers/ Box makers used them for getting the flattest surfaces for gluing veneers or thicker facings of timbers. They also used the tool for the mating of solid thicker surfaces not just veneers.
A very common explanation of their use was for the roughing up of the surface for gluing but that was not the main reason. They get things very flat by marking a surface by scratching it back and leaving marks that can be read and seen to tell you when its flat. Scrapers and planes with the normal sharpened edges cant do that. You cant read what is high and low. Removing any low spots is very important with hide glue use and the main reason for the use of Toothing planes. Hide glue fails if gaps are left. It shrinks and cracks up. And lets go. Ive always thought if scratching up a surface for better glue adhesion only was so good then a way of doing board edges would have been used because that's where we need adhesion the most.

Its still a good idea to tooth surfaces on jobs using other glues though to get the best job done. Its very handy when cutting your own veneers or facings to machine flat then tooth the surface before cutting the veneer off the board for example. You end up with a flat toothed side which is the glueing side and the sawn side gets finished after the veneer is glued on.

My Toothing planes.

IMG_9043.jpg
These two pictures show first on the left how the first passes skip over the high spots of a board taken from the thicknesser. Second picture shows what it looks like as the Toothing plane is traversed and scratching off the high spots until a flat surface is left. A gentle pass with a straight scraper removes the fluffy left overs before gluing takes place.
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This was a job I did using sawn Mahogany onto pine some time ago. The mahogany was toothed then sawn off the board on the band saw. Pressed onto carcase parts using Titebond I'm pretty sure. The mahogany ended up around 3 to 4 mm thick when finished.

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Sycamore was the other sawn veneer used.
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Made as a bathroom cabinet with a marble top fitted.
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Rob

I can't add much to what Rob has said. Apart from use for veneering they are very useful for dressing highly figured timbers and rowey timber like some Australian species that would otherwise tearout. You can get panels/boards flat without tearout and then finish with a sand or cabinet scraper. For example Toothing plane is for more than just veneer by Bill Pavlak

Here are some photos of boards I prepared for my Georgian knife box project using the fine toothing blade of my Veritas scaper plane prior to hammer veneering. You can make out the marks in the unveneered inside of the boxes.
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You can also use the toothing plane for decorative texture. There are some photos here of the marks from the courser tooting blade which mimic thatch.
Aust Red Cedar boxes

Hi Rob

Looks like you have cornered the market for toothed planes. And I can see what you intend- toothing planes force low areas to be very obvious.

Mic using a toothing plane for thatching is indeed inspired.

Getting back to the box, a toothing plane may have created the parallel scratches, but I still suspect it was from a saw blade. The scratching was very fine and it would be easy to more enthusiastic with the scratches with toothing plane. There was no veneer in sight either with the box, so the veneering possibility is precluded.
I suspect that the box maker purpose was to control tearout and prehaps to better flatten the surface. But it seems the use of toothing planes/saw blade scratching for tearout reduction is a bit past its use by date.