Thread: With what do you oil your wick?

I wonder if anyone has ever found a situation in which waxing/lubricating a plane was a negative.

I spent quite a lot of time as I was accumulating different planes testing and hopefully improving them ... just trying them on different pieces held in the vice.
Sometimes if I tried some candlewax, it seemed to decrease the feedback and the plane swished across too easily ... a bit unsatisfyingly.
Just me?


Paul

Originally Posted by pmcgee

......Sometimes if I tried some candlewax, it seemed to decrease the feedback and the plane swished across too easily ... a bit unsatisfyingly.
Just me?

"Too easily"??
As far as I'm concerned, that wouldn't be possible. Ahh for the energy of youth!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

"Too easily"??
As far as I'm concerned, that wouldn't be possible. Ahh for the energy of youth!

Cheers,

Dunno about "energy".
... in fact dunno about "youth" either.

It was just 400mm or so pieces held in the vice, so maybe different over a table-top, but instead of "shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiik" all you had was "ssssweee" which I found somewhat unnerving.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

I wonder if anyone has ever found a situation in which waxing/lubricating a plane was a negative.


Paul

Hi Paul, I have only ever considered that it could be a negative when jointing boards for things like table tops, or extension table tops and leaves. Where you need a perfect joint and the last thing you need is a barrier of oil or wax to hold back the glue.

I use a oil wick for my planes and on my cast iron machine tops. The main one I use is just a baked bean tin with a roll of felt packed in with just 10 mm sticking out the top, Paraffin oil poured on top every year or two. It’s not covered, and I shake of the dust and scrape off the rest and give things a wipe, it leaves a tiny amount on the surface and if the right amount is coming out I can just see a colour change in the dry cast iron. If I was jointing table tops I would also give a wipe with a dry cloth.

What amazes me is how long it keeps working for. I did up a nice old Wadkin table saw and once I got the fence working gave it a rub over with the Paraffin , from then on the fence was going left and right with one finger for about seven months before I needed to do it again.

Cheers Rob

anyhow, candle wax (USA paraffin) is what I use on my plane soles. it works very well.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

I wonder if anyone has ever found a situation in which waxing/lubricating a plane was a negative.

I spent quite a lot of time as I was accumulating different planes testing and hopefully improving them ... just trying them on different pieces held in the vice.
Sometimes if I tried some candlewax, it seemed to decrease the feedback and the plane swished across too easily ... a bit unsatisfyingly.
Just me?


Paul

every once in a while I find myself realizing that I haven't waxed the sole of a plane I'm using in a while, and give it a bit. the feeling is like suddenly the plane is 5 times sharper. there is no down side, at least that I can imagine.